NOTE: This is a re-release of the most popular Florida Foodie episode from 2022. Florida Foodie will return with new episodes on Jan. 24

Dr. Amber Orman likes to practice what she calls “true healthcare.”

“We are treating, preventing and reversing chronic disease with the way that you’re living rather than relying wholly on pills and procedures and tests and things like this,” Orman said.

She is a radiation oncologist and also a practitioner of lifestyle medicine “which is using food and movement, the way that you feel stress the way that you sleep, your relationships and your use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs, to really change your life in a positive way,” according to Orman.

Orman takes that practice into the HEAL Program at AdventHealth. HEAL stands for Healthy Eating Active Lifestyle. Orman started the program with Dr. Nathalie McKenzie, a gynecologic oncologist.

“This has been something that has been percolating for me for quite a few years and before I joined Advent, I was actually going to launch a similar program at Moffitt Cancer Center where I came from,” Orman said. “My life took a turn and I married somebody who happened to live in Orlando and then I found AdventHealth.”

The HEAL program shows cancer patients ways they can change their lifestyles to improve their overall health and help them recover from their diagnosis.

Part of the core of the HEAL program is encouraging patients to consume a diet that is at least majority plant-based.

“When you look at all of the data together, a plant-based diet, a plant predominant diet — that doesn’t have to be 100% vegan, or whatever term you want to use — but simply a diet that is mostly plants the healthiest way to eat. I can say that with complete confidence,” Orman said.

On Florida Foodie, Orman shares more about HEAL and the improvements she has seen in her patients as a result of the program. She also shares more about the benefits of a plant-dominant diet for overall health and what changes people can make to begin improving their nutrition.

Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”

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