My Blog
Risky behaviors, lack of physical activity and misuse of alcohol and drugs
Adherence to physical activity guidelines Exercise helps control weight, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, and some cancers. Among those surveyed by the CDC, inadequate physical activity was common: almost half (48%) did not participate in...
Most people have an unhealthy lifestyle—occurrence of high-risk conditions and behaviors
Studies reveal that more than 90% of adult Americans have at least some unhealthy behaviors or unhealthy conditions. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used data from 395,343 U.S. adult respondents to the 2013 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance...
Poor health and disability are common
Many diseases that may or may not ultimately be fatal, can become chronic and have a severe impact on the quality of life. About 100 million Americans—almost 1 out of every 2 adults have at least 1 of 6 reported chronic illnesses: cardiovascular disease (CVD),...
Causes of Death in the U.S.
At the beginning of the 20th-century, the communicable infectious diseases, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrheal disease were the three leading causes of death in the U.S. Heart disease was fourth on the list. Over the century, the disease pattern among Americans...
Health advice must be science based
This blog and my book, The Building Blocks of Health presents the science that underlies a health-restoring, health-preserving lifestyle. Readers interested in health should be wary of unproven claims, like those for “superfoods” and harmful supplements that are...
Prevention needs more attention
Most of medicine is focused on curing, rather than preventing disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how little we invested in the public health infrastructure that could have been mobilized to carry our contact tracing, isolation of contacts and necessary care...