Tag Archive for: wellness

We’re Back for Another Year!

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I hope you had a happy holiday season and a great start to the New Year. I’ve got plenty of great things planned for 2025 designed to help you get and stay healthy, and I’m going to start by reinforcing the Memo I sent a week ago in a slightly different way.

About 60 years ago, a new wellness movement was just beginning. I read an article about it and was fascinated. It was written by the then director of the Department of Vital Statistics in 1959, and while the article is several pages long, it was summarized in a chart.

Here’s the main idea. Traditional wellness relies on people taking care of themselves through diet, exercise, stress management, etc., if the environment allows it. Traditional medicine relies on treating disease through medications and surgeries. They are not opposites; optimal health requires both approaches, not the exclusion of one over the other. The key is that they both must be based on science.

The Department of Vital Statistics is now part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Whoever becomes the head of that department must understand that the wellness of the nation depends on continuing health and medical research; there can be no pauses or time outs. That person must also understand that wellness includes both approaches; we need to know more about personal health and the necessary healthy habits, but we also need continued research in medical approaches to treat disease. They are both critical to the health of our nation.

For your part? Your wellness begins with making healthy diet, exercise, and supplementation a part of your healthy habits, in addition to seeing your medical professionals on schedule. It all begins with one question:

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Am J Public Health. 1959 Jun;49(6):786–792. doi: 10.2105/ajph.49.6.786

Happy New Year!

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The beginning of a new year! Even though calendars are man-made, the new year signals a time for new goals to be accomplished in the next 365 days. I’m sure that health goals are included in those goals. Getting fitter, getting leaner, adding muscle, improving balance and flexibility, and addressing digestive issues, but that’s not all. Lowering blood pressure and cholesterol and getting a solution for chronic joint pain. Addressing dental health to improve chewing­—so important for getting adequate nutrition. Don’t forget vision when glasses aren’t enough.

Some solutions can be found in diet, nutrition, exercise, and supplements, but they can’t solve every issue. Medications and surgery may also be required, because they can be a part of health as well. They are not competitors; they can complement one another.

As I see it, we all can do better on our end to optimize our health, and healthcare professionals certainly have room for improving how they treat patients. I’ll do my part by giving you the tried-and-true methods as well as the latest science so you can reach every health goal you set.

Happy New Year! Let’s make this the year you achieve your health goals. Together we can do it.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet