Digging deeper into Dr Dean Ornish’s therapy for cancer
Re: “Diet books mostly aimed at fattening writers’ bank accounts”, Letters, yesterday.
At Eric Bahrt’s suggestion, I did some Internet research on Dr Dean Ornish’s treatment of prostate cancer patients.
Dr Ornish did indeed put his patients on a vegan diet – albeit with daily supplement of fish oil – and the results were positive. But it is worth emphasising that the treatment was combined with exercise, stress reduction and vitamin supplements. In other words you can’t claim that the vegan diet alone did the trick. It is impossible to say how much or how little each part of the therapy contributed to the beneficial outcome. I wish Dr Ornish had used a vegan diet alone to treat his patients. He didn’t. Why? Because he knew it wouldn’t work.
Meanwhile, Eric, please stop groaning that your critics attack you personally because they can’t intelligently dispute your arguments. You are the one who personally attacks your critics, most recently calling them “dumb”, “stupid”, “clowns”, “thick-skulled” and “demented”.
Somsak Pola
Samut Prakan
