Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy

Modern medicine is lacking in the kind of considerations that Ornish makes in his research and his book. He’s accidentally funny at times, but what really shines through in his writing is how much he cares and how much consideration has been put into his research. This isn’t talked about enough.

I think everyone who wants to live a long, healthy, happy life should read this book. Love, relationships, community, we need each other---our health depends on it!

Dr. Ornish is best known for his research which showed the revolutionary result that diet and lifestyle changescould lead to a reversal in the progression of heart disease. He has extended his body of work to highlight thecritical importance of social factors (relationships, community, friendship, support groups, lines of communication,love) in both avoiding and recovering from life-threatening illness. He cites a large volume of scientific studieswhich support his claims, and he divulges personal information about his own journey through life, shedding lighton his motivation and intentions. I highly recommend this book. It stands out in its class as unique and refreshinglyconstructive.

Before reading this book I was familiar with Dr. Ornish's work with diet and exercise reversing heart disease. From that exposure he came off as being slightly fanatical and rigid to me.Well, was this book ever a surprise! Having done a lot of work on myself emotionally and spiritually a lot of the book was already known to me, but the way Dr. Ornish ties this all together with the scientific evidence blew me away, reinforcing a lot of what I had already suspected. In addition, in my personal life it has helped my spouse and I refocus ourselves into what is important in life. It is especially interesting because as an MD we would expect Dr. Ornish to take the stance that most of us have experienced with the medical profession i.e pushing the latest pills and technical wonders and leaving the emotions and spirituality to "others" (often with a sneer). I highly recommend this book as it can jumpstart a lot if my case is any indication. It is funny, in the book Dr. Ornish quotes the old expression "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear". This book helped both my spouse and I recognize a teacher like that in our lives and I suspect it might help others see the teacher or teachers around themselves as well:)Especially in these days of heartache and pain after 9/11 this book is a valuable tool into healing and hope as well.

Reading this book changed me deeply. Ornish includes moutains of scientific evidence that love, intimacy and service to others are healing, health promoting behaviours. We humans are more than just the sum of our body parts, our minds, our spiritual hearts affect our well being. I recommend this book to everyone willing to read it. You don't have to simply believe Ornish, he has scientific 'proof' for his ideas.

I had read Dr. Ornish's books about diet and health, and found them to be very helpful. Then, I read this one. This is by far the most important book that he has written, because how we handle our relationships with others is more important to our health than even what we eat and how we exercise. A little of this information was familiar to me from reading the New York Times Science section, but most of it was not. Clearly the biggest disease of our modern culture is our estrangement from each other. For most of history, we lived with others in small, intimate groups. Now that the population is much larger, we live in large groups with no close relationships. Even our families are losing that intimacy. This book puts the priorities back where they should be. Having close relationships with others comes first. This book is a blessing to us all. Thank you, Dr. Ornish! This book would be a great gift to everyone you care about on Valentine's Day.