Missions Radio Interview with Dr. David Katz on A Better Community 4 All
October 20, 2014

 

“If you are interested in Lifestyle Medicine, we have long had the knowledge we need to eliminate 80% of all chronic disease, to add years to life and life to years. This is not about some remote population we don’t know. It’s about you and me and the people we love. It’s about the future we give our children. What we need to do at the level of household and family and as cultures and communities is rallying around what we know. The focus here at The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) Conference [Dr. Katz is President] is to look at models that allow us to do that in clinical practice so that clinicians can help, but most importantly, to think about culture change so that help is the path of lesser resistance. So start out as an individual knowing that we know enough to reduce lifetime risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, dementia by 80%. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want the people you love to have that? Don’t you want your children to have that? When enough of us know that it’s true and enough of us care about it, we can change the world. We can produce a healthier future…that is the phase of the enterprise that has to begin right now.”  -- David Katz, MD, author, "Disease Proof"

DAVID L. KATZ MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, is the founding (1998) director of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center. He received his BA from Dartmouth College (1984; Magna Cum Laude); his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1988); and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health (1993). He is a two-time diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, a board-certified specialist in Preventive Medicine/Public Health, and a clinical instructor in medicine at the Yale School of Medicine.

Dr. Katz has an extensive media portfolio, having worked for ABC News/Good Morning America as an on-air contributor, a writer for the New York Times syndicate, and a columnist to O, the Oprah Magazine. Currently, he is a blogger/medical review board member for the Huffington Post, a health contributor to US News & World Report, one of the original 150 ‘thought leader’ INfluencer bloggers for LinkedIn; a blogger and columnist for TIME Magazine; and a contributing health writer on childhood obesity for About.com

 

From "Ebola and Unscrambling Our Eggs:"

 

Unlike virtually all of the Ebola coverage inundating us at present, half of which telling us not to panic and the other half telling us why we should, Dr. Osofsky looks beyond the current outbreak to its root causes. There is a proud history of that very method in Preventive Medicine. Root causes tell you what you can and should fix not just now, but so that the current crop of bad news isn’t replicated any time soon. That’s the benefit of getting to the roots.

...

So, at the moment, it is Ebola. ... The common theme? The risk of crisis portended by warning signs all too often neglected. In the case of wayward biomarkers such as cholesterol, only somebody is harmed by that neglect, although that’s small comfort if the somebody is you or anyone you love.

 

In the case of Ebola and Katrina, it is the body politic. In all such cases, bodily harm tends to ensue from willfully mindless neglect of the obvious.

 

That’s what we do, bodies and the body politic alike: wait for catastrophe, then scramble.

 

So it is that Ebola, a preventable catastrophe like so many before it, is upon us. Even as we address it, we should be considering the root causes, and directing resources there to prevent the next outbreak- potentially, of something even worse. At the roots, ounces of prevention will do. Once the next calamity germinates, even pounds of cure may not suffice.

 

The best treatment of any disease is its prevention. The best response to any crisis is its aversion.

 

David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP
Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center
Griffin Hospital

 

Author, 'Disease Proof' -
http://www.amazon.com/Disease-Proof-Remarkable-Truth-About-Makes/dp/1594631247

 

Director, Integrative Medicine Center
at Griffin Hospital
www.imc-griffin.org

 

Editor-in-Chief,
Childhood Obesity
http://www.liebertpub.com/chi

 

President,
American College of Lifestyle Medicine
http://www.lifestylemedicine.org/

 

President & Founder, Turn the Tide Foundation, Inc.
http://www.turnthetidefoundation.org/

 

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