STRAIGHT TALK
By Jeffrey Zaslow
Issue date:
February 6-8, 1998
For Valentine's Day: Ornish's new book, Love & Survival, offers scientific evidence that love can make you healthier.
Dean Ornish: The doctor known for his regimen to reverse heart disease has a new book with a classic message: Love heals.
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"The real epidemic," Ornish says, "is spiritual heart disease: loneliness and isolation." |
 octors never write a prescription reading: "Find a large dose of love; take repeatedly." But Dean Ornish, M.D., says love may be the greatest of all disease-fighters, and it's about time doctors realized it. "Poets have always known love can heal."Ornish, 44, is famous for his groundbreaking studies and best-selling books outlining how exercise, stress management and a low-fat diet (his plan allows just 10 percent of daily calories from fat) can reverse heart disease. Now, in upcoming PBS specials and a new book, Love & Survival, he details research indicating loneliness can kill you, while love and a sense of community can heal. "I ask people: 'Why do you smoke, drink, overeat?' They say, 'You don't get it. It helps us get through the day.' One woman said, 'I have 20 friends in this pack of cigarettes, and they're always there for me.' People often fill their voids with drugs, channel-surfing, the Internet. The real epidemic isn't physical heart disease. It's spiritual heart disease: loneliness and isolation." Even a doctor's "love and regard" can help a patient, Ornish says in his office overlooking San Francisco Bay. "Unfortunately, when penicillin came out, doctors found that if you gave it to patients with pneumonia, whether you loved them or not, they got better. That might be true for pneumonia. But for chronic diseases that are the scourge of the 20th century -- heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity -- love can help." Ornish, a former "Type A" workaholic who says he felt suicidal earlier in life, was divorced in 1993 and is now engaged to a manager of a software firm. He says their intimacy is healing him in ways he never imagined. "I used to feel loved because I was special. Now I feel special because I am loved and because I can love."
Photo Credit: WILLIAM MERCER MCLEOD FOR USA WEEKEND
ASK ORNISH FOR ADVICE Ornish will write or call a reader who seeks advice. By February 15, write to "Straight Talk," P.O. Box 3455, Chicago, Ill. 60654 (fax: 312-661-0375; e-mail: talk@usaweekend.com).
Go vegetarian -- you'll think (and smell) better:
"When I changed my diet, I had more energy, I could think more clearly, and I even smelled better. It's true. You smell like what you eat -- your body, breath, everything. Lions and tigers are meat-eaters. Ever smell them at the zoo?"
Another benefit for vegetarians:
"Even sexual function changes. It's not just the heart that gets more blood."
Demand better treatment:
"Doctors respond to patients' demands. Look at birthing centers: Women said they wanted to be treated with more compassion, and hospitals and physicians began to respond."
A tip for people with tense "Type A" personalities:
"Hostility and cynicism are the two most toxic components of Type A behavior. I'm not hostile or cynical, so the fact that I talk fast and have a high energy level isn't toxic."
Look for meaning in pain:
"Even in [Nazi] concentration camps, some people found a sense of meaning -- to bear witness, to help a loved one. They survived, while other, healthier people did not."
Zaslow is an advice columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.
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