As I was going through all the comments that had stacked up while I was away, I came across one about the Ornish program that I thought might be of interest to the group. Here is the gist of it:

after my 3rd heart attack dec 04 I quit the veggie/ornish just plant food eating and now with type 2 this yr am still doing great with no carbs. also off BP drugs and since May have stopped all lipitor and crestor (7 days of crestor was enough) still getting stronger and no more brain fog feeling, wish I knew then what I know now

This comment reminded me of one I read in the long list of comments after Ornish’s response to John Tierney’s blog post about Taubes’ comments on the Israeli low-carb study. Said a commenter who states that he works in a clinic that uses the Ornish regimen:

I too, happen to work in a clinic that espouses the Ornish program. In practice, however, as long as patients do the stress relief, engage in exercise, and quit smoking, they seem to do fine. The diet doesn’t seem to do very much one way or the other, especially since most people give it up quickly. They seem to dislike it.
The diet does wreak havoc with our diabetic patients, however. They are put on the diet because diabetics are prone to heart disease, but the huge quantities of starch required by the Ornish program (whole grain or not) makes make blood sugar control almost impossible. There’s a lot of internal argument about this now.

I’ll bet there is a lot of internal argument about it now. No one practicing medicine likes to see treatment strategies that fail miserably and even make patients worse.

I posted on this same phenomenon a couple of years ago. Dr. Ornish always wants to put his diet at the forefront of his treatment regimen. He pretty much ignores the rest of his program while constantly harping on the benefits of his ultra low-fat diet. He never misses an opportunity to tell how he has proven that his diet reverses heart disease, despite the fact that his program has multiple components. But if his program works, it is in spite of his diet, not because of it. Read why here.

Here is another post about Dr. Ornish and his use of a pretty bizarre testimonial to promote his most recent book.