From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Is it possible to have too little sugar in your diet?
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 03:06:14 -0600

"Cycomiko" <hunt354@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3aff8982$1@zfree.co.nz...
> >But I would not consider reading DANDR any more brain-damaging than
> >reading Ornish's pronouncements that "Fat makes you FAT!".
>
> Whats with him anyway, hes as mad as Atkins

But thinner. <g>

From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Is it possible to have too little sugar in your diet?
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 13:18:10 -0600

<harkness@suespammers.org> wrote in message
news:E6079CA9254E4A3F.2122ABA9A0AC11F3.FD7590B46F3FA6D0@lp.airnews.net...
> "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >But thinner. <g>
> >
>
> You apparently have not seen a recent picture of Ornish (not
> surprizing, since they are hard to find).  I happened to see him on a
> TV program in which he was demonizing fat.  He is basically a chubby
> ectomorph, although he is technically not overweight.

Interesting. Yes, I haven't seen anything since the promos for his last
book.

I suspect you're right and that Ornish could use a glug of hemp oil every
day.  These vegans often have that pale look, and their hair has the dry
texture which, if I saw it in one of my cats, would make me reach for the
flax and vitamin E.

From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Is it possible to have too little sugar in your diet?
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 13:13:29 -0600

> In article <9do7bi$k8b$1@slb2.atl.mindspring.net>, "Steve Harris"
> <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
> >But thinner. <g>
>
> NOT.
>
> You must be looking at retouched images.  ;-)
>
> Susan

I don't think so. Atkins was just featured in Biography mag, and he's
definitely heavier than Ornish.  Who is (I admit) somewhat pale and ascetic
looking.  And yes, younger, so in a sense it's not a fair comparison.

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Medication or Nutrition?
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 10:33:57 -0700

Spam me and get sued! wrote in message
<1F586FB791872BBE.CBDC6089AF296ADF.0BBD55275A957205@lp.airnews.net>...
>Dilworth <bactitech@hortonsbay.com> wrote:
>
>>You may want to read Dean Ornish's books.  He advocates a very low fat
>>approach to reversing atherosclerosis.  He's also an M.D.
>
>Ornish is yet another diet-guru-wannabe with an MD (and a popular diet
>book) who has 'discovered' some things that appear to work, and
>concluded from that, that he has all the answers.
>
>That much, he has in common with Atkins.
>
>Ornish has *never* shown that his diet will reverse atherosclerosis.
>What he has actually shown is that stress reduction and moderate
>exercise will reduce, and sometimes even reverse, the health-damaging
>effects of a low-fat diet.



His patients have been eating the standard American diet at about
40% calories as fat. I don't think I'd call this "low fat."

Ornish showed that a COMBINATION of a very low fat nearly vegetarian
diet, exercise, and meditation, can stop and even reverse coronary
atherosclerosis. This is backed up by the gold standard cardiac
cath evidence.  My hat's off to the guy, since this was a difficult
and expensive study to do, and the NIH wasn't exactly behind it gungho.
Ornish deserves his publicity and his day in the sun.

Since dietary change to low fat definitely reverses atherosclerosis in
experimental primates, and there is NO evidence that exercise does
in humans, I rather think it's the low-fat part of Ornish's program that
is active. Of course, maybe you can meditate your coronary atheromas
away (think and grow healthy). I personally don't believe it, but it's not
impossible. Stress does do odd things to blood lipids also.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.frugal-living,sci.med
Subject: Re: all about HMOs
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 14:21:49 -0600
Message-ID: <a8q9pa$jph$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>

"BG Emmons" <bgemmons@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:iQ0s8.38020$To6.10143375@e420r-atl1.usenetserver.com...
> Dean Ornish, MD has found that many patients may do better with a diet and
> exercise approach vs bypass surgery.


Well, no, as people were not randomized to one vs the other and then
compared. But Ornish did give evidence that his approach is a viable
alternative.

> For the older folks, Ornish's approach is quite similar to that
> developed previously by N. Pritikin; with the big difference being
> Ornish has an MD, and, therefore, he gets better press from the medical
> establishment than Pritikin did in years past.

True enough, though Ornish now has better evidence than Pritikin ever did.
But in trying to raise money initially, Ornish's MD surely helped him. But
even then he couldn't get an NIH grant;  NIH = "Not Invented Here." Private
money indeed is where you have to go if you have a really creative idea.

SBH