Dean Ornish

Dean Ornish – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes


Learn about Dean Ornish — the American physician, educator, and pioneer of lifestyle medicine. Dive into his life, his programs to reverse chronic disease, his philosophy, and his most inspiring quotes.

Introduction

Dean Michael Ornish (born July 16, 1953) is an American physician, researcher, educator, and health advocate. He is best known for promoting a holistic approach to preventing and even reversing chronic diseases—especially cardiovascular disease—through comprehensive lifestyle changes rather than relying solely on drugs or surgery. Ornish’s work over decades has influenced how people think about health, wellness, and the role of diet, stress, community, and behavior in shaping our bodies.

Early Life and Education

Ornish was born in Dallas, Texas on July 16, 1953. Hillcrest High School in Dallas.

He then attended the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities, summa cum laude, and was valedictorian of his class. Baylor College of Medicine, earning his MD in 1980.

Following medical school, he did his internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital (1981–1984) and was a clinical fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Career and Contributions

Pioneer of Lifestyle Medicine

Ornish is widely considered one of the founders of lifestyle medicine—a field that emphasizes how changes in diet, physical activity, stress management, social connections, and mental health can prevent, treat, and even reverse chronic disease.

His approach combines multiple elements:

  • A plant-based or very low-fat diet (mostly whole foods)

  • Regular moderate exercise

  • Stress reduction techniques, such as meditation, yoga, or relaxation practices

  • Social support, emotional health, and community

  • Behavioral changes to sustain long-term habits

Ornish’s most famous program is “Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease”, which he developed in the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1993, his program became the first non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical therapy for heart disease to be reimbursed by a health insurer. Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation (ICR), enabling Medicare to reimburse such programs.

Roles, Institutions & Influence

  • Ornish founded the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) in Sausalito, California.

  • He is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

  • Over the years, he has advised public officials and governments on health promotion and integrative medicine. For example, he was appointed in 2011 to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health by President Obama.

  • Ornish has also been known to advise prominent individuals; for instance, he has worked with former President Bill Clinton, particularly in helping design heart-healthy dietary strategies.

Publications & Ideas

Ornish is the author of several influential books, including:

  • Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease

  • Eat More, Weigh Less

  • The Spectrum

  • Love & Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy

  • UnDo It! (with Anne Ornish)

His teachings often emphasize that genes are not destiny—by changing how we live, we can influence gene expression, disease progression, and health outcomes.

He also stresses that diet alone is not sufficient; the holistic combination of diet, stress management, social support, and behavioral change is critical.

Legacy & Influence

  • Ornish’s work helped shift paradigms in medicine, adding preventive and lifestyle-based strategies to traditionally drug-and-surgery approaches.

  • His program’s acceptance by insurers and by federal programs (like Medicare) marked a milestone in mainstream recognition of integrative therapies.

  • Through his institute and numerous studies, he has influenced the adoption of lifestyle medicine in hospitals, clinics, and health systems worldwide.

  • His holistic philosophy also bridges physical health with mental, emotional, and social dimensions, making his approach appealing to a broad audience beyond just cardiology.

  • Critics and skeptics have challenged some aspects of his methods (e.g. claims about the degree of reversal, adherence feasibility), but Ornish remains a central figure in debates about preventive health.

Personality, Philosophy & Approach

Ornish is known not just as a scientist or physician, but as a thinker who integrates emotion, relationships, meaning, and spirituality into health. He often speaks of interconnectedness, healing through intimacy and community, and the power of psychological and social factors to impact physical disease.

He emphasizes empowerment over prescription: giving people tools and choices rather than dictating rigid rules. For instance, he has remarked that telling people “do this / don’t do that” can backfire; people want to feel free and in control.

His philosophy often blends the scientific rigor of medicine with deeper insights about human connection, forgiveness, purpose, and love as part of healing.

Famous Quotes of Dean Ornish

Here are several notable quotes from Dean Ornish that reflect his worldview and insights:

“I don’t understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on cholesterol lowering drugs for the rest of their lives.”

“Your genes are not your fate … if you change your lifestyle, you change your genes.”

“The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.”

“Enjoy the best Dean Ornish Quotes … Awareness is the first step in healing.”

“Joy of living is sustainable; fear of dying is not.”

“We all have an inner teacher, an inner guide, an inner voice … if we quiet down the mind, we can begin to hear what we're not paying attention to.”

“Eating a vegetarian diet, walking (exercising) every day, and meditating is considered radical. Allowing someone to slice your chest open … is considered normal and conservative.”

These quotes capture key themes of his work—health as lifestyle, the power of connection, the importance of consciousness and choice.

Lessons from Dean Ornish

  1. Holistic health is more than just diet
    Physical, psychological, social, and emotional factors all play a role in disease and healing.

  2. Small choices can have big effects
    Diet, movement, stress practices, and relationships—consistently applied—can move health in powerful ways.

  3. Empowerment beats command
    People are more likely to sustain changes when they feel agency, choice, and self-trust.

  4. Connection matters
    Loneliness or isolation may have a significant negative impact on health; relationships can be healing.

  5. Science and meaning coexist
    Ornish’s work shows that rigorous research and deep human values need not be in opposition.

Conclusion

Dean Ornish has left an indelible mark as a physician who dared to propose that we could reverse disease not only by treating symptoms but by transforming lives. He is a figure who straddles medicine, philosophy, and human connection—urging us to live not out of fear of disease but out of love, purpose, and community.

Articles by the author

The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.

Dean Ornish

If you're with a close friend, your anger may raise his blood pressure as well as your own, whereas loving feelings may lower blood pressure in both of you.

Dean Ornish

When we understand the connection between how we live and how long we live, it's easier to make different choices. Instead of viewing the time we spend with friends and family as luxuries, we can see that these relationships are among the most powerful determinants of our well-being and survival.

Dean Ornish

Multinational food companies can play a large role in helping to prevent chronic diseases around the world by offering healthier choices in the United States and abroad.

Dean Ornish

Your genes are not your fate... if you change your lifestyle, you change your genes.

Dean Ornish

While the digital age has done so much to improve our world, it has dramatically changed our social structure, often further isolating us from each other.

Dean Ornish

One of the reasons I'm excited by what visionary Elon Musk has done with the Tesla is to show that you can reduce global warming and drive a powerful, fun car. A cool car helps make a cooler planet.

Dean Ornish

Alas, bacon and eggs are not health foods.

Dean Ornish

When we realize that something as primal as the food that we choose to eat each day makes such an important difference in addressing both global warming and personal health, it empowers us and imbues these choices with meaning. If it's meaningful, then it's sustainable - and a meaningful life is a longer life.

Dean Ornish

An Asian way of eating and living may help prevent and even reverse the progression of coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, prostate cancer and breast cancer. Incorporate more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, soy products and fish in your diet. Eat at home more with your family and friends.

Dean Ornish

Small changes in diet don't have much effect on preventing coronary heart disease and cancer. But bigger changes in diet and lifestyle may prevent heart attacks in almost everyone.

Dean Ornish

Because the biological mechanisms that affect our health and well-being are so dynamic, when people change their diet and lifestyle, they usually feel so much better, so quickly; it reframes the reason for changing from fear of dying to joy of living. Also, the support that patients give each other is a powerful motivator.

Dean Ornish

When most people think about my work, they think about diet. To me, diet has always been the least interesting part of it.

Dean Ornish

Whether you're six or sixty, if you go on a diet and lifestyle program and feel constrained, you're likely to go off it sooner or later. Offering a spectrum of choices is much more effective; then, you feel free and empowered.

Dean Ornish

In 2010, I consulted with President Clinton after his bypass grafts occluded and encouraged him to make healthy lifestyle changes including a whole-foods, plant-based diet low in refined carbohydrates.

Dean Ornish

Not everything that lowers HDL is bad for you. If you change from a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet to a healthy low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, your HDL levels may stay the same or even decrease because there is less need for it. When you have less garbage, you need fewer garbage trucks to remove it, so your body may make less HDL.

Dean Ornish

Although many people believe that the primary emphasis of my work is about diet, it's not. What we eat is important, of course, but what comes out of our mouth may be more important than what goes into it.

Dean Ornish

If you're at high risk or are trying to reverse heart disease or prevent the recurrence of cancer, you probably need to make bigger changes in diet and lifestyle than someone who just wants to lose a few pounds and is otherwise healthy. If you just want to lower your cholesterol, weight or blood pressure, begin by making moderate changes.

Dean Ornish

If we can reach populations in developing countries and help them understand the value of their indigenous diet and lifestyles rather than copying ours, perhaps we can reverse the exponential rise in cardiovascular disease that is plaguing them.

Dean Ornish

As a veteran of the diet wars, I think it's time to call a truce. Rather than hear experts argue, most people want practical information they can use.

Dean Ornish