The benefits of this change have a tremendous positive ripple effect from improving your health to positively impacting our environment.

Awareness

The value of science is to increase awareness of how much our choices matter each day. Dr. Ornish says: “When we become more aware of how powerfully our choices in diet and lifestyle affect us—for better and for worse—then we can make different ones. When you make healthy choices, you feel better quickly. This allows us to connect the dots between what we do and how we feel.  Feeling so much better, so quickly, re-frames the reason for changing from fear of dying to joy of living.”

Learn

The Ornish Program offers clear steps you can take to prevent or reverse heart disease by making simple changes that have powerful results.

US News and World Reports has selected the Ornish diet as the #1 diet for heart health for the last 5 years. The selection was based on the ease of following the diet, nutrition adequacy, safety, effectiveness for weight loss and protection against heart disease and diabetes. It’s important to understand, however, that the Ornish Spectrum approach is not a diet, but a lifestyle approach that is about freedom and a spectrum of choices. Foods are neither good nor bad, but some are more healthful than others. The spectrum of food choices ranges from Group 1, which is the healthiest, to Group 5, the least healthy. Dr. Ornish’s researchdemonstrated that heart disease could be reversed by eating a diet that includes predominantly plant-based foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, soy products, with the option of nonfat dairy and egg whites. This group is abundant in vitamins, minerals and a wide range of protective substances with powerful properties to protect against heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other chronic diseases. Group 2 are still predominantly plant-based, but somewhat higher in fat, providing choices that can offer protection against heart disease and other chronic disease.

The following provides a few simple steps from Ornish Spectrum Group 1 and the nutrition guidelines from the Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease.

Start with A Few Simple Steps:

 1. Choose a Whole, Plant-based Approach

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” – Michael Pollan

The benefits of this one change have a tremendous positive ripple effect from improving your health to positively impacting our environment. Research shows that plant-based diets are a cost-effective, low-risk intervention that can decrease risk factors with marked improvement with blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and weight management. A Nutritional Updatefor physicians published in the Permanente Journal notes that the benefits of a plant-based diet includes a reduction in medications needed to treat chronic diseases and lower ischemic heart disease mortality rates. It encourages physicians to consider recommending a plant-based diet to all their patients, especially those with high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or obesity. The benefits include reducing risk factors for heart disease such as decreasing blood pressure, cholesterol and weight with improved blood sugar management.

By choosing whole plant foods you are not only avoiding the factors that contribute to heart disease and other chronic diseases, but also at the same time increasing the protective substances that prevent disease and promote good heart health.

The Ornish Recipedia offers hundreds of delicious, plant-based recipes including a variety of heart healthy salads, soups, entrees, sides, snacks, condiments and desserts.

2. Cut the Fat

The American Heart Association recommends a low fat approach, low in saturated and trans fats and low in cholesterol for the prevention and treatment of heart disease. To begin reversing heart disease The Dr. Dean Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease suggests limiting fat to 10 % of total calories, by avoiding any added fats such as oils, nuts, seeds, butter, margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressings with oil, avocado, olives, and coconut; omitting animal proteins with the exception of nonfat dairy and egg whites. Here’s some information on the benefits you’ll get.

3. Focus on Fiber

Fiber from whole foods has many health benefits including heart health, blood sugar control, weight management, gastrointestinal health and reduced risk of stroke, gallstones and kidney stones. There are two types of fiber: soluble and insoluble. Insoluble fiber helps to maintain a healthy digestive tract and support weight management. It is rich in whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

Soluble fiber is the type that can lower cholesterol by lowering the absorption of cholesterol into your blood stream. Food rich in soluble fiber are oats, barley, legumes, apples, berries, oranges and carrots. The link between soluble fiber and reducing the risk of heart disease is so strong that it has been established as a health claim suggesting 4 servings of soluble fiber foods a day.

4. Limit Sugar and Refined Carbohydrates

Research continues to examine the effects of sugar on heart disease and other chronic diseases. Growing evidence shows the link between sugar consumption and heart disease, diabetes and liver disease.  The average American consumes nearly three times the recommended amount of added sugar every day, increasing risk for heart disease, diabetes, and underlying metabolic issues that increase risk for chronic disease. Both sugar and refined carbohydrates can increase triglycerides, blood and insulin levels, and impact risk for metabolic syndrome, which is a strong predictor of heart disease.

5. Include Soy

Including soy foods in your plant-based diet will benefit your heart health as well as make an excellent low fat, cholesterol-free, nutrient-dense, plant-based protein to replace animal protein. A moderate intake of minimally processed soy foods such as edamame, tofu, and soymilk, along with fermented soy foods such as tempeh, natto, and miso offer potentialprotection against coronary heart disease and certain cancers.

What is one simple step you can take to a healthier heart today?