On this day in vegan history · July 16, 1953
Dean Ornish Is Born
A doctor born in Dallas would spend his career proving that beans, oats, and a lot less fat could do what bypass surgery couldn't, until an insurer finally had to agree.
The facts
- Born
- July 16, 1953, in Dallas, Texas
- Program
- Program for Reversing Heart Disease: diet, meditation, exercise, and support groups
- Insurance milestone
- 1993, first non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical heart disease therapy approved by a major insurance carrier
- Medicare
- 2010, Medicare began reimbursing the program as a 72-hour intensive cardiac rehabilitation course
Dean Ornish was born on July 16, 1953, in Dallas, Texas. Trained as a physician, he spent the 1980s running small, rigorous trials asking a blunt question: could heart disease reverse itself if patients ate less fat, moved more, and dealt with their stress, without a single pill or scalpel? The data said yes, and his Program for Reversing Heart Disease combined a very low-fat, mostly plant-based diet with exercise, meditation, and support groups. In 1993 it became the first non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical therapy for heart disease to qualify for insurance reimbursement, and, chiropractic aside, the first alternative medical technique outside standard medical training to win approval from a major insurer. For a health system built on bypass surgery and cholesterol drugs, that was the moment a diet got treated like medicine.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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It combined diet, meditation, exercise and support groups, and in 1993 became the first non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical therapy for heart disease to qualify for insurance reimbursement.
Wikipedia, describing Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease
Source: Wikipedia -
With the exception of chiropractic care, it was the first alternative medical technique, not taught in traditional medical-school curricula, to gain approval by a major insurance carrier.
Wikipedia, on the program's 1993 insurance approval
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Ornish gave plant-based eating something rare in medicine: a randomized trial and a paycheck. Once an insurer paid for the diet, doctors could prescribe it instead of just suggesting it.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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