Editorial Review:Product Description:Dr. Dean Ornish’s
Program for Reversing Heart Disease was a landmark bestseller that transformed the way we think about our health and well-being. Now Dr. Ornish returns with
The Spectrum, a groundbreaking audiobook that helps you determine where you are on the spectrum of health and gives you choices for gaining and sustaining optimum health for life.
With his personalized approach, Dr. Ornish brings you the future of medicine today–the tools to customize a way of eating, managing stress, and exercising that is based on your own desires, needs, and genetic predispositions.Your genes are not your fate. New research by Dr. Ornish and his colleagues shows that changing what you eat and how you live may actually alter, for the better, how your genes are expressed.
The Spectrum not only gives you a new path to health and well-being, it may also help reverse the worldwide epidemics of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, and other chronic conditions.
For almost three decades, Dr. Ornish has been leading a revolution in medicine, and his pioneering findings outlined in
The Spectrum can make a powerful difference in your health and well-being.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
-
Ornish made easy
I've read all of Dean Ornish's books, and feel this is the best of the lot. It's relatively easy to follow and covers the whole "spectrum" of the factors he feels are necessary components for good health. I was very motivated to follow his advice upon completion of the book.
My only complaints about this book include the inclusion of some fairly complex vegetarian recipes (but I happen to prefer very simple, minimal ingredient recipes). And secondly, I would have preferred that some extended meditation exercises be included in the dvd that comes with this book, rather than having the many very short guided imageries that are done by his wife. Although I find her voice very soothing, I just begin to relax when the exercise is over and louder music comes on. I would love to have the couple make a DVD with several 10-20 minute meditation exercises included.
Rating: 
-
The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight and Gain Health by Dean Ornish, MD
I've read the book and within a week and although it has been a short time I've felt increased energy and increased focus following the doctors advice on nutrition, exercise, ways to destress your life as well as making positive lifestyle choices. I highly recommend it.
Rating: -
Your Health: Physical & Mental
This is a very informative book for referring to for inspiration. To get yourself off the couch & keep moving. To eat consciously to guard your health. I am glad I purchased this book.
Rating: 
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Interesting, but Disappointing
I just got the shock of my life at a routine check up when my doctor told me I had very high LDL. With a new-found interest in diet, I picked up "The Spectrum", a book I had been meaning to take a look at anyway.
I found the book to be interesting in the way it categorizes food from Most Healthful (Category 1) to Least Healthful (Category 5).
I would have to say, though, that I do not find this book all that helpful when it comes to the task of putting together a diet. Here are the reasons:
1) It doesn't say so on the cover, but he basically advocates a vegetarian diet. There are almost NO "most healthful" sources of protein except for garbonzos and soy (I think.) There is ONE Level 2 source of protein, which I believe is wild salmon. I'll just go down to the wild salmon store after work and prepare myself a wild-salmon meatloaf. What would we do without health food stores? Die? How are those realistic sources of protein? Another thing, there isn't even an entry for "protein" in the index, nor did I find information on how to ensure I get enough protein. Perhaps these issues are beyond the scope of the book, or I missed them.
Yesterday, I had a grilled chicken and spinach salad and thought I was doing okay. That was before I found out that chicken is only one level better than donuts.
2) This whole business of "it's not all or nothing" is, I think, a bit of a cop-out and a way to claim his is not the "no fat" diet. His repeated advice to make an individualized selection of what level to eat at is not helpful to me. What is the rational amount of "least healthful" food to eat, after reading about how it will kill me?
3)The recipes did not seem like something a person with a real life and kids would be able to put on the table. (Many of them do not seem to provide much protein, but maybe I'm wrong on that.)
Anyway, if you are looking to put together a diet, I don't think this book will be all that helpful.
Rating: -
The Ornish diet is great for many, but would it work for Eskimos?
The Ornish diet is great for many, but I wonder would it work for Eskimos?
Seven years ago a doctor told my husband he had prostrate cancer and should have his prostrate removed. My husband went to a second doctor for a second opinion. The second doctor wanted to use radioactive pellets to stop the cancer. My husband decided to follow the diet Doctor Ornish had a group of prostrate cancer patients using. After following the diet and a "watchful waiting" process for seven years, my husband's health is even better than when he started the program. I think "The Spectrum" can help almost anyone who reads and follows it. Both my husband and I follow it.
I only gave the book 4 stars for two reasons:
-1. The structure of the book is not user friendly. I believe that for the first chapter of the book, Ornish should provide a "Reader's Digest" version of the book. Then for the readers who want more detail he could reference later chapters.
-2. I felt that Ornish presented his diet as THE solution. I wonder if there are places and people in the world for whom low fat diets are not possible or perhaps not even healthy, such as in Eskimo villages before Europeans took over. Would such people have developed the genes to not only live on a high fat diet, but the need to have a high fat diet? I wonder if there has been much research on the differences between the nutrition needs of different ethnic and racial groups?
