Dr. Dean Ornish gave this presentation at a TED conference in February 2004. He discusses the importance of lifestyle including diet as well as exercise and stress reduction in maintaining or regaining good health. His program has had proven success in reversing heart disease and cancer. He and his colleagues have shown that the more a person is willing to move to the healthy end of his Spectrum of lifestyle choices, the more positive results they will obtain.

Dr. Ornish’s latest book is “The Spectrum”. In addition to advice on exercise and stress reduction, it includes recipes created by Chef Art Smith with ingredient variations for different levels of The Spectrum of healthy diets. These are some of the chapters:

Chapter 9 – Lowering Your Cholesterol Level Using the Spectrum

Chapter 10 – Losing Weight Using the Spectrum

Chapter 11 – Lowering Your Blood Pressure Using the Spectrum

Chapter 12 – Preventing and Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Using the Spectrum

Chapter 13 – Preventing and Reversing Cardiovascular Disease Using the Spectrum

Chapter 14 – Preventing and Treating Prostate Cancer and Breast Cancer Using the Spectrum

In Chapter 5 – The Nutrition Spectrum, he includes a table with 5 groups of foods, ranking them from the healthiest (Group 1) to the least healthy (Group 5). His Reversal Diet, which has been shown to actually reverse heart disease and cancer, contains foods only from Group 1. His Prevention Diet is for people who are not actively trying to reverse disease, but rather are interested in maintaining good health and preventing disease. In additon to the Group 1 foods, his Prevention Diet also includes food from the other groups. His research has shown that the more your diet consists of Group 1 and 2 foods, the healthier you will be.

Dr. Ornish has also published several other books. In these books, he includes hundreds of recipes, most created by professional chefs and dietitians. In addition to other book sellers, you can buy his books at Amazon.com.