"Dr. Ornish's landmark research validates the advice he provides." -- Alexander Leaf, M.D. Chairman, Department of Preventive Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology Harvard Medical School This is a book about healing your heart. In this breakthrough book, Dr. Dean Ornish presents the first scientific proof that it is possible to actually reverse heart disease without drugs or surgery. Dr. Ornish's internationally acclaimed scientific study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and based on thirteen years of research, has yielded astonishing conclusions: Heart disease can often be halted or even reversed -- without bypass surgery, angioplasty, or cholesterol-lowering drugs -- simply by changing our life-style. Participants in Dr. Ornish's study, all of whom had severe coronary heart disease, followed his extraordinary Opening Your Heart program with amazing results: their chest pain diminished or disappeared; they often were able to reduce or discontinue medications; they felt more energetic, happy, and calm; they lost weight while eating much more food; and in most cases the average blockages in their coronary arteries began to reverse. In fact, the more severely blocked arteries showed the most reversal. In contrast, the coronary blockages of most of the patients who followed their doctors' recommendations became worse instead of better. Dr. Ornish presents the dramatic evidence from his study and guides readers step-by-step through the Opening Your Heart program, which combines a special Reversal Diet (featuring over 150 delicious, all-you-can-eat recipes from such culinary stars as Mollie Katzen, Deborah Madison, Wolfgang Puck, and Alice Waters); a Prevention Diet; meditation; visualization; communication skills and other stress management techniques; and advice on how to stop smoking and how to exercise safely and moderately. More men and women die from coronary heart disease each year than from all other causes of death combined, including cancer and AIDS. Now, since heart disease can be reversed, then it may be preventable for most people. Even more prevalent than physical heart disease are the psychological and spiritual diseases of the

Dean Ornish, M.D., is president and director of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California. He is Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and an attending physician at California Pacific Medical Center.<br><br><br><i>From the Paperback edition.</i>