I think we would all agree that if we had to choose between “being treated for cancer in the best clinics and with the latest medicines” and “not getting cancer in the first place”, we would all choose the second option.
We would rather not……
- Get cancer and be treated with the latest chemotherapy
- Have open heart surgery with the best doctors
- Suffer from Alzheimers life in a state-of-the-art care facility
- Be a diabetic with kidney failure who receives “exclusive home dialysis”.
Yet, most of us are quite comfortable buying expensive health insurance when really, the only thing we are buying is a better quality colostomy bag, neater stitching in our heart surgery or a private room in an alzheimer center.
Perhaps I am exaggerating a bit, but I hope you get the idea. Buying health insurance WON’T improve your health or reduce your chances of getting sick.
If health insurance won’t stop you from getting sick, what will?
Actually we have known the answer to this question since before the birth of christ when the father of modern medicine, Hippocretes said: “Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food” and “Walking is man’s best medicine”.
And now the latest research on autophagy, lengthening Telomeres, modulating mTOR and other cutting edge science is confirming this.
Lifestyle Medicine is the most powerful medicine we have for preventing disease (ie. not getting cancer in the first place), reversing disease and extending healthspan (the portion of our lives in which we are healthy and full of vitality).
If Lifestyle Medicine is so powerful, then why haven’t I heard of it?
You probably have heard of it, but didn’t consider it “medicine” because your doctor didn’t describe it to you in that way. In your last visit, as they were busily prescribing you medicine for your high blood pressure, cholesterol or blood sugar, he/she may have also mentioned in one sentence that you “should exercise more, drink less and improve your diet”.
Your doctor didn’t spend more time discussing the topic of lifestyle changes for four main reasons:
- 1. Your doctor can´t teach you what they don´t know. Most doctors receive almost no training on the topic of Lifestyle Medicine. On average, during their 7 years of medical training, doctors only receive about 5 hours of instruction on nutrition, 2 hours on exercise medicine and “zero hours” on the other important lifestyle interventions such as improving sleep, reducing stress and improving interpersonal relations.
- 2. Unfortunately most doctors are simply unable to keep up with the sheer volume of new scientific research demonstrating the power of Lifestyle Medicine to prevent and reverse many serious medical conditions. As such, they continue to prescribe conventional medicines and treatments even though lifestyle interventions have been shown to have better outcomes. For example, did you know that the amount of new scientific papers published has increased exponentially over the last 20 years? Today a new medical article gets published every 26 seconds!!! That’s 3,300 articles per day, or more than 1.2 million articles per year! How many of these articles has your doctor read this morning?
- 3. Lifestyle medicine often requires more time to explain and implement than would be available in the brief span of 15 minutes, which is the average time a doctor spends with a patient, so they only have time to prescribe a medicine that masks symptoms instead of solving the root cause of the illness.
- 4. Many doctors don’t believe that you could, or would, be willing to make any lifestyle changes. After all, many doctors themselves are overweight, smoke or drink too much, have high levels of stress and do minimal exercise. They surmise that if they, with their high level of intelligence and years of training, haven’t been able to change their habits, how could they possibly expect their patients to do so.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am in no way criticizing the amazing and lifesaving work that doctors and other health professionals of all specialities do everyday.
Doctors are some of the most intelligent, committed and caring human beings on the planet (I should know, I am married to one). Whatsmore, if I ever have a serious accident, the first place I want to go is to the hospital.
Here is what I am suggesting……
If you are already suffering from a chronic illness (or know you are heading in that direction), now more than ever it is time to “help your doctor help you” by taking the time to learn and implement Lifestyle Medicine principles.
This way, you will build a “foundation of health” on top of which your doctor can build, and then any treatments your doctor prescribes will be way more effective.
Remember, when you lead with Lifestyle changes, you will often be able to reverse many hitherto “incurable” conditions (such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases) and move towards a life full of freedom and vitality that perhaps you thought, until now, was permanently out of your reach.
Watch this 3 minute video about how the mayor of New York overcame diabetes using Lifestyle medicine.
In the next few emails I will go into more details about the basic practices of Lifestyle Medicine and what I call “Lifestyle Integrity” so you can get started right away.
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