The killer American diet that's sweeping the planet

Stop wringing your hands over AIDS, cancer and the avian flu. Cardiovascular disease kills more people than everything else combined -- and it’s mostly preventable. Dr. Dean Ornish explains how changing our eating habits will save lives.

With all the legitimate concerns
about AIDS and avian flu --

and we'll hear about that from the

brilliant Dr. Brilliant later today --

I want to talk about the other
pandemic, which is

cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, hypertension --

all of which are completely
preventable for at

least 95 percent of people

just by changing diet and lifestyle.

And what's happening is that there's a

globalization of illness
occurring, that people

are starting to eat like us,
and live like us, and

die like us. And
in one generation, for example,

Asia's gone from having
one of the lowest rates of

heart disease and obesity
and diabetes to one

of the highest. And in Africa,
cardiovascular disease

equals the HIV and AIDS deaths

in most countries.

So there's a critical
window of opportunity we

have to make an important
difference that can

affect the lives of literally
millions of people,

and practice preventive
medicine on a global

scale.

Heart and blood vessel
diseases still kill more

people -- not only in this
country, but also

worldwide -- than everything
else combined, and yet

it's completely preventable
for almost everybody.

It's not only preventable; it's actually

reversible. And for the last
almost 29 years,

we've been able to show
that by simply changing

diet and lifestyle, using
these very high-tech,

expensive, state-of-the-art
measures to prove how

powerful these very simple
and low-tech and low-cost

interventions can be like -- quantitative

arteriography,
before and after a year, and

cardiac PET scans.

We showed a few months
ago -- we published the

first study showing you
can actually stop or

reverse the progression
of prostate cancer by

making changes in diet
and lifestyle, and 70 percent

regression in the tumor
growth, or inhibition of

the tumor growth, compared
to only nine percent in the

control group.

And in the MRI and MR
spectroscopy here, the

prostate tumor activity
is shown in red -- you can

see it diminishing after a year.

Now there is an epidemic
of obesity: two-thirds of

adults and 15 percent of kids.
What's really concerning

to me is that diabetes has
increased 70 percent in the

past 10 years, and this may be the first

generation in which our kids
live a shorter life

span than we do. That's pitiful, and it's

preventable.

Now these are not election
returns, these are the

people -- the number
of the people who are obese

by state, beginning in '85,
'86, '87 -- these are

from the CDC website --
'88, '89, '90, '91 -- you

get a new category --
'92, '93, '94, '95, '96,

'97, '98, '99, 2000, 2001
-- it gets worse. We're

kind of devolving. (Laughter)

Now what can we do about this?
Well, you know, the

diet that we've found
that can reverse heart

disease and cancer is an Asian diet.

But the people in Asia
are starting to eat like we

are, which is why they're
starting to get sick

like we are.

So I've been working
with a lot of the big food

companies. They can make
it fun and sexy and hip

and crunchy and convenient
to eat healthier foods,

like -- I chair the advisory
boards to McDonald's,

and PepsiCo, and ConAgra,
and Safeway, and soon

Del Monte, and they're
finding that it's good

business.

The salads that you see
at McDonald's came from

the work -- they're going
to have an Asian salad. At

Pepsi, two-thirds
of their revenue growth came

from their better foods.

And so if we can do that,
then we can free up

resources for buying drugs
that you really do need

for treating AIDS and HIV
and malaria and for

preventing avian flu. Thank you.