Dr. Dean Ornish, the founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., has been named The Huffington Post's medical editor.

As medical editor, Dr. Ornish will write regular columns about wellness and health care policy and work to recruit medical experts to write for HuffPo about these topics.

"I admire what Arianna has been able to accomplish at The Huffington Post and share her passion for focusing on health and wellness, and on the need for looking at prevention and intensive lifestyle treatments as the linchpin of any serious health care reform," Dr. Ornish said in a statement. "Having seen what a powerful difference changes in lifestyle can make, I appreciate this extraordinary opportunity to be of service by sharing this information with HuffPost's many readers."

Dr. Ornish posted his first column on HuffPo today about health care policy. There's also a column on health care reform by Dr. Andrew Weill posted to HuffPo today.

(Photo via WebMD)

Full release after the jump

THE HUFFINGTON POST NAMES DR. DEAN ORNISH MEDICAL EDITOR

RENOWNED PREVENTIVE HEALTH PHYSICIAN, PIONEERING SCIENTIST AND BEST‑SELLING AUTHOR TO EXPAND SITE’S WELLNESS AND HEALTH CARE POLICY COVERAGE

New York, NY, August 10, 2009 -- The Huffington Post, a leading news and opinion site, announced today that Dean Ornish, M.D., best-selling author and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, has been named Medical Editor of The Huffington Post. In this new position, Dr. Ornish will report regularly on wellness and health care policy issues, and help recruit experts in these fields to blog on HuffPost. Huffington Post co-founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington made the announcement.

"We're delighted to have Dr. Ornish on board as our Medical Editor," said Arianna Huffington. "Dr. Ornish has been a pioneer in promoting lifestyle changes and prevention as a path to better health -- an approach that could not be more timely and more critical to controlling skyrocketing health care costs. He's been committed for decades to moving the focus towards maintaining health and away from just focusing on curing illness. He'll be writing both about personal health issues and about moving prevention front and center in the ongoing health care debate. Dr. Ornish has always demonstrated a willingness to consider a wide range of effective approaches to achieving wellness, so I look forward to featuring the work of new bloggers he'll be recruiting from various disciplines and perspectives."

"I admire what Arianna has been able to accomplish at The Huffington Post and share her passion for focusing on health and wellness, and on the need for looking at prevention and intensive lifestyle treatments as the linchpin of any serious health care reform," said Dr. Ornish. "Having seen what a powerful difference changes in lifestyle can make, I appreciate this extraordinary opportunity to be of service by sharing this information with HuffPost's many readers."

Starting today, The Huffington Post is featuring blog posts from Dr. Ornish, "Resuscitating Health Care Reform," and Dr. Andrew Weill, "The Wrong Diagnosis," both of which highlight the pivotal importance of intensive lifestyle change and prevention in the health care reform discussion.

Dr. Ornish is founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California (www.pmri.org). For over 30 years, Dr. Ornish has directed clinical research demonstrating, for the first time, that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse heart disease, prostate cancer, and other illnesses. He is the author of six best-selling books, including his most recent, The Spectrum. Dr. Ornish's latest research showed that lifestyle changes beneficially impact gene expression, "turning on" genes that prevent disease and "turning off" genes that promote heart disease, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and other illnesses.

Dr. Ornish received his medical training in internal medicine from the Baylor College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He received a B.A. in Humanities summa cum laude from the University of Texas in Austin. He has received several awards, including the 1994 Outstanding Young Alumnus Award from the University of Texas, Austin, the University of California, Berkeley, "National Public Health Hero" award, and the Jan J. Kellermann Memorial Award for distinguished contribution in the field of cardiovascular disease prevention from the International Academy of Cardiology. Dr. Ornish has been a physician consultant to President Clinton (1993-2000) and to members of U.S. Congress from both parties and has consulted with the chefs at The White House, Camp David, and Air Force One. He chairs the Google Health Advisory Council.

He was selected as one of the "TIME 100" in integrative medicine, recognized as "one of the most interesting people of 1996" by People magazine, and chosen by LIFE magazine as "one of the fifty most influential members of his generation.