Completely Off Topic - Dr Dean Ornish

This is out of left field, but I thought I would post especially since it seems to be a quiet day here on the PCa forum, on the off chance anyone has experience. So.....

Has anyone done or know someone who has done, the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine Program For Heart Disease Reversal?

It's a 9 week 4 point program that focuses on diet (Plant based, Whole Foods, almost vegan, they allow egg whites and non fat dairy in limited amounts), exercise, stress reduction, and support. It's offered at centers around the country that the Ornish organization licenses and trains I guess, i.e. clinics, hospitals, etc. Never had a center within two hours from me, but now it's being offered virtually on Zoom.

Based on validation of its effectiveness by multiple Randomized Control Trials, Medicare will cover it as "Intensive cardiac rehab" if you've had an event (stent, Heart Attack, etc) and have not had any rehab since that event.

I signed up and will begin June 18th. Pretty apprehensive, specifically about the diet part. But feel like I have to try, because I haven't found anything else that provides me the discipline to stick to a program that will stop progression of atherosclerosis.

Anyway, if anyone has any first hand or second hand, knowledge about this , I'm all ears.

What impressed me about the Ornish approach is that he emphasizes whole plant unprocessed foods. I've been reading a book titled, "Processed People" about the detriments of all the processed foods we eat. Also, I appreciate his inclusion of exercise and stress reduction. He's been at it a long time and claims that this approach can reduce or reverse heart disease. There's a Dr. Esselstyn at Cleveland Clinic that advocates a similar approach. I personally follow a roughly Mediterranean Diet, which is not a strict as the Ornish Diet.

Thanks so much for the replies, guys.

As I said, I’m very apprehensive about the diet part, I wish I could say I was going into this with full confidence that I can stick with it. Sadly my history indicates otherwise. But the support is a big part of this program, and I’m hoping that will make a difference. I am hoping this can help me create new habits. Honestly, if I can stick to this for the 9 weeks, and then remain on the diet 85-90% of the time, it would be a huge win, especially compared to the way I eat now. Eating the way I do, knowing that I have severe plaque that is a progressive condition if not addressed (and even if a Padres Sed it tends to be progressive), makes me think sometimes that I have a death wish. I don’t, but my actions make no sense, I believe it’s an addiction, and part of the program is psych support.

So we will see. As I said, I start June 18th, they send you food for the first two weeks, to help you adjust. I have a wedding on June 29th , that will be so fun LOL. 🤯

Tim G said...
What impressed me about the Ornish approach is that he emphasizes whole plant unprocessed foods. I've been reading a book titled, "Processed People" about the detriments of all the processed foods we eat. Also, I appreciate his inclusion of exercise and stress reduction. He's been at it a long time and claims that this approach can reduce or reverse heart disease. There's a Dr. Esselstyn at Cleveland Clinic that advocates a similar approach. I personally follow a roughly Mediterranean Diet, which is not a strict as the Ornish Diet.

Tim, I have read a lot about processed foods harm, it’s real, I have not cut it out but I’ve cut it down a lot, especially processed meats.

Re Esselstyn….i have read his work extensively. And his school of thought is very similar to Ornish. As well as Colin Campbell, who like Esselstyn, grew up on a farm that produced lots of dairy, and I assume meat.

The difference between Esselstyn and Ornish, in terms of diet, is that Ornish does allow limited amounts of egg whites and non fat dairy. I’m not sure if that’s because ornish found that those items would not hinder the efficacy of the diet, or because hindrance is minimal and allowing those items makes the diet considerably more palatable.

You know from our off line conversations, that I am 1. Very concerned about my heart issues, 2 very undisciplined about addressing it, and 3. Always searching for the holy grail solution. So we will see in time.

Pratoman said...
…..If I’d been vegetarian the last 40 years like you, I might not be in this position.
Heart disease is much more scary to me than Prostate cancer. Although I’d better keep my mouth shut, my 9 month PSA test is coming up next month

While I shared my friend’s story I guess I can share a bit of my own and why I made the change so long ago. It started when I took a biology class in college. I needed the science credits and the only one that fit into my schedule (I worked full time nights) was a human bio class out of the nursing program. One of the assignments was a family health history, looking as far back on the family tree as possible and citing health issues and causes of death. It was over 90% cardio-vascular on my tree. The next part of the assignment was to look at causes and what can be done to reduce the risk. That, of course, sent me down the now well-know path about nutrition, vices, exercise, etc. I also noticed that many/most males on the tree had an event by their mid-50s and were gone by the mid-60s. That got me at least thinking about it but I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to launch a massive lifestyle change but I continued to read and think about it. I did note that almost everyone on my family tree smoked and never did anything physical. I was a non-smoker and played racquetball, volleyball, and bicycled so I at least had that covered.

Then in my late-20s, things started to fall into place with changes in career direction, relationships, etc. and I embarked on the lifestyle one as well. I decided to adopt a vegan/vegetarian diet but to do so gradually. I acquired lots of interesting cookbooks. I gave up pork, then beef, then poultry, then fish and did this over a year or so. As I replaced those I added in grains and legumes in varieties I’d never used before and from new and exciting cuisines. I started using less dairy/eggs and eventually found myself a vegan. That it was such a gradual process it made it transparent and I didn’t feel like I was giving anything up but, rather, adding in new things that just crowded the others out.

Roll ahead a few years (this is about ‘82) and I get a new girlfriend (who is now my wife) and she’s vegan/vegetarian too. She came at it from a purely ethical place and with me coming from a health place, we really blended these views together well. We stayed vegan until our we were expecting our first child and while one can go through a pregnancy just fine on a vegan diet, we went to lacto/ovo sort of like having insurance and decided to raise our children that way. We had people tell us that the vegetarian diet would be harmful and that there was no way we could raise healthy kids on and it would stunt their growth. We now have two adult boys and one is 6’-2” and the other is 6’7”. ;-)

We have continued on the vegetarian diet ever since and my guess is that we eat about 80% vegan. We use cheese, yogurt, and eggs but not every day. I still do 90% of the cooking and, unless we are traveling, we never eat out. Like never. When we lived in California it was fun eating out since there were so many vegetarian places to explore but here in Montana, well, it’s just different. In my mid-40s I noticed some weight gain so I started watching food intake and upped the exercise by taking up running. The weight came off and I entered a whole new community, the running crowd. Before I knew it was assistant cross country coach at the high school where I taught and I started running 5ks, 10ks, half marathons, and finally 2 full marathons. The latter marathon (2006, Duluth, MN) I did all the training on a pure vegan diet and ran it in 4 hours and 36 minutes. That’s OK for, at the time, a 54-year old.

That brings me to the motivation thing. For diet, I was motivated partially by wanting to avoid the fate of my relatives but mostly by the excitement of discovering new recipes and new ways to approach cooking. It really did turn into as much a hobby/passion as anything. As for the exercise, having regular partners for racquetball and such helped but after I moved I lost that and got lazy. When I decided to take up running (it’s simple, no partners required) I’d run for a few days (just a mile or two) and then take a day off, then 2 days off, then 3 and then I am starting over. A friend (the guy from my previous post) told me about how some runners use “streaking” as a motivator. No, not running naked but seeing how many days in a row one can go without missing a day. He’d been on it for over 500 days, not all running, but doing something aerobic every day: run, bike, swim, etc. I decided to try it and by day 23 I was hooked. While it wasn’t always pure running (I did do a 2 year running streak) as I would swim, bike, or use the machines at the gym, I made it 17-1/2 years plus 2 days without missing a daily workout before the streak was broken. The break occurred when my prostate was removed. Now I still run and swim but am OK with a day off once a week or so.

What my streak did was to “gamify” exercise, that is, turned the task into a game. We like games and this one was pretty simple, just adding a count to the score every day. Gamifying can be used as a motivator in many ways across a wide variety of tasks, especially mundane ones, to keep us interested and motivated to keep doing them. It allows for a gradual progression and a way to mark our achievement. Google it for lots on the topic.

OK, that’s the long version but, hey, we’re sort of off the main topic of the forum so I figure we have some leeway.

prato -- what about ozempic? i know a person who lost maybe 40 pounds and now she eats to live instead of vice versa.

Pratoman said...
…Today, was my first day, it's 9PM and I am on track so far. In fact I'm about to make myself a salad for dinner, of arugula, tomatoes, onions, and Tempeh, which I sautéed in oil and bread crumbs, a while ago.

Curious Vince, so what are your major sources of protein on vegan? Beans?

That salad sounds great. I really like tempeh too. My wife went through breast cancer and is now avoiding soy so that’s not a big source in our diet anymore but I do use soy when I cook just for myself.

As for protein sources, I mentioned earlier about buying lots of cookbooks and one of the first, and it’s not exactly a cookbook, was the classic “Diet for a Small Planet” by Frances Moore Lappe. She goes over what our protein needs are in terms of the essential amino acids and shows how combining legumes and grains gets us there. Just think of all the cuisines that use rice and beans together. And then there is pasta and beans. So, that’s what I’ve been doing and I certainly have no protein deficiency. And the world has so many different type of legumes and grains to try it makes it fun, especially with different herbs and spices. It’s never boring.

Another word about gamifying, when I started my continuous day game I thought about what would happen if I missed a day. My friend told me that unlike some games, it doesn’t make me a loser, it just gives me a target to beat in the next round as I would start counting again. I did well and, as I mentioned, never missed a day until the prostate thing, but with diet I do have “loser” days. I don’t mean that I sneak off and have a burger but there are those days when I might over-consume. When that happens I just recognize it and make the next day my target to stay on track and, usually, up my exercise a bit to balance things out.

BTW, in an art class a few years ago I wrote and illustrated a cookbook all about what I do with grains. You can see it here (I forget how to make it a link):

https://www.codecooker.com/projects_visual_arts/index.php?f=cookbook00

Post Edited By Moderator (Pratoman) : 4/20/2024 6:05:41 AM (GMT-8)

You are in a noble fight if rolling back the ravages of heart disease is your target. Don’t know if you can reverse the process, maybe slow it down. This is a major killer for people over 65. Diet, exercise to name a few are some of the ways of making your remaining years more vibrant.
Sounds like the Ornish plan has benefits for all of us no matter what condition our bodies are in. The key is to stay with it long enough to make a difference even if loosing weight, giving you more energy is the byproduct.
Dave

Getting protein from nonmeat sources is easier since researchers have discovered that you don't need to combine vegetarian foods to get all eight essential amino acids at one meal. You can spread it out during the day.

Pratoman said...

One thing, (actually two things) that are going to make the Ornish program tougher for me are

1. no oils allowed, so if I make a salad, nothing I can really put on it other than maybe vinegar, and I cant cook with oils…

I make all my own salad dressings and quite frequently they are oil-free. I use ground flax seed or chia seeds as thickeners. Recipes are easily found in the web. Another advantage of flax and chia is that they are solvable fibers that can lower the LDL. A year or so ago my doctor suggested I take a statin. My total cholesterol was 179 or so but my LDL was 125. I said I’d think about it and upped flax and chia, putting ground flax in anything I could. After some months my LDL dropped to 105. However, I did start the statin and it dropped to around 50 but I still use lots of ground flax.

Pratoman said...
…I actually put chia seeds in my oatmeal

I do the same and then some. I make up a batch of an oatmeal mixture I can use as “overnight oatmeal” where I add water and let it sit overnight in the fridge. Or add warm water if doing it in the morning. I’m a pretty avid cross-country motorcyclist and cover about 10,000 miles per year, camping out along the way and this is my standard breakfast. I make a batch up ahead of a trip and break it down to single servings in baggies that I add water to before turning in for the night. In the morning I have oatmeal ready to eat. Here’s the recipe for a single serving:

1/2 cup old fashion oatmeal
1/4 cup powdered milk
2 Tablespoons flax meal
2 Tablespoons oat bran
1 Tablespoon chia seeds
1 Tablespoon roasted almonds, whole
1 Tablespoon roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds), whole
1 Tablespoon roasted cashews, chopped
1 Tablespoon raisins

I add about 3/4 cup of water to this.

I have a couple of his books and know people that have tried. Very few could actually follow it and no one could stay on it. I certainly can’t. All said they were better informed and made some positive, for them, changes, but just couldn’t stay on the diet/program as it is extreme.

I discussed this with one of my docs and he said low fat diets ignore the fact they we do need fats to survive and thrive, particular our nervous system. There is benefit and necessity to 25-35% of caloric intake of good fats. As I remember, Ornish was down around 10-15% fat. Fats are essential and are the key to satiety. Without them you will feel forever hungry and cheat the diet cause we are human. Further he said many animal and some non-animal fats like olive oil and avocado are far better for us than the processed fats and seed based fats and oils that are in so many foods. He went through the butter versus margarine and I have long concluded that anyone that chooses margarine over butter is likely misinformed. Just my opinion. My suggestion to anyone eating margarine is to really study how it is made and what it contains before consuming it over than the natural butter. To me that goes for most every processed food. Why choose processed over natural?

Ken, I hope you do well, but as Ed points out if you start and don’t do it for the rest of your life, you will be right back where you are. Basically, in my opinion, diets are not the way to go. Only long term lifestyle changes really work for the long term.

I have found the too most relevant and practical specialists in this arena are Doctors Mark Moyad and Peter Attia. Moyad is even a specialist in nutrition for PCa and a regular contributor to PCa high level forums and has a book out on PCa nutrition. Attia is great on overall lifestyle balance with nutrition, exercise, stress management, etc. I find him very pragmatic and most all of what he suggests can be done by most anyone. He has a great YouTube channel.

Ken, best wishes.

Thanks for your comments Jack. I have no delusions about this, I know it will be hard, like, really hard. And I understand the satiety issue without fats. As I said earlier in this thread though, I have nothing left, I feel like I have to try this. I have some concerns, like being careful about carbs, and avoiding all fats even good fats. I am hopeful that once I start, the Ornish people will be able to address these issues to my satisfaction. And I plan to do a baseline then keep a very close eye on my bloodwork, as I go through the program.

My plan, and my hope, is to use this program to develop new habits and make it a lifestyle change. If I can , after the program, live my life doing 80-90% vegan, it will be a huge plus compared to what I am doing now, which is using food as poison, rather than as medicine. We will see. Thanks for the well wishes.

P.S. I'm familiar with Attia, he is terrific. Moyad I do not know.