CHICAGO - With obesity, type-2 diabetes and heart disease reaching epidemic proportions in the United States and affecting men and women almost equally, physicians Dean Ornish, M.D., and Herbert Benson, M.D., will discuss preventative approaches to avoiding disease at the American Psychological Association's (APA) 110th Annual Convention. In their Plenary on Health, Emotions and Spirituality (Session 3250: Saturday, August 24 at 3:00 - 4:50 pm, McCormick Place, South Building - Level 4, Meeting Room S406a), Drs. Ornish and Benson will address what people can do to increase their chances of living healthier lives through diet, spirituality and minimizing the harmful effects of stress.
Dr. Ornish is the founder, president and director of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California. He is also a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. For over two decades, Dr. Ornish has directed clinical research demonstrating, for the first time, that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease, without drugs or surgery. He is the author of five best-selling books, including New York Times bestsellers Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease; Eat More, Weigh Less; and Love & Survival. His latest research extends his heart/behavior program to prostrate cancer patients. His results are pending.
Dr. Herbert Benson is the founding president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is a pioneer in mind/body medicine, as well as in bringing spirituality and healing into medicine. Through his 35-year career, he defined the relaxation response and continues to lead teaching and research into its efficacy in counteracting the harmful effects of stress. His work serves as a bridge between medicine and religion, East and West, mind and body and belief and science. Dr. Benson has authored or co-authored more than 170 scientific publications and seven books, the latest one being The Relaxation Response - Updated and Expanded.
The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 155,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 53 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.