Dr. Dean Ornish, a nationally known heart-disease researcher since the early 1990s, formulated two diets -- the Reversal Diet and the Prevention Diet. Their premise is that you can reduce your heart-disease risk and reverse existing heart disease by regularly eating foods that are very low in fat and dietary cholesterol and making other lifestyle changes, including reducing stress, quitting smoking and exercising more.
Theory
Ornish believes your total blood cholesterol level should be below 150 milligrams per deciliter, mg/dL. The federal government's National Cholesterol Education Program and the American Heart Association report that total cholesterol between 150 and 200 is healthy, but this recommendation "may not be sufficient to prevent coronary heart disease for many people," according to "Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease." Ornish's theory on healthy cholesterol led him to create diets that are more stringent than the cholesterol program and Heart Association diets.
Significance
A strict low-fat, low-dietary cholesterol diet can help you to avoid taking cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of your life, Ornish wrote in "The Spectrum Lifestyle Program," a report on his website. The American Heart Association recommends a diet that limits fat and saturated fat to 30 and 10 percent of calories and dietary cholesterol to 300 mg daily. Frequently, people who can't reduce their blood cholesterol on a diet like this are prescribed drugs, but they should make "bigger changes" in their diet instead, Ornish wrote.
Preventing Disease
Ornish's Prevention Diet is based on your total blood cholesterol. If it's below 150, you can maintain your current diet. Most Americans have more blood cholesterol. If it's above 150, you should begin eating fewer high-fat foods. The "common culprits" that cause high cholesterol include butter, cheese, eggs, ice cream, meat, nuts and oil, according to "Reversing Heart Disease." You should check your total cholesterol again in eight weeks. If it hasn't dropped, you should consider eliminating red meat, fried foods and poultry skin.
Transitions
Repeated failures to lower your blood cholesterol should prompt you to get medical exams. You need to follow the Ornish Reversal Diet if you have atherosclerotic plaque in the arteries leading to your heart, Ornish wrote. If you don't have heart disease, you still need to make dietary changes "one step at a time" to lower your cholesterol. The changes include using less cooking oil, baking with egg whites instead of egg yolks, switching from whole to skim milk, eating more vegetables and trying more beans and grains.
Reversing Disease
The Ornish Reversal Diet has reversed heart artery blockages and reduced blood pressure and cholesterol, according to Ornish's book. Dieters are instructed to eat no saturated fat and 5 mg of dietary cholesterol daily. Only 10 percent of calories can come from any fat. Between 70 percent and 75 percent of dieters' calories come from carbohydrates, 15 to 20 percent from protein. Complex carbohydrates, including beans, breads, cereal, fruits and vegetables, are emphasized.
References
- "Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease"; Dr. Dean Ornish; 1996
- "The Spectrum"; Dr. Dean Ornish; 2007
- Dean Ornish, MD: The Spectrum Lifestyle Program
- National Cholesterol Education Program: High Blood Cholesterol
- "Essentials for Health and Wellness"; Gordon Edlin, Eric Golanty, Kelli McCormack Brown; 2000
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