On October 5th, we had our Lifestyle Medicine lunch at Neerob Restarant, sponsored by Plant Powered Metro New York. Dr. Zafar Mirza was there from Pakistan, with his wife, his son and his new bride – they were in town for the wedding. We had a smallish group, all told maybe a dozen people, but we had a lively conversation. It is gratifying to see how Lifestyle Medicine is catching on within the medical system in Pakistan.
Years ago, while working on a medical project, I met Dr. Shagufta Feroz, She became the founder of the Pakistan Association for Lifestyle Medicine, and the current President is Dr. Zafar Mirza, who was formerly a Minister of Health for Pakistan and also served in the WHO. In my previous piece about him, announcing the lunch, I already linked some of his articles.
At the lunch, which was an absolutely lovely, actually spectacular Neerob production, we were served two salads and a dal soup, followed by four different vegetable dishes, served over Koshihikari GABA brown rice. We distributed some sample bags of the Koshihikari GABA rice including to the young bride, Rachel, and to two people who were signing up for the cooking class. This is pre-sprouted rice, so you can just soak it for 30 minutes, and then cook it like white rice. The GABA process causes the rice to sprout it would drain away any arsenic, which is somewhat of a concern with brown rice.
Dr. Zafar related his own story of becoming interested in Lifestyle Medicine and how there is now a post graduate 6-month certification course offered at the university level, which he attended himself. This is presently on a trajectory to being included in standard medical education, and also remedial courses are going to be offered for doctors who never had this opportunity when they went to school. Dr. Zafar tells us that physicians have generally proven to be very receptive to the concept, after all, it appeals to common sense, but that there is the same kind of resistance to wide scale adoptation, because people are set in their ways, and traditions get in the way.
On the positive side, he shared with us the history of a business man, who was in bad shape when he was fifty, and had a heart attack, but then got into lifestyle medicine with his doctor, practicing Dr. Esselstyn’s book to the letter, and within three months he was no longer a diabetic, and in 12 months he had eliminated all eleven of the medicines he was taking at the outset. Dr. Zafar has written about this case, with permission, including the before and after results on all the normal tests for such a patient.
Dr. Zafar is very clear that the focus needs to shift from sick care to healthcare. In that regard, his background in public health helps, for he understands that the disease management approach of typical allopathic practice, is not sustainable, and the first order of business should be that people should focus on learning to be healthy in the first place. The future must be disease prevention and reversal.
In his presentation he emphasized that all the pillars of Lifestyle Medicine are important, with nutrition in the lead, but exercise, nutrition, rest and relaxation, sleep hygiene, and healthy relationships all have a role to play. And there is a rock solid foundation of evidence to support all of these aspects. It becomes a lifestyle. But the payoff is feeling better, as did the business man above, who in the end, after fully recovering from his heart attack with Lifestyle Medicine, reported feeling better than ever before.
In short, Lifestyle Medicine is flourishing in Pakistan, and it is doing well in India, and many countries around the world. In New York, the Lifestyle Medicine programs at the hospitals have been over subscribed since they were started, and more and more doctors are becoming Lifestyle Medicine certified. In short, the future is here, and the choice for doctors is between helping to shape a new healthcare system or waiting until it happens to you. Clearly, the economics are forcing our hand, if nothing else.
This last point is really important in the big picture. The existing medical system is unsustainable. American healthcare costs are 3x what they should be and the outcomes are declining rapidly. We finally now have a secretary of HHS who is beginning to address these issue, and Lifestyle Medicine can be a large part of the solution in reducing the overall burden of disease, simply because all major chronic diseases are largely preventable and even mostly reversible. Don’t take it from me, take it from the doctors. Lifestyle Medicine is solidly evidence-based in the best sense of the word.