The One Where Joe Interviews Dean Ornish - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #121

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast.

Hello, everyone, this is Joe Polish, and I've got Mr. Dean Ornish joining me.

Today for this interview.

And I want to give a little bit of background on Dr. Ornish before we get into it. He's the founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and clinical professor of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. For over 35 years, Dr. Ornish has directed clinical research demonstrating for the first time that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease without drugs or surgery. He directed the first randomized controlled trial demonstrating that comprehensive lifestyle changes may stop or reverse the progression of early stage prostate cancer. He's also the author of six books, all national best sellers, including Dr. Dean Ornish's program for Reversing Heart Disease, Eat More, Weigh Less, Love, and Survival, and his most recent book, the Spectrum. He's written a monthly column for Newsweek and Reader's Digest magazines and is currently medical editor of the Huffington Post, which has nearly 45 million unique readers per month. The Ornish diet was rated number one for health heart by U.S. news and World Report in 2011 and 2012. And Dr. Ornish was appointed by President Clinton to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. And he was appointed by President Obama to the White House Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion and Integrative and public health. Dr. Ornish was honored as one of the 125 Most Extraordinary University of Texas Alumni in the past 125 years, chosen by Life magazine as one of the 50 Most Influential Members of his generation, recognized as one of the most interesting People of 1996 by People magazine and by Forbes magazine as one of the seven most powerful teachers in the world. So, Dr. Dean Ornish, welcome. It's a pleasure to be spending this time with you doing an interview.

Well, thanks, Joe. It's a pleasure being with you as well.

Yeah. And we just recently were together at a Xprize foundation visionary meeting where I've had the pleasure of meeting you for the first time. And lots of amazing people there. And you've got quite. Not only a reputation for what you do, but also a huge track record with changing people's lives. Many, many thousands, hundreds of thousands, probably in the millions of people. And so what I'd like to start with is, first of all, if someone asks, who is Dean Ornish? If for some reason they're living under a rock and they're not familiar with you, haven't heard who you are, reading your bio is one thing, but what would you tell people like, who is Dean Ornish? Maybe share some of your background and how you became who you are today.

Well, thank you. Yeah. I enjoyed the X Prize with you and it was nice that the proposal that we put forth ended up winning that on increasing funding for Alzheimer's research. So that was a lot of fun. Yeah, well, you know, we should talk about that too.

I'll bring that up a little bit because I think people should hear about that too. So. Sorry, sorry to interrupt.

So go ahead. So for the last 36 years, as you say, I've directed a series of studies showing what a powerful difference changes in diet and lifestyle can make in our lives. You know, we often think that it has to be a new drug or a new laser or something really high tech and expensive to be powerful. And in our studies, we've used high tech, expensive, state of the art scientific measures to prove what a powerful difference these simple and low tech and low cost interventions can make. As you indicated, we showed that even heart disease, even severe heart disease could actually be reversed. That within a month the blood flow to the heart can begin to improve. Within a year, even severely clogged arteries that feed the heart can become measurably less clogged. And there's even more reversal after five years than after one year. We show that we can slow, stop or reverse the progression of men with early stage prostate cancer. We can reverse type 2 diabetes, get people off of their blood pressure pills, their cholesterol lowering drugs, often their diabetes medications under their doctor's supervision, that when you change your lifestyle, it even changes your genes. Turning on the good genes that protect us, and turning off the genes, particularly the ones that cause prostate cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and so on, and even making our telomeres longer, the ends of our chromosomes that control how long we live. And so the more we look, the more we find these exquisite mechanisms that are so dynamic that our bodies have this remarkable capacity to begin healing in many cases and much more quickly than we had once thought. If we can stop doing what's causing the problem, which to a large degree are the lifestyle choices that we make each day. These include what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke, how much exercise we get, and perhaps most important, how much love and intimacy we have. And so, in a way, if you ask, who is Dean Ornish, it's someone who's done over 35 years of research proving what a powerful difference these simple changes in Diet and lifestyle can make. But what I'm really most interested in is because, you know, we're all going to die, the mortality rate is still 100%. It's not just how long we live, but how well we live and how we can use the experience of suffering, either getting diagnosed with an illness or being depressed or sad or whatever it happens to be. How we can use that as a catalyst for transforming our lives that not only improve the length of our lives and how long we live, but also how well we live. Right, right.

I mean, did you ever have a major health crisis prior to becoming a doctor? I mean, was there anything that motivated you, or have you pretty much lived a pretty clean lifestyle all along?

No. And actually, yes, I did. What got me interested in doing this was when I was a freshman in college and I was profoundly and suicidally depressed to the point I was ready to do myself in, and came about as close to doing that as a person can without actually doing that. And having survived that and realizing that a lot of these same lifestyle changes that we're talking about made such a powerful difference in my life. That was really my doorway into learning about these approaches for someone else. It might be a heart attack or it might be a diagnosis of prostate cancer or something else, but it's an opportunity that we don't usually take advantage of as doctors or healthcare professionals. We're always just busy writing a prescription or cutting people open. We're not really helping them use the experience of suffering as a catalyst or as a doorway for transforming their lives. And that's important because change is hard, as you know. But if you're in enough pain, you can help people connect the dots between what they do and how they feel, for better and for worse. And so they go, wow, when I do this, I feel really bad, and when I do this, I feel really good. So maybe I'll do more of this and less of that. Then it comes out of their own experience, and that makes it sustainable not just to live longer, to prevent something bad from happening, but more important to improve the quality of our lives, not just the length of it. Yeah, that's great.

That's great. Well, in 1977, way back when, you directed clinical research studies that proved that certain changes could not only stop the progression of coronary artery disease, but actually prevent it. And so I'd like you to talk a little bit about the research and what ultimately came out of those studies today.

Yeah, it wasn't just that you could prevent it. You could actually reverse it. That Rather than getting worse and worse or slowing down the rate at which people got worse, that they could get better and better and much more quickly than had once been thought possible. And I think these findings are giving many people new hope and new choices that they didn't have before. I got interested in doing this when I was learning how to do coronary bypass surgery with Michael debakey, the heart surgeon. And we'd cut people open, we bypass their clogged arteries more often than not. They'd go home, we'd tell them they were cured, and they would continue to do the things that had caused the problem in the first place. They'd smoke and eat junk food and not manage stress, not exercise. And then often their bypasses would clog up. We'd have to cut them open again, sometimes two or three times. So for me, bypass surgery became a metaphor of an incomplete approach, that we were literally bypassing the problem. We weren't also treating the cause. And what we found is that if we can treat the cause, as we talked about earlier, our bodies often have a remarkable capacity to begin healing. And I think that gives many people new hope and new choices. And because most people find they feel so much better so quickly, it reframes the reason for why people want to make these changes in lifestyle from just living a little longer. The old joke, am I going to live longer? Is it just going to seem longer if I eat and live healthily? Is not the case. You can feel better, enjoy life more, and you'll live longer. If we can treat people by teaching them how to change their lifestyles in healthy ways. Gotcha. Gotcha.

How much do you know or have worked with people with addictions, meaning the reason they eat, the way that they eat, or the reason that they do, the behaviors that they do that lead to these lifestyle things have to do with just a compulsion that seems to be beyond their ability to choose, versus just the whole habit of getting into a particular, be it a rut or a pattern.

It's really an important question because we found that we're getting 85 to 90% adherence to a very intensive lifestyle program after a year, Whereas the adherence to taking, like, statin drugs like Lipitor is only about 30% at three months. And the reason is that we're not just focusing on the behavior, we're focusing on what underlies the behavior. I mean, clearly, information is important, but it's not enough. If it were, nobody would smoke. It's not like people go, oh, wow, I didn't know smoking was bad. For me. Thank you for telling me that. It's on every package of cigarettes. So in doing these studies, I had a chance to spend a lot of time with the same group of patients over a period of sometimes years. And we developed a lot of trust. And I'd ask them, why do you smoke? And why do you take drugs? And why do you overeat and work too hard and drink too much and spend too much time on video games and so on? These behaviors seem so maladaptive to me. And they'd say, dean, you don't get it. You don't have a clue. These behaviors are very adaptive because they help us get through the day. The real epidemic isn't just heart disease or cancer. It's loneliness and depression and isolation. More people are taking antidepressants than any other category of drugs. And telling somebody who's lonely and depressed, as I was when I was in college, that they're going to live longer if they just quit smoking or change their diet is not that motivating. They're just trying to get through the day. And these addictions are present across the spectrum of things. People say things to me like, I've got 20 friends in this pack of cigarettes, and they're always there for me, and nobody else is. You going to take away my 20 friends? What are you going to give me? Or food fills that void? Or fat coats my nerves and numbs the pain, or drinking too much numbs the pain, or taking drugs, other drugs numbs the pain, or working all the time numbs the pain. It's a more socially acceptable way of achieving the same goal, but it's still an addiction of sorts, or video games or spending too much time surfing the web. We have lots of ways of numbing, killing, bypassing, distracting ourselves from our pain. But the pain isn't the problem. The pain's the messenger. It's saying, hey, listen up, pay attention. You're not doing something that's in your best interest. And if we just keep numbing it or killing it or bypassing it or distracting ourselves from the pain without also listening to it, then it's a little like clipping the wires to a fire alarm and going back to sleep while your house keeps burning. You just kill the messenger. You're not really treating the problem. The underlying problem just gets worse. And so in our work, we don't just give people information. We don't just tell them what to do. We don't just focus on their behaviors. We create communities where people are encouraged to talk openly and Authentically about what's really going on in their lives. Because again, the real epidemic is loneliness and depression because of the breakdown of the. You know, people used to have social networks that gave them that sense of ability to be authentic. You know, that they'd have an extended family or a neighborhood with two or three generations of people, or a job that felt secure, or a church or synagogue they went to regularly. And many people don't have any of those things. And we're realizing that study after study have shown that when people are lonely and depressed, they're three to 10 times more likely to get sick and die prematurely than those who have a sense of love and connection and community. And without them, they're much more likely to get into addictions of one sort or another.

Yeah, no, that's very interesting because my belief and experience is that so much of what ends up being a bad lifestyle, as an example, is really just a byproduct of a solution. Addiction is a solution in a lot of ways. It's not the best solution. It's horrible, could be destructive, could lead to death, not only of yourself, but other people. But it still is. It's a coping mechanism. And there's a theme that even in just what we've been talking about where you've said a couple times, you know, changing the experience of suffering. And I think that's. I think you're absolutely onto something. There is really. You've learned how to look at something as suffering that most people try to avoid and realize that's actually the core of what leads to so many other things.

Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, so often people say, oh, change is so hard. And you say, well, it is hard, but if you could help people connect the dots between what they do and how they feel for better and for worse, and then they go, oh, when I do this, I feel bad. When I do this, I feel good. Let me do more of this and less of that. And then it comes out of their own experience, not because some doctor or book or authority told them, but they can literally connect the dots between what they do and. And how they feel. I'm curious, in your own life, can you talk at all about what experiences that you've had that are consistent with that?

Oh, yeah. As far as addiction and stuff, you mean.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, when I was between the ages of 16 and 18 years old, I mean, I grew up incredibly shy probably. I don't think using the word scared would be an over exaggeration. I mean, I was very Worried, lived in constant anxiety. I've had anxiety much of my life, much of my adult life also. But I was just this really introverted kid. And my mother died when I was 4 years old of some sort of cancer, some stomach cancer. So my father never remarried. He was tormented mentally. And so every two years, my entire childhood, we would move from city to city and he was, you know, a locksmith and he would build up a business and right when it was starting to do well, he would just kind of up and move. It was this weird sort of self sabotage. And he was a really hard working man. I mean, tried to do the very best he could and just didn't have knowledge of or access to many of the coping mechanisms and training that, you know, we have today. And so I started doing drugs when I was around 16 years old, smoking pot that eventually led to speed and LSD and you name it, and snorting cocaine. And by the time I was 18 years old, I was free, basing cocaine. My worst state, I went three months straight where I didn't have a single day where I was not doing drugs. At my worst state, I weighed 105 pounds from just literally not eating for a couple of days, just ravaging my body with drugs. I looked in the mirror and I looked like a skeleton. You know, a 5, 10 male, 18 years old that weighs 105 pounds, is very skinny. And I averaged around 120 pounds in weight around that time. That was a really bad week when I weighed 105. But you know, I mean, I went to this total depths of despair and desperation and you know, I mean, it was pretty bad. And so I literally needed to get myself out of the environment that I was in. I moved away, had to, because my entire friendships, if you want to call them that, my entire circle was wrapped up around this lifestyle of doing drugs. And I had every sign of addiction. I mean, I Never went to 12 step groups at the time. I literally just removed myself from that environment. But I went away, went to a different state, started going to college, ended up getting a job selling gym memberships and met somebody there that ran a mental hospital and ended up getting a job at a mental hospital. And then I used to drive patients that were coming to treatment for addiction to AA meetings, NA meetings, Narcotics Anonymous. And I basically saw just how valuable 12 step groups were for people. And that became very useful for me later in life. Because it's one thing to not do the drugs and be abstinent from it, it's another to have all of the feelings and the beliefs that are in the mind, the behavior. So there's a lot of dry drunks that are running around too. They may not do drug mentally just erect. They're depressed, they're anxious. And so I've had quite a journey over the years with different things. But I started working out and learned about eating clean and eating healthy and exercise and completely changed my life because I never played sports in school, any of that stuff, because I had. Even my liking for sports was ruined by a very bad little league coach who was just not a good human being. And so I had a sort of weird upbringing. But my coping mechanisms, my solutions were very bad things. But over the years, I've been able to, I mean, even take this interview with you right now. Why have I gotten into a business where my main core business is teaching entrepreneurs how to build and grow their businesses through effective and ethical marketing? Why do I do stuff like this? Because to me, the best way to help people become better, even my entrepreneurial clients, is if they don't have their health together. I don't care how much money they make.

It's useless.

You'd give every penny that you have if you lose your health. That's why I think this is so important. So I've always had this curiosity of just, this is the body, this is your life. It's not how many years you live. Like you said, it's the quality of those years and how fit of a person you could be, not only financially, but physically and mentally. Because there's all kinds of different capitals. Financial capital, relationship capital, mental capital, physical capital. So I'm all about just getting things better, but I don't know how quickly. I don't know if that summarized all of it, but I was definitely in a very bad state at different stages of my life and then going through even my adult life. I mean, I have a propensity to. I'm an addict mind. I mean, I could become very obsessed with, you name it. Exercise, sex, eating, work. I mean, there's a million different coping mechanisms. So what it's done is it's given me a lot of understanding of human suffering and empathy, and I think it's given me a lot of compassion. And I also know that the vast majority of things that are offered as solutions to people in many ways are destructive. And I think you're such an advocate for much of that too, because much of the things that are sold to people as being healthy are horrible and ruin lives.

Well, I appreciate. I mean, I presume you're saying that I'm an advocate for doing things that don't cause suffering.

Exactly. No, you're an advocate for people. I mean, take a look. This is about prevention, not cure. I mean, you're a guy that's wanting to have people set up their lives so they're not having all of these health conditions that are a byproduct, not paying attention to how they eat and to how they live. And even what you're saying with relationships, I mean, loneliness and depression. I mean, I've been to many doctors that don't talk about loneliness and depression, but they're happy to prescribe a drug.

Yeah, it's true. Well, I appreciate so much for being so self disclosing and sharing because it's. What you're talking about is just another example of growing up in a family where you lost your mom and your dad was moving. It sounds like he was busy all the time. And it's hard to really make lasting friendships if you move every couple of years. And. And so it sounded. And you were feeling kind of shy and lonely. And so the drugs just become a way of coping with that pain. And that's the way it is for so many people. And that's why we've learned that it's not enough to focus on behaviors or give people information. We need to work at a deeper level. And that's the part of the work that I find the most meaningful. I mean, Medicare is now covering my program for people with heart disease, and through Medicare Advantage and Medicaid for people with type 2 diabetes or prostate cancer. But it's almost like a Trojan horse in a way that yes, it does cause your diseases to get better, and that's good. But here again, if you told me when I was so suicidally depressed that I was going to live longer, if I just changed my diet and lifestyle, I'd say, you don't get it. I'm just trying to make it through the day. And so for me, why I'm so passionate about doing this work is it enables us to create sustainable models that are financially viable for doctors and other healthcare professionals. A real paradigm shift, a new paradigm of real healthcare instead of sick care, where we can empower people with information that can enable them to use the experience of suffering as a doorway or as a catalyst for transforming their lives for the better. To the point where people sometimes say things to me like having a heart attack was the best thing that ever happened to me, or being diagnosed with prostate cancer was a good thing. And you want to go, what are you crazy? And they'd say, no. That's what it took to get my attention, to begin making these changes in my life that have transformed my life and made it so much more joyful and meaningful that I might not have ever done that had I not gone through that. But as you say, it's an opportunity that most doctors don't take advantage of, because if the reimbursement system is set up that you have to see a new patient every eight minutes, you don't really have time to talk about all these things. And so it's an enormously unfulfilling way to both practice medicine and to receive it. And so we're really trying to create a new model, a new paradigm of true healthcare where the doctor acts as a quarterback with a whole team of people, including a nurse, a yoga teacher, an exercise physiologist, a dietician, a psychologist. And they all work together to help people transform their lives for the better. And ultimately, that's the best kind of medicine. We found that it cuts overall healthcare costs in half in the first year. It can reverse most of these chronic diseases. But here again, the real, most meaningful part of it is that it transforms people's lives in how they view themselves and others.

You know, a lot of my listeners, a lot of my clients are doctors, medical doctors, doctors of chiropractic, psychologists, psychiatrists, lots of people in the health area. For, like a medical doctor, you've had tremendous success, you've had lots of reach. You're clearly recognized as a world leading authority. What sort of advice, I mean, looking over your whole business career, what sort of advice would you give to doctors? I mean, because there is a system where I think a lot of just feel completely locked into it. So they have to cater to it, they have to pander to it. They're trying to make a living. I mean, what sort of suggestions would you give? Because what you said about health care, not sick care, I think is so critical. And, you know, while people continue to provide sick care, you know, are they doing the best thing not only for their patients, but for themselves? And so what would you say to doctors out there?

Well, I would say that it's, you know, I feel your pain. You know, I understand how frustrating it can be if you have to see a new patient every eight minutes. You don't have time to talk about what really matters. You don't have time to talk about, you know, the problems at work, the problems in the marriage, the problems with your kids, the problems at school, you know, you basically have time to listen to the heart and lungs, write a progress note, write a prescription, and you're on to the next patient. As I say, most doctors wouldn't recommend medicine as a career for their kids because it's not fun to practice medicine that way. And if that's all we're doing, we're going to get replaced by an iPhone app anyway because we're just a collection of algorithms. Computers can do that better. But we're trying to create a new model that allows us to reclaim our role as healers and not just as technicians by changing the reimbursement. I used to think if we just did good science that would change medical practice, but I was wrong. It's important, but it's not sufficient. The rappers like to say it's all about the Benjamins, it's all about the money. And it's not that doctors are only interested in money, but if you get paid to use drugs and surgery and you get reimbursed and trained to use drugs and surgery, then that's what you do, especially if you only have a few minutes per patient. So in this new model that Medicare is paying for, which most other insurance are now covering as well, they'll pay for 72 hours of training per patient. So it makes it financially viable for doctors to offer this in their, to their patients, in their clinics, in their offices, in hospitals, and so on. And so we're trying to create a new model of health care that's more caring and compassionate, that's also more cost effective and competent by making it financially viable for doctors to really deal with these deeper issues that really are the most important. And in any business, whether it's your medicine or anything, if you can meet an unmet need, then you're going to be successful. And the biggest unmet need is the need of connection and community because of the breakdown of the social networks that used to give that to people. Many people don't have any of those. And so it's such a primal, the need for connection and community and love and intimacy to me is a primal, fundamental human need that's as basic as the need for air and water and food. And most people don't have that or they don't have very much of it. And so if you can offer a business that helps people find that, then even if you don't do it all that well, you can create a multi billion dollar business. Look at the chat rooms in AOL when they first started, or the lounges in Starbucks it's not like the coffee's any better. But instead of like, get out of here as quickly as you can so we can make room for the next customer, it's like, hey, come hang out here. We've got high speed Internet. We want you to hang out. That really means a lot to people. You know, Facebook has a billion members. It's not like the most intimate of life experiences. It's pretty superficial. But even that you can create something that has a billion members. And so in our work, what we do is the support groups are more than that. They're not just places to help people stay on the diet. We create a community that feels safe and even sacred enough that enables people to let down their emotional defenses and to talk openly and authentically about what's really going on in their lives without fear that somebody's going to make fun of them or give them glib advice or humiliate them or reject them or abandon them or the usual fears that people carry around. And it's so meaningful and so transformative that 25 years after the studies are over, people are still meeting because it's so important to them in their lives. Yeah. When we work on that level, we find that people are much more likely to make and maintain lifestyle choices that are life enhancing than ones that are self destructive.

Absolutely. I mean, I have a good friend, Dr. Edward Hallowell, he's top ADD HD psychiatrist in the country and he talks about Vitamin C, which he refers to as Vitamin Connect. He's like just the mere act of being able to connect with other human beings does so much and it sounds so cliche with when you say it, but it's like really without that connection and without that community, people are just lonely. And there are so many ways to do it. I mean, for instance, here I am having this conversation with you and one of the distribution systems of this is I believe in education based marketing you find people that have my genius network. I call it that because I want to interview people that have true wisdom and genius in a particular area and I want to share that with people. And one of the things that I do is I have a marketing podcast called I love Marketing that's free and gives great advice, many to people that will never ever pay me anything. But it's just putting goodwill out into the world. And some people do become clients, some people do read the stuff that we publish and come to events and things like that, but for the most part it's just putting stuff out there. And we even have been a Catalyst for people creating meetup groups. They go to a website called Meetup and there's I love marketing meetup groups. And today, every single day, somewhere in the world there's at least 100 people meeting somewhere having conversations about marketing based on what we talk about at. I love marketing. So I mean, there's a million different ways for people to go out and connect, but the point is doing it. And I think one of the greatest things that you can do if you're in any sort of leadership position is be a catalyst to bring people together. I mean, we're more connected as human beings than we ever have been before in history. But we're also the most disconnected in terms of interpersonal communications because of how a lot of people use electronics or have basically electronics use them. So I think it's critical. Do you think things health wise are going to get worse or better? Or is it just, you know, doctors and individuals that are doing the best they can on a runaway train or. I mean, what's your global perspective of everything?

Well, I think things are getting better and they're getting worse at the same time. I'm encouraged by the fact that Medicare is covering our program. It took 16 years of review before they agreed to do that, but it was a real game changer because, you know, if Medicare covers it, most of the other insurance companies do as well. They're covering it as a Dr. Dean Ornish's program. If your listeners are interested in learning more about that or our work, they can go to our website, which is just Ornish.com O R-N-I-S-H.com and you know, if it's reimbursable, it's sustainable. And if you change reimbursement, you change not only medical practice but also even medical education. And so we've been contacted by literally thousands of healthcare professionals who want us to train them. And so we've been busy doing that. And it's very rewarding doing this work because as I say, most doctors are not happy. They're often depressed and it provides a chance for them to return to their roots as healers and to practice the kind of medicine that we women in medicine to really do. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, I mean, I've got some. I could literally ask you questions and topics on so many different things and we could spend a week on this. But I'm going to go for a couple of points that I think will be really not only interesting but useful for the listeners. And I do highly recommend people go to ornishor N-I-H.com, look at your website. There's a ton of stuff there. Recipes, menus, videos, how to read your books, all that. It'll reinforce it. And I'll ask you again later what you actually recommend based on other topics that we cover. So what are the elements that make up the comprehensive lifestyle changes that you not only recommend, but that you have literally proven can be safer and cheaper against cardiovascular disease than invasive procedures that will stop or slow or even reverse progression of early stage prostate cancer? And I want to highlight these things that you have proven. These are not just ideas. You have a great track record. And what are the elements of a comprehensive lifestyle change that can bring these awesome some results to bear?

It's basically what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke, how much exercise we get, and how much love and intimacy we have in our lives. And they're all interrelated because as we said before, if you're feeling more of a sense of not being under stress and have more love and intimacy in your life, and so, you know, people often have a hard time believing that these are, these simple changes can make such a difference. But one of the interesting findings in all of our studies that surprised us me was I thought the younger people who had milder disease would do better. But I was wrong. We found that in all of our studies, it wasn't how old they were, it wasn't how sick they were. The more they changed, the better they got in every way. We could measure using the most sophisticated state of the art technologies, like measuring your telomeres and your gene expression. The more you change your lifestyle, the longer your telomeres get. And as your telomeres get longer, your life gets longer. We can turn on the genes that protect you and turn off the genes that cause prostate cancer and breast cancer and colon cancer, hundreds of them in just a few months. And so many people find it's very hopeful. They often say things like, oh, I've got bad genes, what can I do about. Turns out that there's a lot you can do about it. And not to blame, but to empower because if it's all in our genes, then there's nothing you can do about it. And so we're finding that even though, and it's not like there's one diet and lifestyle recommendations for reversing heart disease, another one for prostate cancer, different one for breast cancer, different one for diabetes or for your blood pressure, your cholesterol, your weight, it's the same lifestyle changes for all of them. And what I did is I created a program called the Spectrum. Because part of what I learned is that even more than being healthy, most people want to feel free and in control. And as soon as I tell somebody, eat this and don't eat that and do this and don't do that, then and more often than not, they want to do just the opposite. It goes back to the first dietary intervention, when God said, don't eat the apple. And that didn't go so well. And that was God talking. And so instead of saying, and once you call foods good or bad, it's a small step to saying, I'm a bad person because I eat bad food. And at that point you might as well just finish the burger. So what I did is to say, look, foods are just foods, but some are healthier for you than others. And so I categorized foods from the most helpful, what I call group one, to the least helpful, group five. And I said, what matters most is your overall way of eating and living. Because if you go on a diet, you're going to go off a diet. It's just a question of when. And then you have all that guilt and shame and anger and all those toxic emotions. So here you can't fail. It's a very compassionate way to do it. Because again, what matters most is your overall way of eating and living. So let's say you're eating mostly unhealthy group four and five foods. And let's say, what are you trying to accomplish? Well, I want to lose 10 pounds or lower my cholesterol level 50 points or lower my blood pressure 10 millimeters. Whatever it happens, happens to be. You say, well, okay, where are you now on the nutrition spectrum? Well, I'm eating mostly unhealthy group 4 and 5 foods. How much are you willing to go in a healthy direction towards a plant based diet? Well, I'm not ready to go to a plant based diet, but I'll eat more groups 1 and 3 and less 4 and 5. Okay, how much are you exercising? Well, I walk once a week. Okay, how much are you willing to do? Well, maybe I'll walk for 10 minutes a day. Great. How much yoga and meditation are you doing? Well, none. How much are you willing to do? Well, maybe I'll do five minutes a day. Okay, how much love and intimacy do you have? Well, not enough. How much are you willing to do? I'll spend more time with my friends and families and loved ones. Okay, great. So then we support that degree of Change, we track it. And if you indulge yourself one day, it doesn't mean you cheated or you failed or you're bad. Just eat healthier the next. If you don't have time to exercise one day, do a little more the next, you don't have time to meditate for an hour, do it for a minute, you get the idea. And then after a month or so, we'll measure all these things again that you're trying to improve. And if you're, you wanted to lose 10 pounds, but you only lost five, or you wanted to lose your cholesterol levels down 50 points, but only came down 20 or 30, you say, okay, great, you're moving in the right direction now. If you're willing to do a little more, chances are you'll show even more improvements. The more you change, the more you improve at any age. It's a very empowering thing for people to know that. And also, the more you change your lifestyle, the better you feel, because these biological mechanisms are so dynamic. And then it comes out of your own experience like, oh, when I do this, I feel good, when I do that, I don't feel so good. So I'll do more of this and less of that. And then you get into a virtuous cycle where you start to feel good, which makes you want to do more, so you feel even better. Because what's sustainable is feeling good and pleasure. Fear is not sustainable in any endeavor. And the whole concept of prevention or risk factor reduction is really fear based. Take this statin drug so your cholesterol level goes down so you don't get a heart attack 20 years from now. And most people can't relate to that because it's too scary to think about something, something really awful like a heart attack or a stroke years down the road. So people stop doing that. Maybe for a month they'll do it and then they go back to their old patterns. But when it's joy based and pleasure based and love based, you feel better, you want to do more. And it's not just to live longer, but it's to feel better. People say things like, even if I knew I wouldn't live a day longer, I would keep doing this because I feel so much better. It's a choice worth making, not just to live longer, although you probably will, but more importantly, because you feel so much better, right?

And you know, I recently went to Fairfield, Iowa and I got an award from the city of Fairfield for my contributions to entrepreneurship. And they took me through the four day transcendental Meditation training, because that's where Maharisha University is. And, you know, had you asked me a week before do I really could I see myself spending, you know, 20 minutes twice a day doing meditation and fitting that into my already incredibly active, pretty busy lifestyle. You know, I would have been like, I would find that really hard that I'm going to do this. And just the sheer level of. And I'm not making this about Transcendental Meditation. There's many ways to get improvements and stuff. This happens to work for me right now. Very new to tm, but there was a level of anxiety and restlessness that I have carried with me, me almost my entire life, certainly most of my adult life, that no matter what I did and how I did, just never went away. It's interesting how just little hinges swing big doors and how sometimes the littlest change can lead to the biggest thing. And you have a very comprehensive sort of approach to doing that. And you have kind of been there, done that so many times where you know what works and what doesn't. And so one of the things that I think is important about bringing someone like you to my listeners, if people have heard of you or not, is just the reinforcement that, you know, if you're off track and you want to get into a better mode, you know, there are ways to do this. And there are people that have, like, done this so many times and have guided so many other people through there that they know how to do that and they write books about it. And you can find this online, like, instantaneously. So your book, the Spectrum, you actually have a website set up for it. And I made this in my notes to talk to you about it, called the Ornish Spectrum. And the website's Ornish Spectrum. And it's all about the four elements. The elements you lay out are fitness, nutrition, love and support, and stress management. I know you've already talked about those, but I think this is so important that can you talk to each of those four elements? And basically, what exactly is the Ornish Spectrum, meaning? What's the goal, what's the mission sort of thing? Because I think it's something that everyone listening could get a lot of value from and could share this with people that aren't hearing this right now.

Well, it's just what we've been talking about. The Spectrum is the idea that the more you change, the more you improve at any age, and so you decide how much you want to change. I chaired Google Health for three years and had access to a lot of really smart and talented Google engineers. And we were trying to come up with a personalized lifestyle program that plugged in your algorithms, your DNA testing, your food diaries, your health risk assessments, and all of that. And one day I realized that I was going about it in completely the wrong way. That rather than making this really complex, to make it radically simple. And again, the more you change, the more you improve in every way we can measure. And so instead of me telling you how much you should change, you decide how much you want to change, how quickly, how many different things you want to change. We support that degree of change. We track it. And if that's enough to accomplish your goals, great. If not, you can do a little more. It's really simple and you can't fail.

Yeah, I remember reading about you in the book Change or Die. I don't know how long ago that book came out, but one of the things I kind of took away from reading that book, and I'd like to get here, if this is an accurate synopsis of it, was that talking about all the success that people have had on your program that have had triple bypass surgery, and that many people would go right back to the lifestyle that created it, but on your program there was this great success rate. And one of the things that I took away from that book is, is that people rarely if ever change without help, without support. And for people that are in kind of like the program or coaching business, it's a really great evidence of the value of support. So I'm always one of these people that's not only read the person's book, but if this resonates with you, get involved in their program. I mean, get as much support as you can because that's going to increase your chances of success. So can people do this on their own? Like, meaning if their lifestyle is really out of control, with eating, with not exercising, their health is a wreck. I mean, what are the chances of them truly picking up a book and reading it and sticking with it versus to what degree does someone need to jump into this sort of involvement?

Well, there are people who do it just from reading my books or going to our website. I have thousands and thousands and thousands of letters from people who transform their lives just from doing that. But other people do need the support. And the support isn't just something that helps them stay on the other parts of the program. The support is one of the most important parts of the program. As we've been talking about, the sense of community. And you know, when I did my first study in 1977, I was a medical student. I had 10 men and women I put in a hotel for a month. And part of what we had were the support groups which were really, at that time designed to help them stay on the diet and, you know, types of running shoes and all that. And even from the first day I realized what I'd unwittingly done was to create a community where people felt safe enough to connect on a deep level and to let down their emotional defenses. I mean, that's why 12 step programs that you alluded to work. That's why, you know, extended families or neighborhoods work, because they see you. You know, they're not just. It's not just your resume and all the good things. It's, you know, where you messed up and you know that they know, and they know that you know, but, but they're still there for you. And there's something very primal and powerful about having somebody who's there for you and a place where you can say, gosh, you know, I may look like the perfect parent, but my kid's on heroin, or I may look like I'm really successful, but I'm bankrupt, or, you know, and somebody else, instead of saying, oh, well, why don't you send your kid to a rehab program? Or, you know, they can say, gosh, that must be really awful, or, you know, my kid has this problem and, or I used to have a drug problem, they might say, or I've got money problems too. And suddenly it doesn't change the fact that you've got these problems, but it changes how you view them. You don't have that sense of isolation and humiliation and shame and guilt and all of that. And it's very, very powerful. As you indicated, it's so easy to make fun of these as being so touchy feely, but we are touchy feely creatures. We're creatures of community. That's how we've survived as a species all these years is by learning how to connect at a deep level. And there's been a radical shift in our culture in the last 50 years with the breakdown of these social networks. And we're only beginning to realize how important that they are. One study by Nick Christakis found that if your friends are obese, you're 45% more likely to be obese. If your friends. Friends are obese, it's 25% more likely. And if your friends. Friends. Friends are obese, you're 10% more likely to be obese. Even if you've never met them. And it's not just obesity, it's depression. It's just about everything. That's how interconnected we are. And so we ignore these ideas at our peril. And for many people, they think that the time that they spend with their friends and family is the luxury that they should do after you've done all the important stuff. And what we're trying to show, and part of the value of these studies is that it is the important stuff. And when we realize that more than anything else that we do, more than diet or smoking or anything, that the amount of love and caring and compassion and support that we have in our lives is a better predictor of how healthy and how happy you're going to be than any of these other factors, then we realize that maybe we need to reprioritize how we spend our time, where we spend less time doing this other stuff and more time with what really matters, namely the people that we love and care for. Right, right. Yeah, absolutely.

I got to ask you about this. I mean, you've written many, many best selling books. You're associated with some very prestigious and high level individuals. And one of these people is former President Bill Clinton, who I've met a couple of times and I've even been to his office in Harlem. And my dear friend Connie Mariano is the former White House doctor who was his primary care physician and was in the White House for 10 years. And so I'm curious about two things. First, how did you become involved with former President Clinton and what's the story there? And love to hear that because I'm always fascinated with how does the President of the United States actually find someone like you or you find him?

Well, I love Bill Clinton, I have to say. And I think whatever your politics, when the former President of the United States makes a decision to eat and live more healthily, I think that sets a great example for everyone. But I first met him in 1993 when a mutual friend introduced me to Hillary Clinton. And this was shortly after he became president. And we had a long talk in the West Wing. And at the end of it, we were going over the science that I was doing. And at the end she said, would you train the chefs who cook for us? And I said, excuse me. And she repeated. And I said, well, of course I'd be honored. So we trained the White House chefs and then later the Camp David chefs, the Air Force One chefs, the Navy Met chefs, and how to cook healthier food for them. And then Dr. Mariano, who was the White House physician, asked Me to be involved with his annual physical exams at the Bethesda Naval Hospital every year. And so I was one of the only non military doctors that was with him on that and kind of in charge of his lifestyle and got to know him and just have tremendous. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met and probably the most charismatic. And then when his later a couple of years ago when his bypass was clogged up, he was told that it was all in his genes, it had nothing to do with his. And by the way, I think the world of Dr. Mariano, so you've got a great friend there, she's really impressive. Anyway, a couple of years ago when the President's bypass is clogged up, he was told it was all in his genes and I sent him an email and I said, you know, the friends that I value the most are the ones who tell me what I need to hear, not just what I want to hear. And you need to know it's not all in your genes. In fact, you can actually change how your genes are expressed, hundreds of them, in just a few months, if you're willing to change your lifestyle and your diet. And his diet and lifestyle has never been particularly healthy. And, and so we met a few days later and I showed him the studies and he decided to go on a plant based diet and do these other things. And he's now been doing it now for a couple of years. And I saw him recently, he looks great. So again, I think he's setting a great example for everyone, especially for people who know that it's like if he can do it, maybe I can do it too.

No, exactly. I think that a lot of that more than anything is just the reinforcement and social proof. Because one of the things I've learned being in the how to business, in the advice giving business, is if you're a success story yourself, that's one thing. And a lot of people are like, well, if this person can do it, I can do it. But there's a lot of this mindset of well, that may work for you, but will it work for me? And the more that you can show that it works for everyone that at least tries it to whatever degree, maybe not perfectly, but it's going to improve them, then hopefully more people will open up and, and be open to it. Because it's really hard to coach people that are not coachable. And I don't think, oh sure, if you're not.

It's like the old joke about how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? It's like one, but the light bulb has to really want to change. I mean, there's no point in trying to get somebody to do something who's not interested, because as I mentioned earlier, even more than being healthy, people want to feel free and in control. And if you try to get someone to change who's not interested, not only is it not helpful, it's often counterproductive, because now they're defending what they're doing and it makes it that much harder to change it. But at the same time, just knowing that if you're willing to make these changes within a few days, your brain gets more blood, you think more clearly, you have more energy, you need less sleep, your skin gets more blood, so you don't age as quickly. You can actually grow so many new brain neurons that your brain can get bigger in just a few months. Your sexual organs get more blood in the same way that Viagra works. And so for many people, these are choices worth making, not simply to live longer, but as we've been talking about, because these biological mechanisms are so dynamic, you experience so many improvements, you feel so much better so quickly at any age that it changes. The whole reason for making these changes, from fear to joy and joy and love and pleasure are again, what's really sustainable. So I appreciate so much the chance to be part of your show. I hope that at least some of this has been useful for your listeners. And I wish you continued success in helping so many people do what they do. Well, before we wrap up, let's give.

Out any final advice. Is there anything that I should have asked you that would have been beneficial that could change someone's life listening to this that I didn't. That you would want to recommend, and then any final things of any books or anything you want to point people to so they can thoroughly go deeper on what we've talked about here today.

Oh, again, you're very kind in asking that. I think we've covered the most important things. I mean, I love your show, Joe. We could talk all day about, for several days about this, but I think we've covered the key things. And as we talked about, if you go to our website, Ornish.com, which also takes you to Ornishpectrum.com, it's the same site. Everything on there is free. It's all recipes, menus, guided meditations, videos for those who are interested, reprints of all of our scientific publications, and so on. There's a digital platform that we'll be releasing in the next few months that will make it that much easier to do this. And again, having seen what a powerful difference these changes can make in people's lives, I'm grateful to you for the chance to share it with your listeners. And again, I hope it's been useful.

Absolutely. It's been great. And I'll keep people abreast of everything that you're doing. I'll put some links out there for any new books and things that you have. And so in the meantime, everyone go to Ornish.com check it out. Please give us your comments and I appreciate it. Dean. Thank you so much and wish everyone well.

Me too, Joe. Thanks again. All the best.