TED2004
Dean Ornish: Healing through diet
Filmed:
Readability: 3.9
1,506,422 views
Dean Ornish talks about simple, low-tech and low-cost ways to take advantage of the body's natural desire to heal itself.
Dean Ornish - Physician, author
Dean Ornish is a clinical professor at UCSF and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute. He's a leading expert on fighting illness -- particularly heart disease with dietary and lifestyle changes. Full bio
Dean Ornish is a clinical professor at UCSF and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute. He's a leading expert on fighting illness -- particularly heart disease with dietary and lifestyle changes. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
This session is on natural wonders,
0
0
2000
00:14
and the bigger conference is on the pursuit of happiness.
1
2000
3000
00:17
I want to try to combine them all,
2
5000
1000
00:18
because to me, healing is really the ultimate natural wonder.
3
6000
3000
00:21
Your body has a remarkable capacity to begin healing itself,
4
9000
4000
00:25
and much more quickly than people had once realized,
5
13000
3000
00:28
if you simply stop doing what’s causing the problem.
6
16000
3000
00:31
And so, really, so much of what we do in medicine and life in general
7
19000
4000
00:35
is focused on mopping up the floor without also turning off the faucet.
8
23000
4000
00:39
I love doing this work, because it really gives many people
9
27000
4000
00:43
new hope and new choices that they didn’t have before,
10
31000
2000
00:45
and it allows us to talk about things that -- not just diet,
11
33000
5000
00:50
but that happiness is not --
12
38000
2000
00:52
we're talking about the pursuit of happiness,
13
40000
2000
00:54
but when you really look at all the spiritual traditions,
14
42000
2000
00:56
what Aldous Huxley called the "perennial wisdom,"
15
44000
3000
00:59
when you get past the named and forms and rituals that really divide people,
16
47000
4000
01:03
it’s really about -- our nature is to be happy;
17
51000
2000
01:05
our nature is to be peaceful, our nature is to be healthy.
18
53000
3000
01:08
And so it’s not something -- happiness is not something you get,
19
56000
3000
01:11
health is generally not something that you get.
20
59000
2000
01:13
But rather all of these different practices --
21
61000
3000
01:16
you know, the ancient swamis and rabbis and priests and monks and nuns
22
64000
3000
01:19
didn’t develop these techniques to just manage stress
23
67000
3000
01:22
or lower your blood pressure, unclog your arteries,
24
70000
2000
01:24
even though it can do all those things.
25
72000
2000
01:26
They’re powerful tools for transformation,
26
74000
2000
01:28
for quieting down our mind and bodies
27
76000
3000
01:31
to allow us to experience what it feels like to be happy,
28
79000
3000
01:34
to be peaceful, to be joyful
29
82000
2000
01:36
and to realize that it’s not something that you pursue and get,
30
84000
3000
01:39
but rather it’s something that you have already until you disturb it.
31
87000
4000
01:43
I studied yoga for many years with a teacher named Swami Satchidananda
32
91000
4000
01:47
and people would say, "What are you, a Hindu?" He’d say, "No, I’m an undo."
33
95000
3000
01:50
And it’s really about identifying what’s causing us
34
98000
3000
01:53
to disturb our innate health and happiness,
35
101000
3000
01:56
and then to allow that natural healing to occur.
36
104000
3000
01:59
To me, that’s the real natural wonder.
37
107000
2000
02:01
So, within that larger context,
38
109000
2000
02:03
we can talk about diet, stress management --
39
111000
3000
02:06
which are really these spiritual practices --
40
114000
2000
02:08
moderate exercise, smoking cessation, support groups and community --
41
116000
4000
02:12
which I’ll talk more about -- and some vitamins and supplements.
42
120000
2000
02:14
And it’s not a diet.
43
122000
2000
02:16
You know, when most people think about the diet I recommend,
44
124000
2000
02:18
they think it’s a really strict diet.
45
126000
2000
02:20
For reversing disease, that’s what it takes,
46
128000
2000
02:22
but if you’re just trying to be healthy, you have a spectrum of choices.
47
130000
2000
02:24
And to the degree that you can move in a healthy direction,
48
132000
3000
02:27
you’re going to live longer, you’re going to feel better,
49
135000
2000
02:29
you’re going to lose weight, and so on.
50
137000
2000
02:31
And in our studies, what we’ve been able to do
51
139000
2000
02:33
is to use very expensive, high-tech, state-of-the-art measures
52
141000
3000
02:36
to prove how powerful these very simple and low-tech and low-cost --
53
144000
4000
02:40
and in many ways, ancient -- interventions, can be.
54
148000
3000
02:43
We first began by looking at heart disease,
55
151000
2000
02:45
and when I began doing this work 26 or 27 years ago,
56
153000
3000
02:48
it was thought that once you have heart disease it can only get worse.
57
156000
4000
02:52
And what we found was that, instead of getting worse and worse,
58
160000
2000
02:54
in many cases it could get better and better,
59
162000
2000
02:56
and much more quickly than people had once realized.
60
164000
3000
02:59
This is a representative patient who at the time was 73 --
61
167000
3000
03:02
totally needed to have a bypass, decided to do this instead.
62
170000
3000
03:05
We used quantitative arteriography, showing the narrowing.
63
173000
3000
03:08
This is one of the arteries that feed the heart, one of the main arteries,
64
176000
3000
03:11
and you can see the narrowing here.
65
179000
2000
03:13
A year later, it’s not as clogged; normally, it goes the other direction.
66
181000
3000
03:16
These minor changes in blockages
67
184000
2000
03:18
caused a 300 percent improvement in blood flow,
68
186000
2000
03:20
and using cardiac positron emission tomography, or "PET," scans,
69
188000
4000
03:24
blue and black is no blood flow, orange and white is maximal.
70
192000
3000
03:27
Huge differences can occur without drugs, without surgery.
71
195000
4000
03:31
Clinically, he literally couldn’t walk across the street without getting severe chest pain;
72
199000
4000
03:35
within a month, like most people, was pain-free, and within a year,
73
203000
3000
03:38
climbing more than 100 floors a day on a Stairmaster.
74
206000
2000
03:40
This is not unusual, and it’s part of what enables people
75
208000
3000
03:43
to maintain these kinds of changes,
76
211000
2000
03:45
because it makes such a big difference in their quality of life.
77
213000
2000
03:47
Overall, if you looked at all the arteries in all the patients,
78
215000
3000
03:50
they got worse and worse, from one year to five years, in the comparison group.
79
218000
3000
03:53
This is the natural history of heart disease,
80
221000
2000
03:55
but it’s really not natural because we found it could get better and better,
81
223000
4000
03:59
and much more quickly than people had once thought.
82
227000
2000
04:01
We also found that the more people change, the better they got.
83
229000
3000
04:04
It wasn’t a function of how old or how sick they were --
84
232000
3000
04:07
it was mainly how much they changed,
85
235000
2000
04:09
and the oldest patients improved as much as the young ones.
86
237000
2000
04:11
I got this as a Christmas card a few years ago
87
239000
2000
04:13
from two of the patients in one of our programs.
88
241000
2000
04:15
The younger brother is 86, the older one’s 95;
89
243000
3000
04:18
they wanted to show me how much more flexible they were.
90
246000
2000
04:20
And the following year they sent me this one, which I thought was kind of funny.
91
248000
2000
04:22
(Laughter)
92
250000
2000
04:24
You just never know.
93
252000
2000
04:26
And what we found was that 99 percent of the patients
94
254000
2000
04:28
start to reverse the progression of their heart disease.
95
256000
3000
04:31
Now I thought, you know, if we just did good science,
96
259000
2000
04:33
that would change medical practice. But, that was a little naive.
97
261000
2000
04:35
It’s important, but not enough.
98
263000
2000
04:37
Because we doctors do what we get paid to do,
99
265000
2000
04:39
and we get trained to do what we get paid to do,
100
267000
2000
04:41
so if we change insurance, then we change medical practice and medical education.
101
269000
4000
04:45
Insurance will cover the bypass, it’ll cover the angioplasty;
102
273000
2000
04:47
it won’t, until recently, cover diet and lifestyle.
103
275000
3000
04:50
So, we began through our nonprofit institute's
104
278000
2000
04:52
training hospitals around the country,
105
280000
2000
04:54
and we found that most people could avoid surgery,
106
282000
3000
04:57
and not only was it medically effective, it was also cost effective.
107
285000
2000
04:59
And the insurance companies found
108
287000
2000
05:01
that they began to save almost 30,000 dollars per patient,
109
289000
3000
05:04
and Medicare is now in the middle of doing a demonstration project
110
292000
3000
05:07
where they’re paying for 1,800 people to go through the program
111
295000
2000
05:09
on the sites that we train.
112
297000
2000
05:11
The fortuneteller says, "I give smokers a discount
113
299000
2000
05:13
because there’s not as much to tell." (Laughter)
114
301000
3000
05:16
I like this slide, because it’s a chance to talk about
115
304000
4000
05:20
what really motivates people to change, and what doesn’t.
116
308000
2000
05:22
And what doesn’t work is fear of dying,
117
310000
2000
05:24
and that’s what’s normally used.
118
312000
2000
05:26
Everybody who smokes knows it’s not good for you,
119
314000
2000
05:28
and still 30 percent of Americans smoke --
120
316000
2000
05:30
80 percent in some parts of the world. Why do people do it?
121
318000
3000
05:33
Well, because it helps them get through the day.
122
321000
2000
05:35
And I’ll talk more about this, but the real epidemic
123
323000
3000
05:38
isn’t just heart disease or obesity or smoking -- it’s loneliness and depression.
124
326000
3000
05:41
As one woman said, "I’ve got 20 friends in this package of cigarettes,
125
329000
4000
05:45
and they’re always there for me and nobody else is.
126
333000
2000
05:47
You’re going to take away my 20 friends? What are you going to give me?"
127
335000
2000
05:49
Or they eat when they get depressed,
128
337000
2000
05:51
or they use alcohol to numb the pain,
129
339000
2000
05:53
or they work too hard, or watch too much TV.
130
341000
2000
05:55
There are lots of ways we have of avoiding and numbing and bypassing pain,
131
343000
4000
05:59
but the point of all of this is to deal with the cause of the problem.
132
347000
3000
06:02
And the pain is not the problem: it’s the symptom.
133
350000
2000
06:04
And telling people they’re going to die is too scary to think about,
134
352000
4000
06:08
or, they’re going to get emphysema or heart attack is too scary,
135
356000
2000
06:10
and so they don’t want to think about it, so they don’t.
136
358000
3000
06:13
The most effective anti-smoking ad was this one.
137
361000
2000
06:15
You’ll notice the limp cigarette hanging out of his mouth,
138
363000
3000
06:18
and "impotence" -- the headline is, "Impotent" -- it’s not emphysema.
139
366000
3000
06:21
What was the biggest selling drug of all time
140
369000
2000
06:23
when it was introduced a few years ago?
141
371000
2000
06:25
Viagra, right? Why? Because a lot of guys need it.
142
373000
3000
06:28
It’s not like you say, "Hey Joe, I’m having erectile dysfunction, how about you?"
143
376000
3000
06:31
And yet, look at the number of prescriptions that are being sold.
144
379000
3000
06:34
It’s not so much psychological, it’s vascular,
145
382000
3000
06:37
and nicotine makes your arteries constrict.
146
385000
2000
06:39
So does cocaine, so does a high fat diet, so does emotional stress.
147
387000
4000
06:43
So the very behaviors that we think of as being so sexy in our culture
148
391000
4000
06:47
are the very ones that leave so many people feeling tired,
149
395000
2000
06:49
lethargic, depressed and impotent, and that’s not much fun.
150
397000
3000
06:52
But when you change those behaviors, your brain gets more blood,
151
400000
2000
06:54
you think more clearly, you have more energy,
152
402000
2000
06:56
your heart gets more blood in ways I’ve shown you.
153
404000
2000
06:58
Your sexual function improves.
154
406000
2000
07:00
And these things occur within hours. This is a study: a high fat meal,
155
408000
4000
07:04
and within one or two hours blood-flow is measurably less --
156
412000
2000
07:06
and you’ve all experienced this at Thanksgiving.
157
414000
2000
07:08
When you eat a big fatty meal, how do you feel?
158
416000
2000
07:10
You feel kind of sleepy afterwards.
159
418000
2000
07:12
On a low-fat meal, the blood flow doesn’t go down -- it even goes up.
160
420000
3000
07:15
Many of you have kids, and you know that’s a big change in your lifestyle,
161
423000
4000
07:19
and so people are not afraid to make big changes in lifestyle if they’re worth it.
162
427000
4000
07:23
And the paradox is that when you make big changes, you get big benefits,
163
431000
3000
07:26
and you feel so much better so quickly.
164
434000
3000
07:29
For many people, those are choices worth making --
165
437000
2000
07:31
not to live longer, but to live better.
166
439000
3000
07:34
I want to talk a little bit about the obesity epidemic,
167
442000
2000
07:36
because it really is a problem.
168
444000
2000
07:38
Two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese,
169
446000
3000
07:41
and diabetes in kids and 30-year-olds
170
449000
2000
07:43
has increased 70 percent in the last 10 years. It’s no joke: it’s real.
171
451000
4000
07:47
And just to show you this, this is from the CDC.
172
455000
3000
07:50
These are not election returns; these are the percentage of people who are overweight.
173
458000
3000
07:53
And if you see from '85 to '86 to '87, '88, '89, '90, '91 --
174
461000
7000
08:00
you get a new category, 15 to 20 percent; '92, '93, '94, '95, '96, '97 --
175
468000
7000
08:07
you get a new category; '98, '99, 2000, and 2001.
176
475000
5000
08:12
Mississippi, more than 25 percent of people are overweight.
177
480000
4000
08:16
Why is this? Well, this is one way to lose weight that works very well ...
178
484000
3000
08:19
but it doesn’t last, which is the problem.
179
487000
2000
08:21
(Laughter)
180
489000
2000
08:23
Now, there’s no mystery in how you lose weight;
181
491000
2000
08:25
you either burn more calories by exercise or you eat fewer calories.
182
493000
4000
08:29
Now, one way to eat fewer calories is to eat less food,
183
497000
3000
08:32
which is why you can lose weight on any diet if you eat less food,
184
500000
2000
08:34
or if you restrict entire categories of foods.
185
502000
2000
08:36
But the problem is, you get hungry, so it’s hard to keep it off.
186
504000
4000
08:40
The other way is to change the type of food.
187
508000
2000
08:42
And fat has nine calories per gram,
188
510000
2000
08:44
whereas protein and carbs only have four.
189
512000
2000
08:46
So, when you eat less fat, you eat fewer calories without having to eat less food.
190
514000
4000
08:50
So you can eat the same amount of food, but you’ll be getting fewer calories
191
518000
3000
08:53
because the food is less dense in calories.
192
521000
2000
08:55
And it’s the volume of food that affects satiety, rather than the type of food.
193
523000
4000
08:59
You know, I don’t like talking about the Atkins diet, but I get asked about it every day,
194
527000
2000
09:01
and so I just thought I’d spend a few minutes on that.
195
529000
2000
09:03
The myth that you hear about is,
196
531000
2000
09:05
Americans have been told to eat less fat,
197
533000
2000
09:07
the percent of calories from fat is down,
198
535000
2000
09:09
Americans are fatter than ever, therefore fat doesn’t make you fat.
199
537000
3000
09:12
It’s a half-truth. Actually, Americans are eating more fat than ever,
200
540000
4000
09:16
and even more carbs. And so the percentage is lower,
201
544000
2000
09:18
the actual amount is higher, and so the goal is to reduce both.
202
546000
3000
09:21
Dr. Atkins and I debated each other many times before he died,
203
549000
4000
09:25
and we agreed that Americans eat too many simple carbs,
204
553000
2000
09:27
the "bad carbs," and these are things like --
205
555000
2000
09:29
(Laughter)
206
557000
2000
09:31
-- sugar, white flour, white rice, alcohol. And you get a double whammy:
207
559000
3000
09:34
you get all these calories that don’t fill you up because you’ve removed the fiber,
208
562000
3000
09:37
and they get absorbed quickly so your blood sugar zooms up.
209
565000
3000
09:40
Your pancreas makes insulin to bring it back down, which is good.
210
568000
3000
09:43
But insulin accelerates the conversion of calories into fat.
211
571000
3000
09:46
So, the goal is not to go to pork rinds and bacon and sausages --
212
574000
2000
09:48
these are not health foods --
213
576000
2000
09:50
but to go from "bad carbs" to what are called "good carbs."
214
578000
2000
09:52
And these are things like whole foods, or unrefined carbs:
215
580000
3000
09:55
fruits, vegetables, whole wheat flour, brown rice, in their natural forms, are rich in fiber.
216
583000
5000
10:00
And the fiber fills you up before you get too many calories,
217
588000
3000
10:03
and it slows the absorption so you don’t get that rapid rise in blood sugar.
218
591000
4000
10:07
So, and you get all the disease-protective substances.
219
595000
3000
10:10
It’s not just what you exclude from your diet,
220
598000
2000
10:12
but also what you include that’s protective.
221
600000
2000
10:14
Just as all carbs are not bad for you, all fats are not bad for you. There are good fats.
222
602000
3000
10:17
And these are predominantly what are called the Omega-3 fatty acids.
223
605000
3000
10:20
You find these, for example, in fish oil.
224
608000
2000
10:22
And the bad fats are things like trans-fatty acids and processed food
225
610000
3000
10:25
and saturated fats, which we find in meat.
226
613000
2000
10:27
If you don’t remember anything else from this talk,
227
615000
2000
10:29
three grams a day of fish oil can reduce your risk of a heart attack
228
617000
3000
10:32
and sudden death by 50 to 80 percent.
229
620000
2000
10:34
Three grams a day. They come in one-gram capsules;
230
622000
2000
10:36
more than that just gives you extra fat you don’t need.
231
624000
2000
10:38
It also helps reduce the risk of the most common cancers
232
626000
3000
10:41
like breast, prostate and colon cancer.
233
629000
2000
10:43
Now, the problem with the Atkins diet,
234
631000
2000
10:45
everybody knows people who have lost weight on it,
235
633000
2000
10:47
but you can lose weight on amphetamines, you know, and fen-phen.
236
635000
2000
10:49
I mean, there are lots of ways of losing weight that aren’t good for you.
237
637000
3000
10:52
You want to lose weight in a way that enhances your health
238
640000
2000
10:54
rather than the one that harms it.
239
642000
2000
10:56
And the problem is that it’s based on this half-truth,
240
644000
2000
10:58
which is that Americans eat too many simple carbs,
241
646000
3000
11:01
so if you eat fewer simple carbs you’re going to lose weight.
242
649000
2000
11:03
You’ll lose even more weight if you go to whole foods and less fat,
243
651000
3000
11:06
and you’ll enhance your health rather than harming it.
244
654000
2000
11:08
He says, "I’ve got some good news.
245
656000
2000
11:10
While your cholesterol level has remained the same,
246
658000
2000
11:12
the research findings have changed."
247
660000
2000
11:14
(Laughter)
248
662000
1000
11:15
Now, what happens to your heart when you go on an Atkins diet?
249
663000
3000
11:18
The red is good at the beginning, and a year later --
250
666000
2000
11:20
this is from a study done in a peer-reviewed journal called Angiology --
251
668000
4000
11:24
there’s more red after a year on a diet like I would recommend,
252
672000
3000
11:27
there’s less red, less blood flow after a year on an Atkins-type diet.
253
675000
3000
11:30
So, yes, you can lose weight, but your heart isn’t happy.
254
678000
4000
11:34
Now, one of the studies funded by the Atkins Center
255
682000
2000
11:36
found that 70 percent of the people were constipated, 65 percent had bad breath,
256
684000
4000
11:40
54 percent had headaches – this is not a healthy way to eat.
257
688000
4000
11:44
And so, you might start to lose weight and start to attract people towards you,
258
692000
3000
11:47
but when they get too close it’s going to be a problem.
259
695000
2000
11:49
(Laughter)
260
697000
2000
11:51
And more seriously, there are case reports now of 16-year-old girls
261
699000
3000
11:54
who died after a few weeks on the Atkins diet --
262
702000
2000
11:56
of bone disease, kidney disease, and so on.
263
704000
2000
11:58
And that’s how your body excretes waste, is through your breath,
264
706000
2000
12:00
your bowels and your perspiration.
265
708000
2000
12:02
So when you go on these kinds of diet, they begin to smell bad.
266
710000
3000
12:05
So, an optimal diet is low in fat, low in the bad carbs,
267
713000
4000
12:09
high in the good carbs and enough of the good fats.
268
717000
2000
12:11
And then, again, it’s a spectrum:
269
719000
2000
12:13
when you move in this direction, you’re going to lose weight,
270
721000
2000
12:15
you’re going to feel better and you’re going to gain health.
271
723000
3000
12:18
Now, there are ecological reasons for eating lower on the food chain too,
272
726000
3000
12:21
whether it’s the deforestation of the Amazon, or making more protein available,
273
729000
4000
12:25
to the four billion people who live on a dollar a day --
274
733000
3000
12:28
not to mention whatever ethical concerns people have.
275
736000
2000
12:30
So, there are lots of reasons for eating this way that go beyond just your health.
276
738000
4000
12:34
Now, we’re about to publish the first study
277
742000
2000
12:36
looking at the effects of this program on prostate cancer,
278
744000
4000
12:40
and, in collaboration with Sloane-Kettering and with UCSF.
279
748000
3000
12:43
We took 90 men who had biopsy-proven prostate cancer
280
751000
4000
12:47
and who had elected, for reasons unrelated to the study, not to have surgery.
281
755000
3000
12:50
We could randomly divide them into two groups,
282
758000
2000
12:52
and then we could have one group
283
760000
2000
12:54
that is a non-intervention control group to compare to,
284
762000
2000
12:56
which we can’t do with, say, breast cancer, because everyone gets treated.
285
764000
3000
12:59
What we found was that, after a year,
286
767000
2000
13:01
none of the experimental group patients
287
769000
2000
13:03
who made these lifestyle changes needed treatment,
288
771000
2000
13:05
whereas six of the control-group patients needed surgery or radiation.
289
773000
3000
13:08
When we looked at their PSA levels -- which is a marker for prostate cancer --
290
776000
4000
13:12
they got worse in the control group,
291
780000
2000
13:14
but they actually got better in the experimental group,
292
782000
2000
13:16
and these differences were highly significant.
293
784000
2000
13:18
And then I wondered: was there any relationship
294
786000
2000
13:20
between how much people changed their diet and lifestyle --
295
788000
2000
13:22
whichever group they were in -- and the changes in PSA?
296
790000
2000
13:24
And sure enough, we found a dose-response relationship,
297
792000
3000
13:27
just like we found in the arterial blockages in our cardiac studies.
298
795000
3000
13:30
And in order for the PSA to go down, they had to make pretty big changes.
299
798000
3000
13:33
I then wondered, well, maybe they’re just changing their PSA,
300
801000
3000
13:36
but it’s not really affecting the tumor growth.
301
804000
2000
13:38
So we took some of their blood serum and sent it down to UCLA;
302
806000
3000
13:41
they added it to a standard line of prostate tumor cells growing in tissue culture,
303
809000
4000
13:45
and it inhibited the growth seven times more
304
813000
2000
13:47
in the experimental group than in the control group -- 70 versus 9 percent.
305
815000
5000
13:52
And finally, I said, I wonder if there’s any relationship between
306
820000
2000
13:54
how much people change and how it inhibited their tumor growth,
307
822000
3000
13:57
whichever group they happened to be in.
308
825000
1000
13:58
And this really got me excited because again,
309
826000
2000
14:00
we found the same pattern: the more people change,
310
828000
3000
14:03
the more it affected the growth of their tumors.
311
831000
3000
14:06
And finally, we did MRI and MR spectroscopy scans on some of these patients,
312
834000
3000
14:09
and the tumor activity is shown in red in this patient,
313
837000
2000
14:11
and you can see clearly it’s better a year later, along with the PSA going down.
314
839000
4000
14:15
So, if it’s true for prostate cancer, it’ll almost certainly be true for breast cancer as well.
315
843000
4000
14:19
And whether or not you have conventional treatment,
316
847000
2000
14:21
in addition, if you make these changes, it may help reduce the risk of recurrence.
317
849000
4000
14:25
The last thing I want to talk about, apropos of the issue of the pursuit of happiness,
318
853000
4000
14:29
is that study after study have shown
319
857000
2000
14:31
that people who are lonely and depressed --
320
859000
2000
14:33
and depression is the other real epidemic in our culture --
321
861000
3000
14:36
are many times more likely to get sick and die prematurely,
322
864000
3000
14:39
in part because, as we talked about, they’re more likely to smoke
323
867000
3000
14:42
and overeat and drink too much and work too hard and so on.
324
870000
3000
14:45
But also, through mechanisms that we don’t fully understand,
325
873000
3000
14:48
people who are lonely and depressed are many times --
326
876000
2000
14:50
three to five to ten times, in some studies --
327
878000
2000
14:52
more likely to get sick and die prematurely.
328
880000
2000
14:54
And depression is treatable. We need to do something about that.
329
882000
3000
14:57
Now, on the other hand, anything that promotes intimacy is healing.
330
885000
3000
15:00
It can be sexual intimacy –
331
888000
2000
15:02
I happen to think that healing energy and erotic energy
332
890000
2000
15:04
are just different forms of the same thing.
333
892000
2000
15:06
Friendship, altruism, compassion, service – all the perennial truths that we talked about
334
894000
5000
15:11
that are part of all religion and all cultures --
335
899000
2000
15:13
once you stop trying to see the differences,
336
901000
3000
15:16
these are the things in our own self-interest,
337
904000
2000
15:18
because they free us from our suffering and from disease.
338
906000
4000
15:22
And it’s in a sense the most selfish thing that we can do.
339
910000
4000
15:26
Just take a look at one study. This was done by David Spiegel at Stanford.
340
914000
3000
15:29
He took women with metastatic breast cancer,
341
917000
2000
15:31
randomly divided them into two groups.
342
919000
2000
15:33
One group of people just met for an hour-and-a-half once a week in a support group.
343
921000
3000
15:36
It was a nurturing, loving environment,
344
924000
2000
15:38
where they were encouraged to let down their emotional defenses
345
926000
2000
15:40
and talk about how awful it is to have breast cancer
346
928000
2000
15:42
with people who understood, because they were going through it too.
347
930000
2000
15:44
They just met once a week for a year.
348
932000
2000
15:46
Five years later, those women lived twice as long, and you can see that the people --
349
934000
4000
15:50
and that was the only difference between the groups.
350
938000
2000
15:52
It was a randomized control study published in The Lancet.
351
940000
2000
15:54
Other studies have shown this as well.
352
942000
3000
15:57
So, these simple things that create intimacy are really healing,
353
945000
2000
15:59
and even the word healing, it comes from the root "to make whole."
354
947000
3000
16:02
The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit,
355
950000
2000
16:04
meaning "union, to yoke, to bring together."
356
952000
3000
16:07
And the last slide I want to show you is from -- I was -- again,
357
955000
3000
16:10
this swami that I studied with for so many years, and I
358
958000
2000
16:12
did a combined oncology and cardiology Grand Rounds
359
960000
3000
16:15
at the University of Virginia medical school a couple of years ago.
360
963000
2000
16:17
And at the end of it, somebody said,
361
965000
2000
16:19
"Hey, Swami, what’s the difference between wellness and illness?"
362
967000
4000
16:23
And so he went up on the board and he wrote the word "illness,"
363
971000
2000
16:25
and circled the first letter, and then wrote the word "wellness,"
364
973000
3000
16:28
and circled the first two letters ...
365
976000
2000
16:30
To me, it’s just shorthand for what we’re talking about:
366
978000
2000
16:32
that anything that creates a sense of connection
367
980000
2000
16:34
and community and love is really healing.
368
982000
3000
16:37
And then we can enjoy our lives more fully without getting sick in the process.
369
985000
5000
16:42
Thank you. (Applause)
370
990000
2000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dean Ornish - Physician, authorDean Ornish is a clinical professor at UCSF and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute. He's a leading expert on fighting illness -- particularly heart disease with dietary and lifestyle changes.
Why you should listen
Dr. Dean Ornish wants you to live longer, and have more fun while you're at it. He's one of the leading voices in the medical community promoting a balanced, holistic approach to health, and proving that it works. The author of Eat More, Weigh Less and several other best-selling books, Ornish is best known for his lifestyle-based approach to fighting heart disease.
His research at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (the nonprofit he founded) clinically demonstrated that cardiovascular illnesses -- and, most recently prostate cancer -- can be treated and even reversed through diet and exercise. These findings (once thought to be physiologically implausible) have been widely chronicled in the US media, including Newsweek, for which Ornish writes a column. The fifty-something physician, who's received many honors and awards, was chosen by LIFE Magazine as one of the most influential members of his generation. Among his many pursuits, Ornish is now working with food corporations to help stop America's obesity pandemic from spreading around the globe.
Dean Ornish | Speaker | TED.com