The more I practice medicine, the more urgently I realize that preventing disease is the best way to treat disease. And the best way to prevent disease is what we now call Lifestyle Medicine.
This is why I am delighted to have joined the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute.
It is interesting, that we are now seeing articles in the traditional literature that show that lifestyle, including diet, exercise, sleep, self centering and self reflection, is the very best way to prevent people from getting sick.
In addition, new studies keep showing us that a plant-based diet is the healthiest diet to live on.
David L Katz M.D. recently published an article entitled Facing the faithlessness of public health: what’s the public got to do with it. He points out that in spite of compelling statistics showing that we could eliminate 80% of all heart disease and strokes, 90% of all diabetes, and 60% of all cancers with basic lifestyle changes “We have failed to motivate the public to make these changes and failed to motivate policymakers to make healthy choices the easiest choice.”
In this compelling article, Dr. Katz encourages all of us to put a real face on disease. We can do this by looking at friends and loved ones who are suffering with a chronic disease or who may have died with a chronic disease. Dr. Katz encourages us to look at them with the idea that lifestyle could have prevented these diseases. This way the disease becomes a personal reality for each and every one of us, and that can help motivate us to make the changes to our own lifestyle that can help prevent these diseases in ourselves.
Dr Katz discusses why “we do not care deeply enough to turn what we know into what we routinely do.”, in terms of changing our lifestyle.
Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D. along with Dean Ornish, M.D. has asked the question for years of why heart attacks remain the most common cause of death in America, when we totally know how to prevent them.
My colleague and friend Michael Greger M.D. does an excellent job of summarizing this information in the video below, entitled “Convincing Doctors to Embrace Lifestyle Medicine.”
Dr. Gregor goes on further to talk about why the medical establishment sometimes ignores highly efficacious therapies such as plant-based diets for heart disease prevention and treatment. His calls the process of ignoring these treatments, the “tomato effect”. Most people do not realize that for a long time tomatoes had been considered a poisonous plant!
Watch Dr. Gregor’s video here to find out more about this.
I urge all my patients and readers to look at your own lifestyle and your own diet and begin to make changes that move you in the direction of greater health.
Another great video on preventing heart disease
Calwell Esselstyn M.D.’s book on how to treat heart disease
Dean Ornish, M.D.’s eye opening book
About Dr. Soram Khalsa
As an MD, Dr Soram specializes in Integrative Medicine combining diet, nutrition, acupuncture, herbs and nutrition. Visit Dr Soram’s Healthy Living Store where you’ll find high-quality nutritional supplements:
