Reversing Alzheimer’s Disease: Dr. Dean Ornish’s Vegan Lifestyle Program (Part 1 of 2)

“I was trained, like all doctors, to view heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and even Alzheimer’s as different diseases, different diagnoses and different treatments, but I’ve come to believe that they may actually be the same disease in many ways manifesting and masquerading in different forms because they all share the same underlying biological mechanisms, things like chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, changes in the microbiome, in telomeres and gene expression, and angiogenesis, and oxytocin and immune function and so on, and each one of these mechanisms in turn 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.”

“In all the studies that we've done for the last 20 years the diet for maybe 30 years now, the diet intervention has been a whole foods, plant-based, vegan diet that’s naturally low in fat, low in sugar, low in refined carbs, high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and soy products as they come in nature.” With decades of evidence behind him, from heart disease to cancer to gene expression, Dr. Ornish turned his attention to Alzheimer’s disease. With 30 to 200 causes of Alzheimer’s disease identified, and the medical industry being unable to reverse it with drugs or surgery, Dr. Helman points out that it’s possible. “I've actually been doing it with patients for six years, and that's why I'm saying there's hope. But the good news -- it's not just me in my practice. There are published studies. And the more diseases we study, and the more mechanisms we look at, the more powerful we find these simple changes can be.”