What's love got to do with it?

Twenty years ago, when Dean Ornish, M.D., first began to research the effects of a vegetarian diet, yoga and meditation on heart disease, many o is peers thought he was a little crazy. "For at least 10 years, I took a lot of flack for even thinking these things were worth investigating," he recalls. Back then, in the late 1970s, the U.S. government and the major medical institutions that funded most clinical studies firmly held the position that it was impossible to reverse heart disease. Even if it were possible, they argued, you could not motivate people enough to change their diet and lifestyle to the necessary degree. "It was a Catch-22," says Ornish. "Without the funding, we couldn't do the studies to see if it was possible, and without showing that it was feasible, they didn't want to fund it. But I believed it was worth trying and had blind faith that we'd raise the money." Eventually Ornish not only found the money, he proved for the first time that heart disease is, in fact, often reversible, without drugs or surgery.

Today Ornish has gone from fringe to mainstream: The federal government's National Institutes of Health has funded his work; most cardiologists are familiar with and supportive of his work; some 40 health insurance companies reimburse patients on his program; and even ultraconservative Medicare is analyzing his program for possible future coverage. In 1984, he founded the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., where he holds the Bucksbaum Chair in Preventive Medicine. A vegetarian for 25 years, he also is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco's medical school, where he is a founder of the Center for Integrative Medicine. Ornish is a physician consultant to President Clinton, the recipient of numerous national and inter national awards and, according to Life magazine, one of the 50 most influential people of his generation.

Up until now, Ornish's published works (scores of medical journal article and four books, including Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease and Everyday Cooking with Dr. Dean Ornish) have focused on reversing and preventing heart disease. But this month he publishes his fifth book, Love & Survival The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power Intimacy (HarperCollins, 1998), which looks at the factors that Ornish believes to be the most important in premature death and disease. In conjunction with the book's release, he also has taped two hour-long specials for PBS, which will air later this month. And, to help people make the transition to more healthful vegetarian eating, this month he's launching a new line of natural food products, called Advantage\10[TM], which will be available in most natural food store and supermarkets.

Vegetarian Times: In your previous four books, you've established the role die and lifestyle play in heart health. How is your new book, Love & Survival, different

Dean Ornish: The real epidemic isn't just physical heart disease--it's what I call emotional or spiritual heart disease. In our culture, there's a pervasive sense of isolation and loneliness and alienation. The point of Love & Survival is that isolation is at the too of behavior patterns that often lead to a significantly increased risk of premature death and disease. Heart health is not just about getting our cholesterol down or preventing something bad from happening. It's about finding love and intimacy, which give our lives a sense of joy and meaning.

The premise of this book, and my work in general, is that whatever promotes a sense of loneliness and isolation--from oneself or other people or something spiritual--predisposes us to disease and premature death. Whatever promotes a sense of intimacy is healing.

VT: What first tipped you off that love and intimacy might be as important as diet, stress and lifestyle?

DO: Throughout my 20 years of research, support groups have always been important, but they were originally designed to help people stay on the other parts of the programs--the diet, for example. But over time, what became clear was that we ended up creating, almost unwittingly, an intentional community, a place where people felt safe enough to let down their defenses and talk about what they were of really feeling and what was really happening in their lives without fear of being judged or made fun of or being given advice on how to fix it.

For many people, that sense of being heard and seen and understood was a new experience. In an early group, only one man refused to participate in the group sessions--while everyone else was talking about what was happening in their lives, he'd go to the gym and work out--and he was the only person in that study to die. While one person does not prove anything, his death really got our attention and made it clear that group support might be as important as anything else we were doing--if not more so. Many people had the greatest resistance to this part of the program, and yet once they began the process, they invariably said it was the most meaningful because it filled a basic human need that wasn't being met in other parts of their lives.