Be Blue To Be Well

Thomas Edison perfectly summarized what medicine should be; however, 2019 is well into what he would have considered the future. As of today, the United States Healthcare System, or the Western Medical Model (WMM), is a reactive system excellent at managing chronic diseases with medications and procedures; however, it too often fails to effectively address the 90-95% of the total disease burden that is preventable and/or treatable via adoption of healthy lifestyle choices. Essentially, the foods we eat, the frantic lifestyle we live, and the dysfunctional relationships we maintain prevent us from being as happy and healthy as possible.

Research has unequivocally proven what those healthy choices are – eat the right foods, manage stress, engage regularly in moderate physical activity, and establish a sense of purpose and community. We can also agree as clinicians that smoking cessation and minimizing alcohol consumption are equally important lifestyle changes, especially when the others are absent. In other words, to quote one of my favorite preventative medicine experts Dean Ornish, MD, “Eat well, stress less, move more and love more.”

How do we know these habits definitively prevent as well as treat or even reverse chronic disease? There is a plethora of research one can read, so to simplify it, I have created a list of books and other resources I recommend for further insight on the cutting edge science that supports the information presented on my website, which can be accessed under the Tools page. One of my favorites describing the benefits of healthy lifestyle choices is The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner.

Dan is a journalist and leading health activist who teamed up with world researchers and clinical experts, including Dr. Dean Ornish, to uncover the ‘secret’ behind the healthiest zones in the world, referred to as The Blue Zones. These populations age into their 100s, without the same rates of chronic disease as the rest of the world. The name simply reflects the blue ink cartographers used to map out these centennial achieving populations. The initial discovery involved 5 places around the world:

1. Ikaria, Greece, possessing one of the world’s lowest rates of middle aged mortality and dementia;
2. Okinawa, Japan, the home of the longest lived women;
3. Sardinia, Italy, a population with some of the world’s highest centenarian men;
4. Loma Linda, CA, containing the largest population of Seventh Day Adventists, where some live ten more healthy years than the average American;
5. Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, owning one of the world’s lowest rates of middle aged mortality and largest concentrations of male centenarians.

After discovering their secrets, implementing them here in the United States, and publishing their findings, Dr. Ornish and his team (among many others) have proven these lifestyle changes are not just effective, but possible – no matter where you live, and no matter how old or sick you are. The ‘secret’ isn’t about any one single factor, but rather the combination of lifestyle choices that ultimately involve forming an environment with community and loved ones that nudge each other into making healthy choices. This explains why, despite drinking alcohol or smoking regularly, these zones are still the healthiest. Granted, I would never recommend these two particular habits as a necessity for health, but it supports the fact that health is so much more than any one single factor. In summary, The Blue Zone communities don’t struggle against their environment, they work with it – together.

To age like The Blue Zones isn’t just about living long, it is about living well. For example, these populations aren’t just healthier with longer life spans, they are happier. They have perfected dying young, as old as possible. Hence my phrase – be blue to be well. After their exhaustive, extensive research, Dan and his team concluded there are nine secrets to these joyous, long living communities. Click here to read a summary of these habits, all of which will be addressed in depth throughout DrDWellnessAddict.com.

How exactly do these behaviors improve our health and wellbeing? Dr. Ornish is far from the only expert in this field, but I would like to focus on his research for the purpose of this article.

Dr. Ornish’s non profit preventative research institution and the University of California San Francisco have studied the beneficial effects of these healthy lifestyle changes right here in the United States. Through the gold standard randomized controlled clinical trials and other types of research, Dr. Ornish and his colleagues have proven that low-tech, low-cost lifestyle interventions can prevent, treat, and even reverse chronic disease. Their extensive body of research has been published in multiple peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals. For more on this, I recommend reading The Spectrum by Dr. Ornish.

In summary, to quote a few statistics, they found lifestyle changes improved health outcomes measured after 1 year, and even more at 5 years. Study subjects were able to cut cardiac events by 2.5 times, even in those with the most severe coronary artery disease. They also proved reversal of type 2 diabetes, as well as the ability to stop and slow progression of early stage prostate cancer. As a result of the research, Medicare now covers their preventative intervention program for reversing heart disease and other chronic conditions to empower health on a larger scale – for the first time ever.

Unfortunately, many people think their diagnosis is their destiny. “I just have bad genes.” “I can’t do anything about it.” “It is just a natural part of aging.” The science by Dr. Ornish and experts like him have proven this is simply not true! The people in the Blue Zones don’t have the same rates of chronic disease and symptoms that are so commonly accepted here in the West. For example, there is not the same increase in blood pressure associated with aging that we see here in the United States. That relationship is so commonly accepted here in the WMM, that age alone is a risk factor for high blood pressure, or hypertension, and therefore influences medication prescription as well as treatment goals.

The Blue Zones proves that getting old doesn’t have to be characterized by a state of dis-ease and distress. Adopting these lifestyle habits doesn’t just treat, prevent, and reverse chronic disease. The research also proved such habits can actually slow the aging process. As Dr. Ornish explains in the forward to Dan’s follow up book The Blue Zones Solution, changing your lifestyle changes your genes. His latest research (along with plenty more by other experts) shows that a healthy diet and lifestyle reverses aging at the cellular level. Perhaps you have heard of telomeres, the caps on the end of DNA that regulate aging? The longer your telomeres, the longer you live. Just by adopting healthier lifestyle habits, you can actually lengthen your telomere – up to 500 genes in just three months! Gene hacking at its best.

So how does one take on this often seemingly impossible feat of changing the way one lives? DrDWellnessAddict.com is my attempt at making the process easy, fun, affordable, and feasible – for anyone desiring to change. My hope is to do for the individual what pioneers like Dan and Dr. Ornish have done for communities and the larger population as a whole. Whether it is poor diet, inactivity, drugs, alcohol or negative self-thought, the process for behavior change is the same. My site combines the best of evidence-based treatment recommendations from the East to the West, packaging them in a way that makes their application not just doable but enjoyable.

Adopting a healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be about restriction, loss, or unsustainable discipline. When you learn the what and the why, you can work with your community and treatment team to create a plan that you will follow because it is enjoyable. By learning the data and coming to know your body, you will regain autonomy in your health, become knowledgeable about necessary medications, and rely on intuition and self-care for the treatment and prevention of disease. You will learn how to be well by living blue.

References

1. Crous-Bou M, et al. Mediterranean diet and telomere length in Nurses’ Health Study: population based cohort study. BMJ. 2014 Dec 2;349:g6674.
2. Sindi S, et al. Baseline Telomere Length and Effects of a Multidomain Lifestyle Intervention on Cognition: The FINGER Randomized Controlled Trial. J Alzheimers Dis. 2017;59(4):1459-1470.
3. Ornish D, et al. Effect of comprehensive lifestyle changes on telomerase activity and telomere length in men with biopsy-proven low-risk prostate cancer: 5-year follow-up of a descriptive pilot study. Lancet Oncol. 2013 Oct;14(11):1112-1120.
4. Boccardi V, et al. Nutrition and lifestyle in healthy aging: the telomerase challenge. Aging (Albany NY). 2016 Jan;8(1):12-5.
5. Lifespan by David A. Sinclair, PhD
6. The Blue Zones Solution by Dan Buettner
7. The Spectrum by Dean Ornish, MD (http://deanornish.com)
   https://www.bluezones.com/2016/11/power-9/