August 6, 2019 • 31 mins
Dr. Dean Ornish is a pioneer in lifestyle medicine who is challenging and changing the status quo of how we treat disease — arguing we all have the power to transform our fate simply by the choices we make every single day. Dr. Ornish has been a driving force and inspiration to Dr. Oz since his early days in medical school. In this interview, Dean and his wife Anne join Dr. Oz to reveal how we can all press our inner “undo button” for better health with advice from their new book “Undo It: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases.”
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
When you make big changes in your lifestyle, what we eat,
how we respond to stress, and which exercise, how much
love and support we get, or to reduce it to
its essence, to eat well, move more, stress less, love more.
The more diseases we study, and the more mechanisms we
look at, the more reasons we have to show why
how quickly you can feel better in ways that matter most. Hi,
(00:46):
I'm Dr Oz and this is the Doctor Oz Podcast.
He's a pioneer in lifestyle medicine who is challenging and
changing the status quo of how we treat disease, arguing
that we all have the power to transport our faith
simply by the choices we make every single day. Dr
Dean Ornish has been a driving force and inspiration to
me since my early days in medical school. Today, Dean
(01:08):
and his wife Annie and not Anie are joining us
today that to reveal how we can all press our
inner undue button for better health in their new book
Undo It, how simple lifestyle changes can reverse most chronic diseases.
And Dean, thanks for being here. I've at least with
me as well. We've gotta pepper you with questions and
time we have together. Thank you. It's a pleasure undo.
(01:29):
It's beautifully written. Before I dive into the book itself,
I love Dean if you can share a tiny bit
about the suffering that you've experienced it and how it's
helped you transform yourself, but also the message you have
to so many. You have the only, to my knowledge,
Medicare approved program for people recovering from heart disease to
hopefully prevent it from having more problems. To get that
(01:50):
done took decades of hard work, solid data, and rolling
up the big rock uphill, because most folks didn't think
that there was enough what you were saying to believe
in it, to validate it, to pay for it. And
now we know that it does that all caused it
took his toll. Well, that was a different kind of suffering.
But I think what you're referring to is the what
(02:12):
it really got me interested in doing this work in
the first place. And this was long, long ago, in
a galaxy far far away, when I was a freshman
in college at Rice University in Houston, and um I
got suicidly depressed when I was there, and I it's
a long story, but the short version is is that
I felt like I was stupid. That now I was
at a school with a bunch of really smart people.
It was just a matter of found time before they
(02:34):
figured out that they made a mistake in letting me in.
And and and worse than that, I had a spiritual crisis,
which was that I realized that nothing can really bring
lasting happiness. And so the combination of feeling like I
was never going to mount to anything, and even if
I did, it wouldn't matter, I thought. I looked around
and thought, well, you know, dead people look like they're peaceful.
Maybe I'll just do myself in and would have done so.
Came about as close to doing that as you can
(02:56):
without actually falling through with it. Um but I got
so run down and sick. I got such a horrible
case of infectious monon nucleosis that I didn't really have
the energy to even to get out of bed. Meanwhile,
my parents realized that I wasn't doing well, came down,
went home to Dallas to recuperate, and my plan was
to get well enough to kill myself, as crazy as
that sounds. Meanwhile, my older sister had been a child
(03:17):
of the sixties. This was back in nineteen seventy two.
Um had benefited from studying with an ecumenical spiritual teacher
named Swamy Sacha Nanda, who, by the way, went like
to make puns, and when people said, what do you
a hint do, he'd say, no, I'm an undo, which
is part of why the title of this book is
kind of an homage to that Um. And he said,
he came a little lecture and this was really weird
(03:38):
in Dallas in nineteen I mean today it'd be weird,
but especially back in nineteen seventy two having a swami
coming to your home and having a cocktail party for him.
But anyway, he gave us soughts on electure in our
living room, and he started off by saying, nothing can
bring you lasting happiness, which I'd already figured out, except
I was ready to do myself in and he looked,
he was glowing, and he went on to say what
really turned my life around, Um, which is that nothing
(04:00):
can bring us that, but that we already are. We're
born happy are our nature is to be happy and
peaceful and unusually healthy, and not being mindful of that,
we often run after so many things. The whole advertising
industry reinforces that if only you had more whatever, more money,
more power, and more beauty and more accomplishment, then you'd
be happy. Then you'd be healthy, then you wouldn't be
so lonely. Then people would love you, and then everything
(04:22):
would be good. And once you set up that view
of the world, however, it turns out, usually don't feel
so good because until you get it, you feel stressed.
If someone else gets it and you don't, then you
feel really bad. And even if you get it in
the moment, it's very seductive, it's like, oh my god,
it it's great, but it's soon followed more often than
not by either now what, it's never enough, or so
(04:42):
what big deal? It doesn't really provide that lasting sense
of meaning. So one patient said, you know, the letdown
that comes from accomplishing a goal is so great. I
always make sure I've got a dozen projects going at
the same time. And so what these practices do, whether
secular or religious, meditation and yoga and prayer, whatever form
you do them in, is that they don't bring us
a sense of peace. They don't just simply help us
(05:03):
cope with stress better, but rather they quiet down our
mind and body to allow us to experience more of
an inner sense of peace and joy and well being
and to realize that's our natural state and then that
I mean, it may sound like we're parsing words here,
but the implications are that if we have to get
it from outside, ourselves and everyone and everything that we
think we need has power over us. But to the
(05:24):
degree that we have it already, then it empowers us.
And then the question changes from how can I get
what I think I need to how can I stop
disturbing what I already have? And so you know, when
you when you and I were both trained as doctors,
we were we weren't trained to see suffering as a
doorway for transformation, but it really is, because, as you know,
(05:45):
change is hard, but if you're hurting enough, then the
idea of change can become more motivating. As it was
for me my doorways it was depression. Someone else it
might be a heart attack, or it might be a
diagnosis of cancer or Alzheimer's or something like that, and
in that moment there's a motivational opportunity to say, look,
we've learned in forty years of research, this is what
(06:06):
our new book is really about. These underlying biological mechanisms
are so dynamic that when you make big changes in
your lifestyle, what we eat, how we respond to stress,
how much exercise, how much love and support we get,
or to reduce it to its essence to eat well,
move more, stress less, love more. The more diseases we
study and the more mechanisms we look at, the more
(06:28):
reasons we have to show why how quickly you can
feel better in ways that matter most. And you know,
I'm sure you've had patients who have told you the
same thing, that having a heart attack was the best
thing that ever happened. The first time somebody told me that,
I'd say, what do you nuts? And they'd say, no,
that's what it took to get my attention to begin
making these changes that have transformed my life. But so
often we're not really trained to take advantage of that.
(06:50):
We're trying to just use surgery or drugs or other
kind of fixes like that without really helping people see
that as an opportunity for real transformation. And that's really
what our book is about. So the wisdom that you
have in and offer and undo it is you go
through it reinforcing and validating to folks who figured it out.
But I'm always done that many people haven't and are
(07:13):
still struggling. Into your point, the wake up call of
a heart problem or stroke, or just about any major
health crisis is often uh appreciated by some, but not
by all. And why do you think the emotional connection
to our health is so overlooked in Western medicine? Why
is it so hardwired to not be observed? Well, I
(07:35):
think that, especially these days, it's a matter of just
being so overwhelmed with what's going on around us. And
that's what the power of meditation um is to just
take a moment here and there throughout our day to
relax and relieve our stress, which then allows us to
raise our self awareness so that we can tap into
(07:58):
you know, why do we want to live longer? Why
do we want to make healthier choices? So to the
extent that we are in touch with our motivation to
you know, be in touch with what arises for us
when we reflect on what are the moments and the
people that inspire us to to live longer, to live better.
(08:20):
When we connect those dots between what we do and
how it makes us feel, then we can intentionally make
healthier choices to do the things that we love with
the people that we love, and it becomes immediately self
fulfilling and therefore sustainable. So when we have the self
awareness and compassion for ourselves to do so, then it
(08:46):
makes it easier to imbue our choices with meaning and
therefore making it more sustainable. So it goes back to
not to be assumed that everybody does want to live
longer and better. Uh, that that's why we have the
high levels of addiction and depression that we do, so
(09:07):
to the extent that we can make those moments for
self reflection and connect those dots for us in a
very personal way. We it's it's a very personal question
what motivates you. But once you once you identify what
that is for yourself, it can become incredibly empowering. Yeah.
I think the other thing you touched on earlier moment
(09:28):
was that, um, this the medical system has its evolved.
We have eight to ten minutes with a patient and
there's really not much time to talk about what matters
most when you only have such a short time. You
go through the electronic medical record. The problem with listening
to the heart lungs write a prescription, it's really not
satisfying for the doctor or the patient. That's why I
spent sixteen years to try to finally get UM for
(09:52):
which we're really grateful CMS to provide Medicare coverage and
create a new benefit category. So now instead of a
ten that a visit, it's a seventy two hour visit.
And as you know, we've been working together with share
Cares who train hospitals and clinics and physician groups and
health systems around the country and it's working. We're getting
bigger changes in lifestyle, better clinical outcomes, bigger cost savings,
(10:12):
and better adherence than anyone's ever shown. And so often
when people people are put on drugs to lower their
cholesterol or their blood pressure or their blood sugar and
they say, you know, doctor, how long do I have
to take these? The doctor usually says forever. And as
you know, sometimes when I lecture, I show a cartoon
of doctors busily mopping up the floor around a synchronce
overflowing It's like, how long do I have to mop
up the floor, like forever? Why don't we just turn
(10:34):
off the faucet? And so listeners should know that under
their doctor's supervision when they follow these changes that we
talk about in our new book. Many people can reduce
or get off these medications, can avoid surgery that the
otherwise want have had. And it's not only medically effective,
but it saves a lot of money in the short
run as well. There's lots more will be come back.
(11:05):
Let's get into the concretes of the elements of this plant.
So obviously be motivated, having a way of figuring out
why you're doing it as vital. But then there the
actual specific steps. I remember, uh, when dr Atkins was
still alive, you battled him uh and cordially on his
philosophy on weight loss and and what was the benefit
(11:27):
of weight loss it it was done the right way
versus the wrong way. And we're back now in in
the midst of a low carb, high fat craze with
keto diets and paleo diets. What about these diets do
you not like? And walk us through what you have
found to be successful in reducing the inflammation and the
complications of authros clurosis that often result from the the
(11:47):
sad standard American diet. Right, No, I did die. I
I debated dr Atkins many times in fact that the
American Colls of Cardiology in front of like four thousand
doctors years ago. Um, I stopped doing those kinds of
the baits and it's you know, um, he was the
low carb guy, so I got pegged as the low
fat guy. But it's never been about just fat. It's
a it's a whole foods plant based diet, fruits, vegetables,
(12:09):
whole grains, legumes in their natural forms, low fat and
low sugar. Um. And we need to get past this
whole fat versus carbs debate. I mean, you know, dr Atkins,
they say slipped and hit his head, but his autopsy
result was published and it showed that he died in
massive heart failure. And I'd love to be able to
tell people that Atkins or keto or a paleo diet,
which are really just different incarnations of the same thing,
(12:31):
are good for you, but they're not. And you can
lose weight on it, but you can lose weight in
lots of ways that aren't healthy. You know, smoking cigarettes
is a good way to lose weight, chemotherapy, getting suicide depresses.
I lost a lot of weight and not not not
something i'd recommend, um, But you want to lose weight
in a way that's healthy, and one of the diagrams
that we show in our book is from a New
Land Journal of Medicine article by Stephen Smith that reviewed
(12:52):
different diets and it showed what happens in your arteries
on different diets, and what they found was that um
in a whole it's plant based diet, like we've been
talking about, your arteries are clean, the blood's flowing, there's
no blockages there. As you mentioned a standard American diet,
which has the great acronym of a SAD diet, they're
partially clogged, and on a keto Paleo Atkins die they're
(13:13):
severely clogged. Even if you lose weight or and even
if sometimes if your triglysrides go down. And yet we
found that you can lose even more weight and have
even more improvement in in your in your chemistries by
making these changes and instead of mortgaging your health and
it enhances it. And one of the things that we
talked about in this new book is what I call
a unifying theory, and that is that I was trained
like you were, and like all doctors were, to view
(13:35):
heart disease and diabetes and process cancer and so on,
is as being fundamentally different you know, different diseases, different diagnoses,
different treatments, But I've come to believe that they're really
the same disease, manifesting and masquerading in different forms. And
I say that because they all share the same underlying
biological mechanisms. You mentioned chronic inflammation, but also oxidative stress,
(13:58):
changes in the microbiome and gene expression and telomeres and
angiogenesis and so on. And each one of these mechanisms
is directly influenced by what we eat, how we respond
to stress, how much exercise we get, and how much
love and support we have, and how quickly these changes
can occur for better and for worse. And and it's
not just the fat versus the carbs. The animal protein
(14:19):
itself seems to activate all of these mechanisms. And so
when you go on a plant based diet, you actually
reduce all of these diseases. And we found that with
all this talk about personalized medicine, I mean, if you're
talking about, you know, a targeted immunotherapy for a particular
pancreatic cancer cell line, it's awesome, But for the vast
majority of chronic diseases, it was the same lifestyle program
(14:40):
over forty years of research. Which I think really sets
our work apart from everyone else is that we've actually
proven these things can actually reverse heart disease, diabetes, process cancer,
high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Change your genes, turn you know.
We did a publishing study with Craig Ventor, who first
decoded the human genome. Over five genes were changed in
just three months, turning on the good genes, turning off
(15:02):
the bad jeans. We did a study with Dr Elizabeth Blackburn,
who got the Nobel Prize for discovering telomeres, ends of
our chromosomes that regulate how long we live. We showed
for the first time these same lifestyle changes could lengthen
your telomeres. And when we published this in the lance
of the premier international medical journal, they the editors called
it reversing aging at a cellular level. And we're now
(15:22):
doing the first randomized trial to see if we can
actually reverse the progression of early stage Alzheimer's disease. I
think we're in a place with Alzheimer's where we were
with heart disease forty years ago. We have every reason
to think that it might work. And since there are
no good drugs for treating it or for preventing it.
It would be really exciting if we can show that.
And by the way, if any listeners happen to live
in the San Francisco Bay area, we're still recruiting patients
(15:44):
for that. It's all done at and no cost to you.
So the more diseases we study, and the more mechanisms
we look at, the more evidence we have to show
how quickly so many of these chronic diseases can be
reversed and and and the only side effects, unlike most
things we do, are are good ones. Tein you you've
said that, and you know I'm a vegetarian forever and
(16:04):
totally support everything you say. But you've said that a
vegetarian diet may not make you live longer, but it
will feel like you're living longer just because it's so painful.
How in do you, guys, how do you an and
make this a pleasurable experience? So if you're living to
a ripe old age, it's not torture eating your kale
and carrots. You know better than anyone, how I mean,
(16:26):
I've been in your home, your your food is your
your refridgerators are stocked with the most delicious food. That
was actually quote from Mark Twain, who I think. He said, doctor,
if I give up wind, women and song, whill I
live longer? And he said no, it may seem longer.
He said, well, I may give up singing. You know, um,
but you know you can eat. You can eat bad
I mean healthy food that's delicious, and unhealthy food that's not.
It's really great. Chefs know how to make great food
(16:48):
at least, so you're an awesome chef. I mean, you
know you know better than anyone. And do you want
to add to that, Well, it's also never been easier
to eat this way and have a taste delicious. I
mean there's not. It's hard to find a rest front
that doesn't offer some kind of vegetarian um often and
often even vegan. So I think a lot of it
is having your intention line up with your UM, your
(17:11):
your habits, so to the extent that you can shop
at UM the store and stock up in your car,
at your at the office, by your desk, UM, in
your purse, wherever you have can have snacks, so you
make it easy to to make the healthy choice. In fact,
um we have a whole appendix section in the in
the book that has commercially available frozen foods, so you
(17:35):
can have these in your freezer and pull out a
frozen meal. Uh. There's you know, tons of you know
of of products that we don't have any um financial
agreements with, but they're in targets and safe way and
Kroger's every commercially available store no matter where you live,
even seven elevens. Um. They're making it easier to eat
(17:58):
this way and for it to to delicious. So it's
finding what you like the plant based meats that are
out there. If you like sausage, you like burgers, you
like meatballs, um, there are plant based analogs to those
that to me taste so much better. I mean a
lot of It is not only how it tastes as
um it hits your your palate, but also how it
(18:20):
energizes you, how you feel after you've eaten it and
for the hour two afterwards, how it feels to digest
those things when you sleep at night. So for me,
those benefits are first of all, I think it tastes
so much better because um, your palate does adjust to
um too, appreciating the the ingredients and not just meat,
(18:44):
but the spices that you use. And how those things
are prepared so that the oil doesn't overwhelm or the
sauces don't overwhelm to the extent that we can eat
um from the farmers markets that you might be able
to take advantage of. The fresh foods are the most
flavorful foods, So eating this way, I think is the
(19:05):
most flavorful and it to me creates um instant energy
throughout the day. And let me just laughing because there's
one of the scenes, one of the things in the
first chapter that I mentioned as a as a scene
from an upcoming movie that James Cameron and Luisa Huios
did called Game Changers. And James Cameron, you know, the
legendary director did Titanic and Avatar and terminated all those
(19:27):
great movies, went on a whole foods plant based diet
about ten years ago with his wife Susy, and he
did initially for they did it for environmental reasons because,
as you know, what's good for you is good for
the planet, and that more global warming is caused by
livestock consumption than all forms of transportation combined, and it
takes fourteen times more resources to make a pound of
meat based protein than plant based protein, so no one
(19:48):
really need go hungry if enough people moved to a
plant based diet. But you know, the big misconception is,
you know what, as you mentioned Lisa, it's like, am
I gonna live longer? Is it gonna seem longer? Am
I gonna be a woss? You know? I need need
to be manly and wrong or womanly and strong and um.
So they they did this great scene with these three. Well, first,
the whole movie is about how elite athletes have raised
(20:10):
their game when they went on a plant based die.
They became Olympic medalists and mixed martial artist national champions
and heavweight boxers and NFL superstars like Tom Brady and others.
But this is one scene where they have these three
elite guys athletes in their mid twenties, and they feed
them a single meat based meal, and they have a
urologist mentioned measure the frequency and hardness of their erections
(20:34):
that they have at night when they sleep. It's a
normal function. Guys have keeps everything, all the plumbing in order.
Uh and uh moment, You've written about that and done
shows about that, and they've measured that, and then they
gave them, and this was organic chicken and beef and
our plant you know, really high grass fed beef and
so on. And then they did the same thing the
next night with a single plant based meal and measure
(20:54):
them again, and they found that all three of them
had three to five more frequent erections intend to harder
erections after a single plant based meal than a single
meat based meal. In fact, the film crew went on
a plant based side after filming that. And I say
that because it shows how powerful and how dynamic these
mechanisms are. We need to get away from im eating
today to prevent something really bad from happening years down
(21:16):
the road. That's not really sustainable. But food, you know,
if it makes you feel good, if it makes your
sexual function better, you know, fun and pleasure and love
and feeling good are really what makes the sustainable. And
because these mechanisms are so dynamic, when you make these
changes to the degree you make them at any age,
most people find they feel so much better so quickly,
(21:38):
and as and mentioned, you literally connect the dots between
what you do and how you feel. It reframes the
reason for making these changes from fear of dying or
fear that something bad might happen like a heart attack
or stroke or whatever to joy and pleasure and love
and feeling good. And that's what makes it sustainable. And
you know, and I can tell you know, and you know.
Your brain gets more blood, you think more clearly, you
(21:59):
have more enter you. You can actually grow so many
new brain yards. Your brain can get bigger, your skin
gets more blood, you look younger, your heart gets more blood,
you can reverse heart disease or sexual organs, get more
blood flowing. For many people, these are choices worth making.
And you literally connect the dots as answered, I want
to do this, I feel good when I do that,
I don't feel so good. So let me do more
of this and less out of that. And because it
(22:20):
comes out of your own experience, then you really believe
it and you know it's true. More questions after the break.
You mentioned sex a couple of times in that last
your last answer, And I just want to go there
(22:42):
because most health books will have a dietary component and
an exercise component, and a stress modification component, and you
add one more, which is love more, which doesn't really
seem to be the typical health um plant form. So
can you just explain why why love more. Isn't that Well,
(23:04):
I like and to and to talk about that, but
love more includes sex or romantic love, but it's not
limited to that. But you know, study after study has
shown that people who are lonely and depressed and isolated,
which I think is the real epidemic on our culture,
which is what how we got to this discussion at
the beginning, how I got involved in this that sense
of depression are three people are lonely and depressed are
(23:25):
three to ten times more likely to get sick and
die prematurely from virtually all causes when compared to those
who have a sense of love and connection community. And
I don't know anything that has that powerful and impact.
So and you want to talk more about that. I
think it really comes back to what we're talking about
initially of you know, why are you motivated to live
longer better? And this is what really unlocks that is
(23:49):
an expression of self love, loving yourself well enough to
um to to foster and cultivate your highest, healthiest self.
So you know, when we have that sense of curiosity
and compassion for ourselves, why am I making the lifestyle
choices that I do? Why do I um hang out
(24:11):
with the people that I do and talk about the
things that that we do, and therefore have the behaviors
that we do a lot of it can be on
autopilot without us um really feeling gratified by those choices.
But when we have enough curiosity and self awareness to
connect those doughts and to love ourselves with that sense
(24:35):
of compassion, it's only then that we can have more
loving and compassionate relations with others. You know. It's I
think my Angela who said, you know, be be wary
of the person who tells you I love you, but
they don't love themselves. Uh. It has to be an
inside job. All of this is a very inside job.
(24:55):
We can have very well intended uh doctors, spouses, as friends,
colleagues say, you know, you really should eat this way,
you really should walk more, you know, stress less, these
kinds of things. But until we've had we've accumulated enough,
you know, decisions behaviors that lead to our own very
(25:16):
personal suffering, and we're just sick of it. I said,
you know, literally and figuratively, say enough, I don't like
feeling this way. I want to try something more. I
want to I want to be a better version of myself.
That really starts turning the tide, and the ripple effect
goes into maybe I'll start eating this. Well, this seems like,
(25:38):
you know, low hanging fruit, so to speak. And then
you start to feel a little bit better. Said, I'm
gonna get up, start moving more, and and oh my gosh,
I'm a lot really stressed out. I want to actually
calm my nervous system, have more of an anchor throughout
my day, UM, have more clarity and connection with those
around me. All of this starts from a moment of
(26:01):
loving ourselves more and so there's a lot of ways
that we can do that by um starting even with
gratitude for for where we are, what we have those
around us. That is a very powerful this is these
are subtle but very significant ways in which we start
to transform our life. Yeah, the you know, the heart
(26:23):
pumps as you remember, the heart pumps blood to itself
first so that it can take care of the rest
of the body. So when you love your you can't
give what you don't have. When you love yourself, you
have that much more love to give. And our work
is really all about saying what's the cause. And clearly
information is important. That's why your shows are so important
that you and Lisa do. But it's usually not enough
because I mean, if it were, nobody would smoke. It's
(26:44):
not like you say, hey, did you know smoking is
bad for you? Today We're gonna teach you something you
didn't know. You know, It's like it's not every pack
of cigarettes, and and uh, I've had patients say, you know,
I'd ask people, I say, why do you smoke and
overeat and drink too much and work too hard and
abuse opioids and blah bla blah, pay with too many games.
These behaviors seems so maladaptive. They say, you don't get
a dean. These behaviors serve very adaptive. The hip us
(27:05):
deal with our loneliness, our depression. I've had patients say
things like, I've got twenty friends of this pack of cigarettes,
and they're always there for me, and nobody else is.
You know you're gonna take away my twenty friends. Or
food fills the void or fat coats my nerves and
numbs the pain, or opioids or alcohol or other drugs
number the pain, or video games numb the pain, or
working all the time numbs the pain. And so we've
learned that information is important, and focusing on behavior is important,
(27:28):
but if we can focus on the deeper issues, that
sense of love and connection and community, that anything that
brings us together is healing, you know, whether it's romantic
love or whether it's having a dog, or just spending
time and at the time that we spend with our
friends and family isn't a luxury to do after we've
done all the important stuff, that it really is the
important stuff. And when we work at that level, we
find that people are much more likely to make and
(27:50):
maintain lifestyle choices that are life enhancing than ones that
are self destructive. In our closing moments, I wanted to
give you a platform, Dean, because you did a lot
of the pioneering work in this tip. Help explain why
this really matters to your body. There's a unifying hypothesis.
You know, you cover four steps. By the way, I
should brag about this a little bit in undo it.
There are four steps that the DNA and have divided
(28:12):
this battle into. But the biggest, biggest epiphany that I've
had from all this is that you can't separate heart disease, stroke, cancer,
autoimmune problems, and testinals there's an overarching relationship they have,
and if you could just give us a quick summary
of that will be hugely helpful for the listeners. Yeah,
(28:33):
the radical unifying theory that we put forth in this
new book is that these are all the same diseases
manifesting in different forms because they all share the same
underlying biological mechanisms. That's one reason why you often see
that patients have there what are called co morbidity, is
they'll have the same multiple disease of high blood pressure,
high cholesterol, overweight, diabetes, and heart disease, for example. And
(28:53):
yet it's not it's because they're they're really the same
disease masquerading in different forms, and so it radically simplifies
what we have to do. Eat well, move more, stress less,
love more boom. That's it. The more diseases we study,
the more mechanisms we look at, the more evidence we
show that these same simple changes. It's not like there's
one thing for this disease and this one for that one.
(29:13):
It's the same for all of them. And when you
do them, first of all, you can normally help reverse
these diseases, but you can actually if you can reverse it,
then you can prevent it. It's the ounce of prevention
and pound of cure. It takes a lot less energy
to prevent something, but more than the point, you feel
so much better in ways that matter most. You know,
we're all going to die. The mortality rate is still
(29:34):
it's one per person. So me, the question is how
well we live, not just how long we live. And
this is These are lifestyle choices that we talk about
in our new book That lies so much more joyful
and meaningful and juicy and loving and sweet as well
as healthy. So you give us the four steps, it
was heard, love more, the three eat well, the whole foods,
plant based diet, low and fat and sugar um, Move more,
(29:57):
you know, half an hour of walking or whatever, exercise perfectly,
some strength training and stretching in there as well, Uh,
stress less, not simply to avoid stress, but to manage
it more effectively. The kind of techniques that end so
beautifully talked about, stretching, breathing, meditation, those simple techniques, just
a few minutes a day can make your fews longer
and love more. It's as simple as that, you know,
(30:19):
They're The book begins with by one of my favorite
quotes by Albert Einstein, which is, if you can't make
it simple, you don't understand it well enough. And by
having spent four decades doing this work, we just really
got it down to its essence. Here I want to
applaud you and for doing a wonderful job bring it
all together into one tone, and applaud you also for
changing the way our nation sees heart disease in particular,
(30:41):
but chronic illness in general, which you've done by creating
these programs are now used all around the country. Um,
these orders plans to reverse. And when I you reverse,
Just to be clear, is that that all the plaque disappears,
Is that the problems they come from the plaque and
other issues and your arteries are remarkably diminished. And when
you have people walking around who were on heart transplarent
us and not doing so well, they don't need really
(31:02):
much of anything except to love more. They could have
done the first three steps so well. It's a tribute
to your accomplishments. So congratulations to both of you. Again.
In the book Undo It, you can find out lots
more from the orders to his wife and in this book,
and you also figure out because subtitle is how simple
lifestyle changes can reverse most chronic diseases. This is not
an airplane cock but you're walking into These are simple,
observable steps. Um. To quote Einstein again from UH via Dean,
(31:27):
it's you know, if you really understand it well, then
everyone can get it. And that's what he's done. God
bless you and deep out to you and Lisa for
continuing to raise awareness. We're really grateful and even more
for your friends. Bless you, thank you, thank you, Lisa,
When you make big changes in your lifestyle, what we eat,
how we respond to stress, and which exercise, how much
love and support we get, or to reduce it to
its essence, to eat well, move more, stress less, love more.
The more diseases we study, and the more mechanisms we
look at, the more reasons we have to show why
how quickly you can feel better in ways that matter most. Hi,
(00:46):
I'm Dr Oz and this is the Doctor Oz Podcast.
He's a pioneer in lifestyle medicine who is challenging and
changing the status quo of how we treat disease, arguing
that we all have the power to transport our faith
simply by the choices we make every single day. Dr
Dean Ornish has been a driving force and inspiration to
me since my early days in medical school. Today, Dean
(01:08):
and his wife Annie and not Anie are joining us
today that to reveal how we can all press our
inner undue button for better health in their new book
Undo It, how simple lifestyle changes can reverse most chronic diseases.
And Dean, thanks for being here. I've at least with
me as well. We've gotta pepper you with questions and
time we have together. Thank you. It's a pleasure undo.
(01:29):
It's beautifully written. Before I dive into the book itself,
I love Dean if you can share a tiny bit
about the suffering that you've experienced it and how it's
helped you transform yourself, but also the message you have
to so many. You have the only, to my knowledge,
Medicare approved program for people recovering from heart disease to
hopefully prevent it from having more problems. To get that
(01:50):
done took decades of hard work, solid data, and rolling
up the big rock uphill, because most folks didn't think
that there was enough what you were saying to believe
in it, to validate it, to pay for it. And
now we know that it does that all caused it
took his toll. Well, that was a different kind of suffering.
But I think what you're referring to is the what
(02:12):
it really got me interested in doing this work in
the first place. And this was long, long ago, in
a galaxy far far away, when I was a freshman
in college at Rice University in Houston, and um I
got suicidly depressed when I was there, and I it's
a long story, but the short version is is that
I felt like I was stupid. That now I was
at a school with a bunch of really smart people.
It was just a matter of found time before they
(02:34):
figured out that they made a mistake in letting me in.
And and and worse than that, I had a spiritual crisis,
which was that I realized that nothing can really bring
lasting happiness. And so the combination of feeling like I
was never going to mount to anything, and even if
I did, it wouldn't matter, I thought. I looked around
and thought, well, you know, dead people look like they're peaceful.
Maybe I'll just do myself in and would have done so.
Came about as close to doing that as you can
(02:56):
without actually falling through with it. Um but I got
so run down and sick. I got such a horrible
case of infectious monon nucleosis that I didn't really have
the energy to even to get out of bed. Meanwhile,
my parents realized that I wasn't doing well, came down,
went home to Dallas to recuperate, and my plan was
to get well enough to kill myself, as crazy as
that sounds. Meanwhile, my older sister had been a child
(03:17):
of the sixties. This was back in nineteen seventy two.
Um had benefited from studying with an ecumenical spiritual teacher
named Swamy Sacha Nanda, who, by the way, went like
to make puns, and when people said, what do you
a hint do, he'd say, no, I'm an undo, which
is part of why the title of this book is
kind of an homage to that Um. And he said,
he came a little lecture and this was really weird
(03:38):
in Dallas in nineteen I mean today it'd be weird,
but especially back in nineteen seventy two having a swami
coming to your home and having a cocktail party for him.
But anyway, he gave us soughts on electure in our
living room, and he started off by saying, nothing can
bring you lasting happiness, which I'd already figured out, except
I was ready to do myself in and he looked,
he was glowing, and he went on to say what
really turned my life around, Um, which is that nothing
(04:00):
can bring us that, but that we already are. We're
born happy are our nature is to be happy and
peaceful and unusually healthy, and not being mindful of that,
we often run after so many things. The whole advertising
industry reinforces that if only you had more whatever, more money,
more power, and more beauty and more accomplishment, then you'd
be happy. Then you'd be healthy, then you wouldn't be
so lonely. Then people would love you, and then everything
(04:22):
would be good. And once you set up that view
of the world, however, it turns out, usually don't feel
so good because until you get it, you feel stressed.
If someone else gets it and you don't, then you
feel really bad. And even if you get it in
the moment, it's very seductive, it's like, oh my god,
it it's great, but it's soon followed more often than
not by either now what, it's never enough, or so
(04:42):
what big deal? It doesn't really provide that lasting sense
of meaning. So one patient said, you know, the letdown
that comes from accomplishing a goal is so great. I
always make sure I've got a dozen projects going at
the same time. And so what these practices do, whether
secular or religious, meditation and yoga and prayer, whatever form
you do them in, is that they don't bring us
a sense of peace. They don't just simply help us
(05:03):
cope with stress better, but rather they quiet down our
mind and body to allow us to experience more of
an inner sense of peace and joy and well being
and to realize that's our natural state and then that
I mean, it may sound like we're parsing words here,
but the implications are that if we have to get
it from outside, ourselves and everyone and everything that we
think we need has power over us. But to the
(05:24):
degree that we have it already, then it empowers us.
And then the question changes from how can I get
what I think I need to how can I stop
disturbing what I already have? And so you know, when
you when you and I were both trained as doctors,
we were we weren't trained to see suffering as a
doorway for transformation, but it really is, because, as you know,
(05:45):
change is hard, but if you're hurting enough, then the
idea of change can become more motivating. As it was
for me my doorways it was depression. Someone else it
might be a heart attack, or it might be a
diagnosis of cancer or Alzheimer's or something like that, and
in that moment there's a motivational opportunity to say, look,
we've learned in forty years of research, this is what
(06:06):
our new book is really about. These underlying biological mechanisms
are so dynamic that when you make big changes in
your lifestyle, what we eat, how we respond to stress,
how much exercise, how much love and support we get,
or to reduce it to its essence to eat well,
move more, stress less, love more. The more diseases we
study and the more mechanisms we look at, the more
(06:28):
reasons we have to show why how quickly you can
feel better in ways that matter most. And you know,
I'm sure you've had patients who have told you the
same thing, that having a heart attack was the best
thing that ever happened. The first time somebody told me that,
I'd say, what do you nuts? And they'd say, no,
that's what it took to get my attention to begin
making these changes that have transformed my life. But so
often we're not really trained to take advantage of that.
(06:50):
We're trying to just use surgery or drugs or other
kind of fixes like that without really helping people see
that as an opportunity for real transformation. And that's really
what our book is about. So the wisdom that you
have in and offer and undo it is you go
through it reinforcing and validating to folks who figured it out.
But I'm always done that many people haven't and are
(07:13):
still struggling. Into your point, the wake up call of
a heart problem or stroke, or just about any major
health crisis is often uh appreciated by some, but not
by all. And why do you think the emotional connection
to our health is so overlooked in Western medicine? Why
is it so hardwired to not be observed? Well, I
(07:35):
think that, especially these days, it's a matter of just
being so overwhelmed with what's going on around us. And
that's what the power of meditation um is to just
take a moment here and there throughout our day to
relax and relieve our stress, which then allows us to
raise our self awareness so that we can tap into
(07:58):
you know, why do we want to live longer? Why
do we want to make healthier choices? So to the
extent that we are in touch with our motivation to
you know, be in touch with what arises for us
when we reflect on what are the moments and the
people that inspire us to to live longer, to live better.
(08:20):
When we connect those dots between what we do and
how it makes us feel, then we can intentionally make
healthier choices to do the things that we love with
the people that we love, and it becomes immediately self
fulfilling and therefore sustainable. So when we have the self
awareness and compassion for ourselves to do so, then it
(08:46):
makes it easier to imbue our choices with meaning and
therefore making it more sustainable. So it goes back to
not to be assumed that everybody does want to live
longer and better. Uh, that that's why we have the
high levels of addiction and depression that we do, so
(09:07):
to the extent that we can make those moments for
self reflection and connect those dots for us in a
very personal way. We it's it's a very personal question
what motivates you. But once you once you identify what
that is for yourself, it can become incredibly empowering. Yeah.
I think the other thing you touched on earlier moment
(09:28):
was that, um, this the medical system has its evolved.
We have eight to ten minutes with a patient and
there's really not much time to talk about what matters
most when you only have such a short time. You
go through the electronic medical record. The problem with listening
to the heart lungs write a prescription, it's really not
satisfying for the doctor or the patient. That's why I
spent sixteen years to try to finally get UM for
(09:52):
which we're really grateful CMS to provide Medicare coverage and
create a new benefit category. So now instead of a
ten that a visit, it's a seventy two hour visit.
And as you know, we've been working together with share
Cares who train hospitals and clinics and physician groups and
health systems around the country and it's working. We're getting
bigger changes in lifestyle, better clinical outcomes, bigger cost savings,
(10:12):
and better adherence than anyone's ever shown. And so often
when people people are put on drugs to lower their
cholesterol or their blood pressure or their blood sugar and
they say, you know, doctor, how long do I have
to take these? The doctor usually says forever. And as
you know, sometimes when I lecture, I show a cartoon
of doctors busily mopping up the floor around a synchronce
overflowing It's like, how long do I have to mop
up the floor, like forever? Why don't we just turn
(10:34):
off the faucet? And so listeners should know that under
their doctor's supervision when they follow these changes that we
talk about in our new book. Many people can reduce
or get off these medications, can avoid surgery that the
otherwise want have had. And it's not only medically effective,
but it saves a lot of money in the short
run as well. There's lots more will be come back.
(11:05):
Let's get into the concretes of the elements of this plant.
So obviously be motivated, having a way of figuring out
why you're doing it as vital. But then there the
actual specific steps. I remember, uh, when dr Atkins was
still alive, you battled him uh and cordially on his
philosophy on weight loss and and what was the benefit
(11:27):
of weight loss it it was done the right way
versus the wrong way. And we're back now in in
the midst of a low carb, high fat craze with
keto diets and paleo diets. What about these diets do
you not like? And walk us through what you have
found to be successful in reducing the inflammation and the
complications of authros clurosis that often result from the the
(11:47):
sad standard American diet. Right, No, I did die. I
I debated dr Atkins many times in fact that the
American Colls of Cardiology in front of like four thousand
doctors years ago. Um, I stopped doing those kinds of
the baits and it's you know, um, he was the
low carb guy, so I got pegged as the low
fat guy. But it's never been about just fat. It's
a it's a whole foods plant based diet, fruits, vegetables,
(12:09):
whole grains, legumes in their natural forms, low fat and
low sugar. Um. And we need to get past this
whole fat versus carbs debate. I mean, you know, dr Atkins,
they say slipped and hit his head, but his autopsy
result was published and it showed that he died in
massive heart failure. And I'd love to be able to
tell people that Atkins or keto or a paleo diet,
which are really just different incarnations of the same thing,
(12:31):
are good for you, but they're not. And you can
lose weight on it, but you can lose weight in
lots of ways that aren't healthy. You know, smoking cigarettes
is a good way to lose weight, chemotherapy, getting suicide depresses.
I lost a lot of weight and not not not
something i'd recommend, um, But you want to lose weight
in a way that's healthy, and one of the diagrams
that we show in our book is from a New
Land Journal of Medicine article by Stephen Smith that reviewed
(12:52):
different diets and it showed what happens in your arteries
on different diets, and what they found was that um
in a whole it's plant based diet, like we've been
talking about, your arteries are clean, the blood's flowing, there's
no blockages there. As you mentioned a standard American diet,
which has the great acronym of a SAD diet, they're
partially clogged, and on a keto Paleo Atkins die they're
(13:13):
severely clogged. Even if you lose weight or and even
if sometimes if your triglysrides go down. And yet we
found that you can lose even more weight and have
even more improvement in in your in your chemistries by
making these changes and instead of mortgaging your health and
it enhances it. And one of the things that we
talked about in this new book is what I call
a unifying theory, and that is that I was trained
like you were, and like all doctors were, to view
(13:35):
heart disease and diabetes and process cancer and so on,
is as being fundamentally different you know, different diseases, different diagnoses,
different treatments, But I've come to believe that they're really
the same disease, manifesting and masquerading in different forms. And
I say that because they all share the same underlying
biological mechanisms. You mentioned chronic inflammation, but also oxidative stress,
(13:58):
changes in the microbiome and gene expression and telomeres and
angiogenesis and so on. And each one of these mechanisms
is directly influenced by what we eat, how we respond
to stress, how much exercise we get, and how much
love and support we have, and how quickly these changes
can occur for better and for worse. And and it's
not just the fat versus the carbs. The animal protein
(14:19):
itself seems to activate all of these mechanisms. And so
when you go on a plant based diet, you actually
reduce all of these diseases. And we found that with
all this talk about personalized medicine, I mean, if you're
talking about, you know, a targeted immunotherapy for a particular
pancreatic cancer cell line, it's awesome, But for the vast
majority of chronic diseases, it was the same lifestyle program
(14:40):
over forty years of research. Which I think really sets
our work apart from everyone else is that we've actually
proven these things can actually reverse heart disease, diabetes, process cancer,
high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Change your genes, turn you know.
We did a publishing study with Craig Ventor, who first
decoded the human genome. Over five genes were changed in
just three months, turning on the good genes, turning off
(15:02):
the bad jeans. We did a study with Dr Elizabeth Blackburn,
who got the Nobel Prize for discovering telomeres, ends of
our chromosomes that regulate how long we live. We showed
for the first time these same lifestyle changes could lengthen
your telomeres. And when we published this in the lance
of the premier international medical journal, they the editors called
it reversing aging at a cellular level. And we're now
(15:22):
doing the first randomized trial to see if we can
actually reverse the progression of early stage Alzheimer's disease. I
think we're in a place with Alzheimer's where we were
with heart disease forty years ago. We have every reason
to think that it might work. And since there are
no good drugs for treating it or for preventing it.
It would be really exciting if we can show that.
And by the way, if any listeners happen to live
in the San Francisco Bay area, we're still recruiting patients
(15:44):
for that. It's all done at and no cost to you.
So the more diseases we study, and the more mechanisms
we look at, the more evidence we have to show
how quickly so many of these chronic diseases can be
reversed and and and the only side effects, unlike most
things we do, are are good ones. Tein you you've
said that, and you know I'm a vegetarian forever and
(16:04):
totally support everything you say. But you've said that a
vegetarian diet may not make you live longer, but it
will feel like you're living longer just because it's so painful.
How in do you, guys, how do you an and
make this a pleasurable experience? So if you're living to
a ripe old age, it's not torture eating your kale
and carrots. You know better than anyone, how I mean,
(16:26):
I've been in your home, your your food is your
your refridgerators are stocked with the most delicious food. That
was actually quote from Mark Twain, who I think. He said, doctor,
if I give up wind, women and song, whill I
live longer? And he said no, it may seem longer.
He said, well, I may give up singing. You know, um,
but you know you can eat. You can eat bad
I mean healthy food that's delicious, and unhealthy food that's not.
It's really great. Chefs know how to make great food
(16:48):
at least, so you're an awesome chef. I mean, you
know you know better than anyone. And do you want
to add to that, Well, it's also never been easier
to eat this way and have a taste delicious. I
mean there's not. It's hard to find a rest front
that doesn't offer some kind of vegetarian um often and
often even vegan. So I think a lot of it
is having your intention line up with your UM, your
(17:11):
your habits, so to the extent that you can shop
at UM the store and stock up in your car,
at your at the office, by your desk, UM, in
your purse, wherever you have can have snacks, so you
make it easy to to make the healthy choice. In fact,
um we have a whole appendix section in the in
the book that has commercially available frozen foods, so you
(17:35):
can have these in your freezer and pull out a
frozen meal. Uh. There's you know, tons of you know
of of products that we don't have any um financial
agreements with, but they're in targets and safe way and
Kroger's every commercially available store no matter where you live,
even seven elevens. Um. They're making it easier to eat
(17:58):
this way and for it to to delicious. So it's
finding what you like the plant based meats that are
out there. If you like sausage, you like burgers, you
like meatballs, um, there are plant based analogs to those
that to me taste so much better. I mean a
lot of It is not only how it tastes as
um it hits your your palate, but also how it
(18:20):
energizes you, how you feel after you've eaten it and
for the hour two afterwards, how it feels to digest
those things when you sleep at night. So for me,
those benefits are first of all, I think it tastes
so much better because um, your palate does adjust to
um too, appreciating the the ingredients and not just meat,
(18:44):
but the spices that you use. And how those things
are prepared so that the oil doesn't overwhelm or the
sauces don't overwhelm to the extent that we can eat
um from the farmers markets that you might be able
to take advantage of. The fresh foods are the most
flavorful foods, So eating this way, I think is the
(19:05):
most flavorful and it to me creates um instant energy
throughout the day. And let me just laughing because there's
one of the scenes, one of the things in the
first chapter that I mentioned as a as a scene
from an upcoming movie that James Cameron and Luisa Huios
did called Game Changers. And James Cameron, you know, the
legendary director did Titanic and Avatar and terminated all those
(19:27):
great movies, went on a whole foods plant based diet
about ten years ago with his wife Susy, and he
did initially for they did it for environmental reasons because,
as you know, what's good for you is good for
the planet, and that more global warming is caused by
livestock consumption than all forms of transportation combined, and it
takes fourteen times more resources to make a pound of
meat based protein than plant based protein, so no one
(19:48):
really need go hungry if enough people moved to a
plant based diet. But you know, the big misconception is,
you know what, as you mentioned Lisa, it's like, am
I gonna live longer? Is it gonna seem longer? Am
I gonna be a woss? You know? I need need
to be manly and wrong or womanly and strong and um.
So they they did this great scene with these three. Well, first,
the whole movie is about how elite athletes have raised
(20:10):
their game when they went on a plant based die.
They became Olympic medalists and mixed martial artist national champions
and heavweight boxers and NFL superstars like Tom Brady and others.
But this is one scene where they have these three
elite guys athletes in their mid twenties, and they feed
them a single meat based meal, and they have a
urologist mentioned measure the frequency and hardness of their erections
(20:34):
that they have at night when they sleep. It's a
normal function. Guys have keeps everything, all the plumbing in order.
Uh and uh moment, You've written about that and done
shows about that, and they've measured that, and then they
gave them, and this was organic chicken and beef and
our plant you know, really high grass fed beef and
so on. And then they did the same thing the
next night with a single plant based meal and measure
(20:54):
them again, and they found that all three of them
had three to five more frequent erections intend to harder
erections after a single plant based meal than a single
meat based meal. In fact, the film crew went on
a plant based side after filming that. And I say
that because it shows how powerful and how dynamic these
mechanisms are. We need to get away from im eating
today to prevent something really bad from happening years down
(21:16):
the road. That's not really sustainable. But food, you know,
if it makes you feel good, if it makes your
sexual function better, you know, fun and pleasure and love
and feeling good are really what makes the sustainable. And
because these mechanisms are so dynamic, when you make these
changes to the degree you make them at any age,
most people find they feel so much better so quickly,
(21:38):
and as and mentioned, you literally connect the dots between
what you do and how you feel. It reframes the
reason for making these changes from fear of dying or
fear that something bad might happen like a heart attack
or stroke or whatever to joy and pleasure and love
and feeling good. And that's what makes it sustainable. And
you know, and I can tell you know, and you know.
Your brain gets more blood, you think more clearly, you
(21:59):
have more enter you. You can actually grow so many
new brain yards. Your brain can get bigger, your skin
gets more blood, you look younger, your heart gets more blood,
you can reverse heart disease or sexual organs, get more
blood flowing. For many people, these are choices worth making.
And you literally connect the dots as answered, I want
to do this, I feel good when I do that,
I don't feel so good. So let me do more
of this and less out of that. And because it
(22:20):
comes out of your own experience, then you really believe
it and you know it's true. More questions after the break.
You mentioned sex a couple of times in that last
your last answer, And I just want to go there
(22:42):
because most health books will have a dietary component and
an exercise component, and a stress modification component, and you
add one more, which is love more, which doesn't really
seem to be the typical health um plant form. So
can you just explain why why love more. Isn't that Well,
(23:04):
I like and to and to talk about that, but
love more includes sex or romantic love, but it's not
limited to that. But you know, study after study has
shown that people who are lonely and depressed and isolated,
which I think is the real epidemic on our culture,
which is what how we got to this discussion at
the beginning, how I got involved in this that sense
of depression are three people are lonely and depressed are
(23:25):
three to ten times more likely to get sick and
die prematurely from virtually all causes when compared to those
who have a sense of love and connection community. And
I don't know anything that has that powerful and impact.
So and you want to talk more about that. I
think it really comes back to what we're talking about
initially of you know, why are you motivated to live
longer better? And this is what really unlocks that is
(23:49):
an expression of self love, loving yourself well enough to
um to to foster and cultivate your highest, healthiest self.
So you know, when we have that sense of curiosity
and compassion for ourselves, why am I making the lifestyle
choices that I do? Why do I um hang out
(24:11):
with the people that I do and talk about the
things that that we do, and therefore have the behaviors
that we do a lot of it can be on
autopilot without us um really feeling gratified by those choices.
But when we have enough curiosity and self awareness to
connect those doughts and to love ourselves with that sense
(24:35):
of compassion, it's only then that we can have more
loving and compassionate relations with others. You know. It's I
think my Angela who said, you know, be be wary
of the person who tells you I love you, but
they don't love themselves. Uh. It has to be an
inside job. All of this is a very inside job.
(24:55):
We can have very well intended uh doctors, spouses, as friends,
colleagues say, you know, you really should eat this way,
you really should walk more, you know, stress less, these
kinds of things. But until we've had we've accumulated enough,
you know, decisions behaviors that lead to our own very
(25:16):
personal suffering, and we're just sick of it. I said,
you know, literally and figuratively, say enough, I don't like
feeling this way. I want to try something more. I
want to I want to be a better version of myself.
That really starts turning the tide, and the ripple effect
goes into maybe I'll start eating this. Well, this seems like,
(25:38):
you know, low hanging fruit, so to speak. And then
you start to feel a little bit better. Said, I'm
gonna get up, start moving more, and and oh my gosh,
I'm a lot really stressed out. I want to actually
calm my nervous system, have more of an anchor throughout
my day, UM, have more clarity and connection with those
around me. All of this starts from a moment of
(26:01):
loving ourselves more and so there's a lot of ways
that we can do that by um starting even with
gratitude for for where we are, what we have those
around us. That is a very powerful this is these
are subtle but very significant ways in which we start
to transform our life. Yeah, the you know, the heart
(26:23):
pumps as you remember, the heart pumps blood to itself
first so that it can take care of the rest
of the body. So when you love your you can't
give what you don't have. When you love yourself, you
have that much more love to give. And our work
is really all about saying what's the cause. And clearly
information is important. That's why your shows are so important
that you and Lisa do. But it's usually not enough
because I mean, if it were, nobody would smoke. It's
(26:44):
not like you say, hey, did you know smoking is
bad for you? Today We're gonna teach you something you
didn't know. You know, It's like it's not every pack
of cigarettes, and and uh, I've had patients say, you know,
I'd ask people, I say, why do you smoke and
overeat and drink too much and work too hard and
abuse opioids and blah bla blah, pay with too many games.
These behaviors seems so maladaptive. They say, you don't get
a dean. These behaviors serve very adaptive. The hip us
(27:05):
deal with our loneliness, our depression. I've had patients say
things like, I've got twenty friends of this pack of cigarettes,
and they're always there for me, and nobody else is.
You know you're gonna take away my twenty friends. Or
food fills the void or fat coats my nerves and
numbs the pain, or opioids or alcohol or other drugs
number the pain, or video games numb the pain, or
working all the time numbs the pain. And so we've
learned that information is important, and focusing on behavior is important,
(27:28):
but if we can focus on the deeper issues, that
sense of love and connection and community, that anything that
brings us together is healing, you know, whether it's romantic
love or whether it's having a dog, or just spending
time and at the time that we spend with our
friends and family isn't a luxury to do after we've
done all the important stuff, that it really is the
important stuff. And when we work at that level, we
find that people are much more likely to make and
(27:50):
maintain lifestyle choices that are life enhancing than ones that
are self destructive. In our closing moments, I wanted to
give you a platform, Dean, because you did a lot
of the pioneering work in this tip. Help explain why
this really matters to your body. There's a unifying hypothesis.
You know, you cover four steps. By the way, I
should brag about this a little bit in undo it.
There are four steps that the DNA and have divided
(28:12):
this battle into. But the biggest, biggest epiphany that I've
had from all this is that you can't separate heart disease, stroke, cancer,
autoimmune problems, and testinals there's an overarching relationship they have,
and if you could just give us a quick summary
of that will be hugely helpful for the listeners. Yeah,
(28:33):
the radical unifying theory that we put forth in this
new book is that these are all the same diseases
manifesting in different forms because they all share the same
underlying biological mechanisms. That's one reason why you often see
that patients have there what are called co morbidity, is
they'll have the same multiple disease of high blood pressure,
high cholesterol, overweight, diabetes, and heart disease, for example. And
(28:53):
yet it's not it's because they're they're really the same
disease masquerading in different forms, and so it radically simplifies
what we have to do. Eat well, move more, stress less,
love more boom. That's it. The more diseases we study,
the more mechanisms we look at, the more evidence we
show that these same simple changes. It's not like there's
one thing for this disease and this one for that one.
(29:13):
It's the same for all of them. And when you
do them, first of all, you can normally help reverse
these diseases, but you can actually if you can reverse it,
then you can prevent it. It's the ounce of prevention
and pound of cure. It takes a lot less energy
to prevent something, but more than the point, you feel
so much better in ways that matter most. You know,
we're all going to die. The mortality rate is still
(29:34):
it's one per person. So me, the question is how
well we live, not just how long we live. And
this is These are lifestyle choices that we talk about
in our new book That lies so much more joyful
and meaningful and juicy and loving and sweet as well
as healthy. So you give us the four steps, it
was heard, love more, the three eat well, the whole foods,
plant based diet, low and fat and sugar um, Move more,
(29:57):
you know, half an hour of walking or whatever, exercise perfectly,
some strength training and stretching in there as well, Uh,
stress less, not simply to avoid stress, but to manage
it more effectively. The kind of techniques that end so
beautifully talked about, stretching, breathing, meditation, those simple techniques, just
a few minutes a day can make your fews longer
and love more. It's as simple as that, you know,
(30:19):
They're The book begins with by one of my favorite
quotes by Albert Einstein, which is, if you can't make
it simple, you don't understand it well enough. And by
having spent four decades doing this work, we just really
got it down to its essence. Here I want to
applaud you and for doing a wonderful job bring it
all together into one tone, and applaud you also for
changing the way our nation sees heart disease in particular,
(30:41):
but chronic illness in general, which you've done by creating
these programs are now used all around the country. Um,
these orders plans to reverse. And when I you reverse,
Just to be clear, is that that all the plaque disappears,
Is that the problems they come from the plaque and
other issues and your arteries are remarkably diminished. And when
you have people walking around who were on heart transplarent
us and not doing so well, they don't need really
(31:02):
much of anything except to love more. They could have
done the first three steps so well. It's a tribute
to your accomplishments. So congratulations to both of you. Again.
In the book Undo It, you can find out lots
more from the orders to his wife and in this book,
and you also figure out because subtitle is how simple
lifestyle changes can reverse most chronic diseases. This is not
an airplane cock but you're walking into These are simple,
observable steps. Um. To quote Einstein again from UH via Dean,
(31:27):
it's you know, if you really understand it well, then
everyone can get it. And that's what he's done. God
bless you and deep out to you and Lisa for
continuing to raise awareness. We're really grateful and even more
for your friends. Bless you, thank you, thank you, Lisa,
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