Ornish Lifestyle Heart Trial
In plain English
A small but landmark trial that combined a whole-food plant-based diet with stress management and moderate exercise in patients with established coronary disease. Angiograms after five years showed coronary blockages had partially reversed in the intervention group while progressing in the control group — the first prospective evidence that lifestyle alone can shrink atherosclerotic plaque.
Why it matters
Whole-food plant-based diet + lifestyle reversed coronary blockages on angiography.
Informs: Heart Disease
Provenance
- Design
- Randomised controlled trial
- Sample size (n)
- 48
- Follow-up
- 5 years
- Peer-reviewed
- Yes
- Replications
- 1
- Funding
- Mixed (public + private/non-profit)
- Funders
- US National Institutes of Health, private philanthropy
- Institutions
- Preventive Medicine Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco
decades.plus score
A transparent 0–100 weighted sum across six components. Higher scores reflect bigger, cleaner, more replicated work.
Caveats
Very small sample (n=48); multifactorial intervention (diet + exercise + stress + group support) — diet's isolated effect cannot be cleanly separated.
