All right, so I think a lot of people
know you are the doctor that is sort of responsible for saving
President Clinton's life.
So thank you for doing that.
You talk about a lot of different diseases
in this book.
But what's really scary is that diabetes is something
that 50% of the country has, or will have.
That's frightening.
It is frightening.
And in 4 years of research, we've
been able to show that simple lifestyle changes can
undo or reverse the progression of the most common chronic
diseases.
Diabetes being one, heart disease, early-stage prostate
cancer, this being Men's Month.
High blood pressure, high cholesterol.
And when people get diagnosed with this,
they get usually put on drugs to treat.
Then they say-- to lower their blood sugar, or blood
cholesterol, or blood pressure.
And they say, doctor, how long do I have to take these?
And the doctor usually says, forever.
And it's a little like--
if you can imagine doctors busily mopping up
the floor around a sink that's overflowing,
but nobody is turning off the faucet.
And the faucet is really the lifestyle choices we make.
And I'm just so amazing at how our bodies have
this remarkable capacity to begin healing.
And people, often under their doctor's supervision,
get off these medications, or reduce them,
that they were told they'd have to take forever.
Absolutely.
And I think most mostly, it's obviously lifestyle and diet.
Diet is everything, which is-- causes diabetes,
and I think can reverse it.
So what are the four things?
You say four things you can do to be healthier.
Well, I wanted to reduce it down to its essence.
Eat well, move more, stress less, love more.
Boom, that's it.
And the more diseases we study and the more mechanisms we
look at, the more reasons we have
to show how powerful these are.
So we show that we can reverse all these different conditions.
But also, we can actually change your genes.
So often people say, oh, I've just got bad genes.
What can I do?
It turns out, we did a study showing
that in just three months, over 500 genes were changed.
Turning on the good genes, turning off the bad genes.
We did a study showing we could lengthen telomeres,
the ends of our chromosomes, that control how long we live.
In a sense, reversing aging at a cellular level.
And we're doing a study now for the first time
to see if we can actually reverse early-stage Alzheimer's
disease.
So it's exciting.
That's incredible.
So you've seen the results.
You see that by changing this, it helps.
And you say that being kind is also a big part of it.
Yeah.
The "Love More" is my favorite chapter,
because study after study have shown
that people who are lonely and depressed
are 3 to 10 times more likely to get sick and die prematurely
from pretty much all causes, when compared to those
who have a sense of love, and connection, and community.
Nothing in medicine compares to that.
Mhm.
And one of the things I love about your show,
and why I'm so excited to be here,
is that your show is-- besides being fun,
is really a healing force.
Because you bring people together
around love, and shining a light in the darkness.
And it's beautiful what you do.
It's really powerful.
[APPLAUSE]
Well, it feels really good that I'm a conduit, you know?
It really does.
Because I get that back from them.
And you know, there's been results of just watching
someone be rewarded in some way, or be happy,
it actually activates something inside.
Yeah, exactly.
So I make them happy, and in return, I'm
happy because I've made them happy.
And then they see me happy, and then they get happier.
And then--
[LAUGHTER]
Well, that's why, you know?
When you help other people, it helps you.
Right, exactly.
And the other thing that I want to mention,
before we run out of time, is how dynamic these mechanisms
are.
How quickly you feel better when you make these changes.
It's not about fear of dying.
It's about joy of living.
Yeah.
And there's a new film that--
called-- that James Cameron did, to show the power
of a plant-based diet.
And there's this one great scene,
where he has these three elite athletes.
Guys in their mid '20s.
And guys have erections at night.
It's a normal function.
OK.
[LAUGHTER]
[LAUGHS] And so they gave them a meat-based meal, a single meal.
It was organic chicken, grass-fed beef,
high-quality meat.
And then they measured the frequency, and duration,
and hardness of their erections at night.
Right.
They did it the next night.
This is, you know, Guys' Month, after all.
Uh-huh.
[LAUGHTER]
And then they gave them a single plant-based meal.
Mhm.
And they found they had 3% to 500% more frequent and 10%
to 15% harder erections.
Apparently, the film crew--
That's fantastic.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
That's so great.
Great.
But it's an example.
Your brain gets more blood.
You can actually grow so many new brain neurons,
your brain can get bigger.
Your skin gets more blood.
You age less quickly.
Your heart gets more blood.
Everything gets more blood.
Yeah, yeah.
No, it is.
It's a fantastic thing for--
because I think a lot of men are scared to go
to a plant-based diet, thinking meat
is actually better for you.
And now you realize that you'll be a lot better off, and--
[LAUGHTER]
--harder, and stuff.
[LAUGHTER]
You'll get the--
They're going to have hotter sex and a cooler planet.
Harder-- cooler-- um--
[LAUGHTER]
Um-- so-- wait, before you go, because we are out of time--
but what-- I have a friend over there, Andy, who enjoys vaping.
What does vaping do to your body?
Nicotine is a very powerful drug.
It reduces blood flow.
In the same way these other things increase it,
it causes your arteries to constrict.
It makes you look 10 or 20 years older, because your face gets
less blood flow.
It causes impotence for the same reasons we were talking about.
And so--
[LAUGHTER]
--not a good thing.
It's no different than smoking cigarettes.
Yeah, it causes impotence.
[LAUGHTER]
He doesn't care.
[LAUGHS]
[LAUGHTER]
He's like, I have kids.
I'm fine.
That's why he didn't know the names of everything.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, I just worry about him, because he does vape a lot.
And I think a lot of kids are vaping,
thinking it's better than smoking cigarettes.
It's not good for you.
Thanks for being here.
And I hope people read this book,
because we can actually look better, feel better, have
more energy, help the planet.
So many things just by the way we eat.
So Dr. Ornish's new book is called Undo It.
It's available now, and everyone in the audience
is going home with a copy.
[CHEERING]