Medicare Approves Doctor's Holistic Healing Program

sfgate.com:

Just this past month, Medicare finally gave approval to Ornish's program of a plant-based diet, meditation, exercise and support groups to treat heart disease.

Read the whole story: sfgate.com

Comments

[SEQUOIABISON]

11:34 AM on 07/04/2010

It’s about time.

I believe Doctor Ornish’s predominantly vegetarian lifestyle approach to healthcare is the best and most effective.

I am sure it has not been easy for the good doctor to get this accomplished.

He had to get passed many of his colleagues and the pharmaceutical industry that think medication and drugs are the only way to recover from ill health.

Congratulations Doctor to you and the Obama administration for having the foresight to acknowledge your accomplishments in this field and for allowing alternative methods of healthcare in the door.

[drricklippin]

02:44 PM on 07/03/2010

Great News- Finally catching up to 30 years of outstanding work by Dr Ornish

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southmpton,Pa

[Cris Brines]

11:20 AM on 07/02/2010

This is great news for anyone who believes in holistic medicine. Now that Medicare has approved integrative medicine program created by Dr. Hornish and his team, Medicare Supplement Plans will pick up all costs, making it virtually free for most Medicare recipients. Great work Doctor!

http://www.medicaresupplementshop.com/

[Chas53]

10:42 PM on 07/01/2010

Excellent news. Dr. Ornish is a true pioneer, along with Caldwell Esselstyn MD www.heartattackproof.com, Joel Fuhrman MD www.diseaseproof.com and John MacDougall MD. All have advocated for a plant-based diet. Drs. Ornish and Esselstyn have conclusively proven that coronary artery disease can be reversed with a vegan diet. I've gone vegan for the last six monthis and have tapered off my cholesterol rx and BP rx.. I'm sharing this information with my patients and many of them are making positive changes in their lifestyles. Much of what we do in Medicine enables patients to continue on eating an unhealthy diet and not suffer immediate consequences of the Western Diet. Take your sugar pill, cholesterol pill and BP pill; go ahead and try and have your cake and eat it too. Meanwhile, your poor endothelium gets torched with every bad meal. Remember, your doctor cannot make you healthy, only les sick. Patient, heal thyself.

[StephenJK]

03:07 AM on 07/02/2010

Nice words doc and VERY true!

[av10]

06:34 PM on 07/01/2010

This is great news and a real tribute to Dr.Ornish’s hard work and persistence.

[themainpoint]

01:37 PM on 07/01/2010

GREAT to hear. Really great. If we can't (or won't) get off oil, maybe we can at least get off some of the drugs that are pushed on us.

[mojo191]

12:12 PM on 07/01/2010

I don't know what took them so long, Alison, but it's definitely a great & welcome step forward! As they say, "Better late than never"!

[Alison Rose Levy]

09:36 AM on 07/01/2010

Bravo! Great news Thank you, Dean Ornish, for developing this pioneering and foundational health management program. Thank you for applying it and studying it's efficacy for a wide range of health conditions. Thank you for the years you spent designing studies, raising research funds, and conducting research. Thank you for the clinicians you trained, the thousands upon thousands of people you helped in your program, and the millions more you helped through your books and teaching. Thank you for your persistence, dedication, belief, and focus in surmounting obstacles to these sane health principles. This is not only a great achievement, but you are a great model for transforming an entrenched system into a humane one.

My prayer is that every step forward from here on will become easier and easier-- and that millions more will benefit, and that many more health opportunities will become available to people who need them through the major breakthrough that you've created. (And BTW: You are long overdue to come speak to our listeners on Whole Person Healing radio.)

love,
Alison
www.healthjournalistblog.com
SIgn up for health insight, science, action, and on-line radio talk with health leaders-- upcoming Debbie Ford, Larry Dossey-- and coming soon (we hope) Dean Ornish

[mssreader]

12:49 PM on 07/01/2010

Allison, I just signed up hoping that Dean Ornish will be "coming soon". I've been following him for years even suggesting a few heart patients, that have now passed on, check out Sausalito Clinic but they relied on doctors to heal their self abused bodies.

It is easy for people but it's getting them to want to do it. I've been health conscious since 1970 and it has paid off at my age of 77 still doing yoga, even teaching it, working part time at something I love, gardening, active with friends, plant based diet after veggie in 1970, then vegan and now plant based diet 7or 8 years with The China Study and Eat for Your Life as my health consultants. I loved doing the research and reading and knowing that I was doing something for myself. I embrace what you are doing though I think Dean Ornish, T. Colin Campbell and Joel Fuhrman have gone further with the plant based diet and Michael Polan has brought it to the general public with his last book In Defense of Food and John Robbins started it all for the masses who were beginning to get the light though I go back to Adele Davis and Diet for a Small Planet way, way back when I became a vegetarian when I was thought of as "wierd"! And here we are today though of as rather normal. Though people still say, "but you eat chicken" don't you?

[Alison Rose Levy]

01:48 PM on 07/01/2010

My Mom (still going strong in her eighth decade) was an Adele Davis fan-- and she was raised as a vegetarian because my grandfather was into health and yoga. She tried for a time to cook meat, but had little knack for it. Adelle Davis' meat recipes would turn anyone into a vegetarian. She recommended that you cook steak for three hours in a 120 degree oven. Soda, candy, processed food, and most sweets were not permitted in our house. Joel Fuhrman is a distant cousin and Michael Pollan, a family friend from childhood. I began writing about healthy nutrition over fifteen years old, and had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Ornish for the very first piece I ever wrote. Nowadays, there are so many people covering nutrition, that I devote more time to topics not yet fully developed in the public awareness-- especially ones we can come together to act on to make a collective difference. I'm doing a book on that. But the bottom line is that nutrition is foundational, and Dean was the pioneer-- and all inroads we make in all of the many other areas of integrative medicine, will only be possible thanks to his work.

Alison
PS sign up for my newsletter at; www.healthjournalistblog.com

[2sunny]

10:08 AM on 07/28/2010

Thanks, for "insight" connection.

[Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald]

01:25 AM on 07/01/2010

Wonderful! Congratulations Dean.

[Courtenay Jones]

12:41 AM on 07/01/2010

very inspiring! congrats doctor!!!

[rtolmach]

09:52 PM on 06/30/2010

Congratulations, Dean!

[lynzyluhu]

05:21 PM on 06/30/2010

Finally. Hollistic medicine is a great asset. I'm a firm believer in having a balance between science and natural/spritual healing. I'm excited to see other health insurance giants to follow. I would love a co-pay for my chiro visits =)

[rikster]

04:52 PM on 06/30/2010

bless him...! om shanti..!

[Halsey]

04:50 PM on 06/30/2010

I'm one of many 'tweeners", had cancer ergo uninsurable (at any affordable rate) but still too young to qualify for medicare. My dad's 87; I will never see 87. I'm glad to see forward movement in holistic healing but selfishly "what about me?". (and the other boomers in my situation)

[Rob Halpin]

08:37 PM on 06/30/2010

Believe that you will see 87 and that will play a role in your staying well. Adopt and adhere to a plant based diet, which has been irrefutably proven to fight cancer at all stages, and I wish you best of luck.

[mssreader]

12:55 PM on 07/01/2010

Rob, there is a book about a person who got cancer and ate nothing but organic fruits and veggies and mostly raw and she beat her cancer. She did add nuts. I can't think of the name of the book but Alison Rose above, or some of the other professionals on this thread might know of the book. I know what I would do if I were diagnosed even though I'm on the plant based diet, I would tighten it up considerably like I did in the first 6 weeks on it along with green smoothies. Don't give up Rob, fight it all the way. My daughter did though my son didn't make it with Hodgkins. I chose the wrong father for them as his side is rampant with C and mine has none except lung C.

[why bother]

04:33 PM on 06/30/2010

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Ornish
any spare cash in YOUR not-for-profits, I didn't know Democrats were so cheap.