The Scientific Foundation of Ornish Lifestyle Medicine Reverse & Prevent Heart Disease We examined the ability of patients enrolled in the Lifestyle Heart Trial to sustain intensive lifestyle changes for a total of five years and the effects of these lifestyle changes on coronary heart disease. We measured adherence to lifestyle changes, changes in coronary…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM September 25th, 2009 Volume 3 Which food was found to improve heart rate variability? Next, everyone feel for your pulse. Stick your hand out, thumbs up, feel for the knobby bone at the top of your wrist. Then, if you slide your hand down across the front of your wrist, you’ll feel these…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM July 29th, 2019 Volume 47 Plant-based diets as the single most important, yet underutilized, opportunity to reverse the pending obesity and diabetes-induced epidemic of disease and death. Dr. Kim Williams, immediate past president of the American College of Cardiology, started out an editorial on plant-based diets with the classic Schopenhauer quote that “All…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM September 11th, 2019 Volume 47 The effects of ketogenic diets on nutrient sufficiency, gut flora, and heart disease risk. Given the decades of use of ketogenic diets to treat certain cases of pediatric epilepsy, a body of safety data has accumulated. Nutrient deficiencies would seem to be the obvious issue. Inadequate intake of…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM August 19th, 2019 Volume 47 Michael Greger M.D. FACLM August 19th, 2019 Volume 47 Why don’t more people take the weight loss medications currently on the market? Despite the myriad menu of FDA-approved medications for weight loss, they’ve only been prescribed for about 1 in 50 obese patients. We worship medical magic bullets in this…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM November 4th, 2019 Volume 48 Although fasting for a week or two can actually interfere with the loss of body fat, eventually, after the third week of fasting, fat loss starts to overtake the loss of lean body mass in obese individuals. But is it safe to go that long without food? Proponents speak of…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM February 21st, 2012 Volume 7 Those of you paying close attention to this discussion of how beets can boost athletic performance may have noticed a term that sounded familiar—nitric oxide, which I talked about before in The Power of NO. It’s a vasodilator; helps open up blood flow. That’s how those nitroglycerine pills work…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM February 25th, 2015 Volume 23 “The Mediterranean Diet is an “in” topic nowadays in both the medical literature and the lay media”: 450 papers published in the medical literature over just the last year alone–more than one a day. “Uncritical laudatory coverage” is common, but specifics are hard to come by. What is…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM April 25th, 2012 Volume 8 Fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with a lower risk of heart disease. But which is more protective—raw or cooked? In this recent study of 50,000 men and women, those who ate the most apples appeared to have significantly less risk of having a heart attack in the…
By preventing the buildup of cholesterol in our bloodstream, we can prevent atherosclerosis in our coronary arteries—the leading cause of death in the United States for both men and women. This involves increasing our intake of fiber-containing plant foods, and decreasing our intake of trans fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol found in junk food and…