With the summer and its heat approaching, almost everyone will be out in the sun more than they were during the winter.

For 9 million Americans, being outside and in the sun is not just for summer fun – it’s a part of their job.

Workers in farming, landscaping, construction, recreation and even postal workers will spend hours in the sun – and consequently be exposed to potentially harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation.

Ultraviolet radiation, and specifically UVB, is the main environmental hazard to the outdoor worker. Most workers’ shifts include the peak intensity hours of UV exposure – 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Since this type of radiation (UVB) easily penetrates clouds, it can reach worrisome levels even on days where little sun is visible. It easily passes through glass and can be reflected into areas of apparent shade.

UVB penetrates through the tough, dead outer layers of skin, into the replicating layers. It is there that it interacts with the living tissue, not entirely in a negative fashion – UV radiation on unprotected skin produces Vitamin D. Many believe, and there is some evidence to back it up, that there are anti-cancer properties in this potent antioxidant vitamin.

But radiation on living tissue also has a biologic cost. UVB radiation causes DNA damage and is officially listed as a carcinogen. This damage is cumulative.

Ultraviolet radiation and skin cancer share a similar relationship to that of cigarette smoking and lung cancer. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, those who work outside are twice as likely to contract skin cancer as indoor workers.

To protect workers from this hazard, we need to reduce the dose of UVB radiation.

The obvious solution for employers is to instruct workers to avoid sun exposure and seek shade when available. When possible, employers can rotate or stagger work shifts so that employees spend less time working during the sunniest parts of the day.

While the suggestion that people wear long-sleeve shirts during high temperature periods usually is greeted with derision, in fact there are a variety of new fabrics with high Sun Protection Factor values that are light weight, breathable and durable.

One of the oldest fabrics – cotton – has long been recognized for its skin protective value in the hottest climates. Cotton long-sleeved, loose-fitting shirts and pants, and broad-billed hats are some effective clothing options for outdoor workers. In dry climates, the fabric actually soaks up sweat and is an effective evaporative cooler.

Sunblock provides UV protection, but the level of protection is almost universally overestimated.

The most common error people make is using high Sun Protection Factor, sweat-proof sunblock and applying it only once. Sunblock generally loses effectiveness after about two hours due to sweating, the friction of clothing and deterioration due to sunshine. And too often, too little is applied. An ounce is recommended to get advertised protection. But remember, sunblock isn’t “liquid shade.”

These common sense protective measures can help safeguard you and your employees year round, but particularly during the summer months when, in most parts of the country, exposure to UVB radiation is highest.

With awareness and a few simple steps, we can help workers avoid the short-term sting of a sunburn and the long-term consequences of too much sun exposure.

Take care,

Dr. B.

Donald Bucklin, MD (Dr. B) is a Regional Medical Director for U.S. HealthWorks and has been practicing clinical occupational medicine for more than 25 years. Dr. B. works in our Scottsdale, Arizona clinic.

Image courtesy of [image creator name] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For most of the past 100 years, the obesity rate for adults was stable at less than 15 percent; often assumed to be a genetic based. However, in the last three decades the obesity rate has steeply increased to 45 percent, much to the dismay of health professionals, and to many of us getting dressed in front of a mirror each morning.

During this same time period, food production in our country has radically changed. In 1930, it took 24 percent of all working adults to produce the food to stock our pantries. And today that figure is just 1.5 percent! This is possible only because farming has become agribusiness, where principles of efficiency and competition meet nature.

For crops, that involves abundant nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides and genetic selection of the hardest and fastest growing plant species. Factory farming of animals means high stock density; pigs and cows lined up like corn in the fields.

Ultimately the equation is simply maximizing pounds of sellable meat per 100 pounds of feed, and per acre. The animals don’t have room to walk around, which means like us, they gain weight faster.

A significant percentage of an animal’s food intake feeds the bacteria in the livestock’s gut, not the livestock. Putting antibiotics in the feed gets rid of much of this normal gut flora. The result: a 10 percent greater weight gain.

Growth hormone, an anabolic steroid, has been synthesized for many commercial farm animals. Unlike human growth hormone, for some reason cattle and swine growth hormone is cheaply produced.

Given by injection or implant, it dramatically increases muscle mass and speed of weight gain. This adds an additional 15 percent to the marketable muscle mass (steak) of the animal.

The process is not unlike automobile design and manufacturers in Detroit. If the maximum miles per gallon is the desired result, certain things can be done to achieve that. The car can be made much lighter, more streamlined or use a smaller engine. Tradeoffs are expected. The lighter the car the worse it will do in a crash; all other things being equal. It’s the classic double-edge sword effect.

In meat-producing areas like Chicago and Omaha, pressure exists to design meat that can be produced as inexpensively, quickly and safely as possible. Antibiotics and growth hormone serve that master.

This is done with appropriate concern, and the producers are acting in good faith.

Any drug given livestock has a published time necessary for that drug to wash out before slaughter. Meat is tested for these drugs and they are required to not be above a certain low level. The food production system in the United States has never been safer (the proof is that food borne illness – staphylococcal food poisoning, botulism, and bacterial contamination – are lower than ever).

But we may need to cast a wider net, perhaps, than simply poisoning by food when we’re talking about health. We may consider facts such as young girls are entering puberty at a much earlier age, which is believed to be from low level hormones in meat. And we should be concerned that weight loss programs by and large don’t work despite the millions spent by Americans who continue to grow fatter every day.

One has to wonder if our gut bacteria may be influenced by low level antibiotic contamination of meat. Are we spending all of our time trying to influence obesity-producing behaviors, when people might just be on a less intense version of our cattle fattening program?

It’s definitely something to ponder.

Take care,

Dr B.

Donald Bucklin, MD (Dr. B) is a Regional Medical Director for U.S. HealthWorks and has been practicing clinical occupational medicine for more than 25 years. Dr. B. works in our Scottsdale, Arizona clinic.

Human growth hormone is the latest in a long line of exotic supplements, supposedly extracted from the fountain of youth, or at least the lab next door.

This is a short protein hormone that stimulates cell growth, increases lean muscle mass and strength. It is produced by the pituitary gland, which sits at the base of the brain and is about as big as a grape.

You may remember this gland as the controller of the hormone universe in your body. The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that connects to the pituitary. The brain makes a chemical on-and-off switch, the balance of these tells the pituitary how much growth hormone to make.

See, this isn’t so tough, there is probably a little neuroscientist hiding inside of you.

Not surprisingly, early adolescence is the time that growth hormone is the highest it ever gets. With age we generally stop growing, and growth hormone levels drop.

One artificial exception is athletes have long been doping with human growth hormone as an anabolic steroid that couldn’t be detected in the urine. Around 2000 this ended with the development of a blood test for HGH.

While considering growth hormone supplementation, there is a disease model caused by excess growth hormone, usually from a pituitary tumor, called acromegaly.

Prolonged high levels of growth hormone cause these unfortunate people to develop facial disfigurement that makes them look like cave men. Real cave men didn’t live long or age well, and acromegaly patients suffer a similar fate; hardly the fountain of youth.

But many still hear the siren’s call of lean muscle mass, and seek human growth hormone any way they can get it. The drug companies are happy to help and there are 10 different brands of human growth hormone available.

A reasonable dose will run you about $2,500 per week or a cool $130,000 per year – and that’s just for the medication. Doctor visits and lab work are extra. And you end up with neither a set of very fancy wheels to tool about town nor a house to rest your weary bones in. Needless to say, most insurance coverage won’t pony up for these kinds of bills.

But the supplement market sees an economic opportunity. One HGH product is available at $99.99 on its website or $89.99 at a local store.

This HGH product advertises that it will remove decades of age from your body. So presumably my 55-year-old self starts looking and feeling like I’m 35. How much would you pay for that?

What is this stuff? Well, it isn’t human growth hormone. HGH is a protein and it would be completely digested by the enzymes in the stomach. That would make it the most expensive meal you ever ate.

If you read the fine print, the product claims it is a HGH releaser. It supposedly makes your body put more HGH into circulation where you can work on your younger, stronger, good-looking self.

Unfortunately, it is only a couple of amino acids, which are the simple building blocks of proteins. Like masonry building blocks, they have no idea how to build themselves into something complicated, like the Washington Monument, or a hormone.

And these amino acids can be found as part of most quality proteins you might eat; like an egg white. Would you pay $99.99 for an egg white, pre-digested?

Supplements are licensed by the FDA as food, not drugs or medications. The FDA concerns itself principally with making sure they are not poisonous to eat. And this HGH product certainly isn’t poisonous.

The claims that HGH is the fountain of youth are ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the claim that a handful of amino acids magically produce high levels of HGH.

We are left with the hard work of exercising and watching our diet if we want to feel younger. That and an extra $99.99 in our pocket!

Take care,

Dr B.

Donald Bucklin, MD (Dr. B) is a Regional Medical Director for U.S. HealthWorks and has been practicing clinical occupational medicine for more than 25 years. Dr. B. works in our Scottsdale, Arizona clinic.

Image courtesy of Baitong333 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Energy shots are the latest thing. It’s rocket fuel for a flagging will and the chance to capture youth in a bottle.

Of course, Coca-Cola was the original energy drink – cocaine, caffeine and sugar – that became breakfast of champions for some folks. Kind of puts the New Coke controversy in perspective. It was about 100 years ago that Coke changed the formula, but it hasn’t seemed to hurt sales much.

The other traditional energy drink is coffee – my personal favorite. Just typing the word has me looking toward the kitchen – was that a bell?

Those little aluminum cans certainly look powerful, all red and silver, and a screw cap to imply the liquid inside could otherwise not be contained. And they contain only a precious ounce, suggesting any larger amount might achieve critical mass.

The ingredient list sounds complicated and exotic, which no doubt is also part of the appeal. Taurine, glucuronolactone, guarana, ginseng, gingko, and a handful of B vitamins are thrown in to obscure the only active ingredient – caffeine. The average energy shot has about the same caffeine content as a good cup of coffee – 80 milligrams.

That is not to malign caffeine, a drug that we have been searching for a dark side for most of this century. Before you are too critical of energy shots, know that the average American takes in over 200 mg of caffeine per day. That dose of caffeine is considered safe even for pregnant women.

Caffeine is a legal mood altering drug, the most widely used on the planet. Caffeine reduces physical and mental fatigue, improves thinking, memory and coordination.

The distance between therapeutic range and toxic range is one of the widest of known drugs. An energy shot is less than 100 mg of caffeine, and the LD50 is somewhere around 10 grams or 100 cups of coffee.

LD50 is short hand for the dose that will kill half the people who take it. Every drug has one, and almost all take considerably less than a 100-fold increase to become dangerous.

Your body adapts to caffeine consumption relatively quickly – roughly a week or so. It takes about two weeks to get your brain settled down if you give up caffeine.

If you consume enough caffeine (a couple of dozen energy shots) you will become a quivering mess. Mania (elevated irritability), hallucinations and psychosis are all possible, but you eventually “run out of neurotransmitters,” and crash.

Caffeine and alcohol are a particularly troublesome combination. The caffeine helps counteract the sedative effects of alcohol, keeping you up to drink some more. The LD50 of alcohol is way less than 100 times the therapeutic range. There are times when you should just stay down.

Energy shots are an expensive cup of coffee and lack the reassuring warm weight of a coffee mug. Cold steel just isn’t as cozy; although the upside is fewer trips to the bathroom.

Personally, I’ll keep drinking coffee and making those annoying treks to the bathroom.

Take care,

Dr B.

Donald Bucklin, MD (Dr. B) is a Regional Medical Director for U.S. HealthWorks and has been practicing clinical occupational medicine for more than 25 years. Dr. B. works in our Scottsdale, Arizona clinic.

photo credit: ~Prescott via photopin cc

The electronic cigarette has had a rocky start. It is frequently portrayed in the media as something only a fool would use. You might say the e-cigarette has an image problem.

Even cigarette companies managed the media better than this.

Cigarette companies joined forces with Hollywood to make cool smoking characters. Who can forget James Bond (Sean Connery) with a cigarette dangling casually out the corner of his mouth, undisturbed by all manner of physical violence, as was his hair!

Enter the hookah pen, a re-imagined e-cigarette. This is very brightly painted, an almost psychedelic contraption that is reminiscent of 1970’s rock album art. It’s not hard to figure out who this is marketed to. It kind of time warps you back 40 years to black- lighted Spencer’s Gifts Stores. The hookah pen is an e-cigarette for the avant-garde – and possibly our children.

In case the e-cigarette has not caught your attention, it is long, thin and vaguely cigarette like. It uses a battery operated heating element to vaporize a liquid that you inhale. This is more flavored steam than smoke. Still, it manages to be a very smoking-like experience.

In a traditional hookah the liquid that is burned is a mixture of tobacco and molasses. This provides nicotine and hundreds of other chemicals from burned tobacco. Note that it’s not safer than any other type of tobacco smoking.

But the hookah pens advertise that the liquid burned in the device has no tobacco, no nicotine and no tar resins. So, you might ask, what’s the point? Isn’t smoking a hookah pen kind of like kissing your sister?

Discussions of Coke or Pepsi notwithstanding (sorry Sharon Stone), it does give a young person practice on the ritual of smoking. They put the darn thing in their mouth and intentionally inhale warm vapors. It is part pacifier, part forbidden fun?

Once they have practiced that, it’s an easy step to exchange the perfumed liquid cartridge for the real one that has nicotine.

Cigarette smoking exists today because most people got into smoking before they were old enough to make an informed decision. Nicotine, aside from being poisonous, is a pretty amazing drug. It makes you more calm and alert simultaneously. It’s the only drug that does both.

So you become that James Bond person – cool under fire and thinking faster than everyone around you. But cigarette smoking is addictive and gives you cancer and heart disease. And you have to be way smarter than JB to beat either of these.

People trying to quit smoking complain about missing the ritual as much as the physical withdrawal. The morning cigarette with the first cup of coffee is described with loving detail by any ex-smoker. They speak about not knowing what to do with their hands and the physically comforting sensation of handling the cigarettes and lighter.

The use of a hookah pen is not dangerous in and of itself. But it encourages a smoking-like habit, and that is the last thing a young person needs to experience.

Perhaps 20 years from now we will be able to tell you positively whether hookah pens lead to smoking. In the meantime, my kids don’t play with guns or e-cigarettes. What about your kids?

Take care,

Dr. B

Donald Bucklin, MD (Dr. B) is a Regional Medical Director for U.S. HealthWorks and has been practicing clinical occupational medicine for more than 25 years. Dr. B. works in our Scottsdale, Arizona clinic.

photo credit: leonardrodriguez via photopin cc
photo credit: Thirteen Of Clubs via photopin cc

Take a deep breath, it’s spring time. The ache of winter is melting away, leading into one of the most pleasant times on the planet.

And in this time of rebirth, there seems to be another new hatched influenza virus– bird flu (H7N9). Don’t panic. You still have at least six months to smell a few flowers and wiggle your toes in the grass.

Have you noticed that influenza viruses always seem to come from far off remote places? And new flu viruses are named after animals, like birds and pigs, not race cars and rockets?

Start with some planetary weather basics: Northern and Southern hemispheres have opposite seasons. Early spring here is late fall in the Southern Hemisphere. We are at the end of our flu season, while they are at the very beginning.

New viruses emerge first in poor remote areas of the Southern Hemisphere. In these areas, people and animals tend to live in close proximity. When your life savings is three pigs, you don’t let them far from your sight, even at night.

Most of the new influenza viruses develop and change (mutate) in animals, and they rarely cross species and jump from animal to humans. But the closer and longer the infected animal interacts with a person, the higher the chance the virus will cross.

And people from these areas make it easier because they have weakened immune systems due to malnutrition and poor sanitation. As far as the new flu virus is concerned, this is a perfect storm.

Remember these changes in the virus are random, meaning a lot of changes occur that just don’t work, which is good news for us. They are false starts for the virus unless it is both new (no immunity) and spread through coughing.

The timing of this means we won’t see a new bird flu virus in the United States for at least six to eight months. This is the same timing we face every year when we develop a new influenza vaccine.

The World Health Organization (WHO) collects specimens of the new flu viruses in poor rural areas in early winter (our spring). WHO picks the most concerning viruses, grows pure cultures, and lights the fuse for worldwide vaccine production.

In a few short months, the vaccine manufacturers of the world combine their efforts and produce close to 100 million doses. That’s just in time for the start of our flu season.

This new virus (H7N9) may be one of those false starts. It has not been shown yet to pass from person to person through coughing. The people who have gotten it so far have handled infected animals.

But this is a bad acting virus. We have no immunity against it, and it causes severe disease in the few people who have caught it. This new virus possesses the usual just-shoot-me influenza symptoms (fever, cough, fatigue, muscle aches) and brain swelling. The alarming issue is a death rate of 30 percent.

So add H7N9 to your scary tropical disease list, along with Ebola and Marburg virus. Remember that civilization as we know it will not end, and this may not be “The Bird Flu” we’ve talked so much about.

But just in case, a reminder – get your annual flu shot this year by Oct. 1.

Take care,

Dr. B

Donald Bucklin, MD (Dr. B) is a Regional Medical Director for U.S. HealthWorks and has been practicing clinical occupational medicine for more than 25 years. Dr. B. works in our Scottsdale, Arizona clinic.

<p>Image courtesy of Evgeni Dinev / <a href=”http://www.freedigitalphotos.net” target=”_blank”>FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></p>

Regional Therapy Director of U.S. HealthWorks, John Harrison, Sacramento’s Regional Therapy Director for U.S. Healthworks, was recently featured on News 10 in Sacramento discussing office ergonomics. Click here to see John show News 10 anchor Keba Arnold how to stay injury-free at work, and read up on his eight tips to keep away the aches and pains associated with workplace injuries.

U.S. HealthWork’s John Harrison gives News 10 morning anchor Keba Arnold tips for how to prevent injuries when working on a computer at your desk.

Is your skin the largest organ in your body?

That is a trick question that every medical student answers wrong at least once. The answer is “yes.” (Med students think of the heart and liver etc, and don’t realize the skin is an organ.)

Given your skin is your interface with the world, it takes a fair amount of abuse. Yet despite this, it is a miracle of design and mostly stays intact.

The skin has much in common with a leather armchair at home. It is pretty hard to cut, rip or tear. It lasts almost forever, but looks pretty worn, even when it’s new.

The skin is covered with layers of dead epidermal cells. This is the body’s version of GORE-TEX® breathable shell. It is waterproof but allows sweat to escape. The waterproof part is absolutely essential to life. Your blood needs to be kept in a narrow range of sodium concentration and other elements.

If your skin was freely permeable to water vapor it would dry up like a raisin. Skin is important for maintaining body temperature by controlling your sweat glands. Your body is fussy about staying at 98.6.

Going deeper into the skin we find the dermis. This is the strength layer of the skin. It has collagen and elastin elements. The collagen is what ligaments are made of and is very strong stuff. Its job is to keep the insides where they belong.

Most of us are more concerned about the elastin. The elastin puts the tone in our skin, much like the waistband on your underwear. When the elastic/elastin breaks down, your shorts sag. Ah, but if only Fruit of the Loom made faces!

Sun and time inevitably break down elastin, keeping several industries busy.

Think of yourself as a rainforest. The skin has a unique ecology with tens of thousands of different bacteria, fungi and viruses. We mostly live in peace with this community, a quiet day in the rainforest.

We have various relationships with these organisms from commensal to parasitic. Mostly they take up space on our skin and prevent something worse from growing. Kind of similar to “a healthy lawn grows few weeds” sort of thing.

Now the surface of skin looks more like a Thomas’ English Muffin than porcelain when magnified. There is oil on the skin surface secreted by sebaceous glands. Most of the bacteria live in this oil layer. That’s why we wipe you off with an alcohol pad before giving an injection. The alcohol acts like a solvent to remove the oil.

When you cut or chafe the skin, your own bacteria contaminates the wound and starts to grow. If you wait 12 to 24 hours there will be enough bacteria growing in the wound to cause an infection if the wound is closed (sutured).

That is why it is important to close wounds promptly. Most wounds do best if closed within 12 hours. Some doctors don’t like to suture after even eight hours.

So if you think you might need sutures, get it checked out right away. Until we get re-upholstery shops for bodies, we’d do well to keep the skin we have in good shape.

There are several things working against our desire to remain youthful – oxygen and age. Good luck avoiding either one of these. Oxygen is absolutely essential for life, but oxidizes pigments (free radicals and all that). Sun and oxygen combine to oxidize your house paint, making the color fade and develop cracks, not unlike sun-damaged skin.

Oxygen and sun (UV radiation) also cause breakdown of the elastin fibrils as we said before. Staying out of the sun, or using sunblock, is probably the single most important thing you can do for your skin.

Skin also likes moisture. Your skin will never feel softer than after a week in the tropics (rainforest). You might be bug bitten, grow mold, and have interesting hair, but your skin will feel great.

Having said that, moisture from the inside is actually much more important than moisture from the outside. Remember the dead epithelial cell layers don’t let much into the skin from the outside.

What about the cosmetic industry? All the creams in the world will only work like a good leather conditioner. They might soften up the feel and prevent some cracking, but they won’t create new skin. I hate to think of how many billions is spent on magic creams; my wife must have a dozen of them.

So if magic creams don’t do much, how about more radical approaches? You can sand down some of the outer dead skin layers – dermabrasion (or facial road rash). That will soften it up, and because it is so traumatic, the skin will be swollen for a while. The swelling stretches out the wrinkles. Kind of the healthy glow of road rash.

As a last resort, simply remove loose extra skin, thus tightening up the rest. Your neighborhood plastic surgeon can help you with that.

Think of your underwear again, that stretched out old elastic waistband will stay on your backside if you take out a couple of inches, with a safety pin for instance.

You will still have crackly old elastic, but it will fit better – for a while. So be mindful of the care and feeding of your skin. It’s the only part of you the world gets to see.

Take care of yourself (really).

Dr. B.

Donald Bucklin, MD (Dr. B) is a Regional Medical Director for U.S. HealthWorks and has been practicing clinical occupational medicine for more than 25 years. Dr. B. works in our Scottsdale, Arizona clinic.

Image courtesy of marin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Ocon has worked in the tax profession for more than two decades, and has been with U.S. HealthWorks for the past seven years. Ocon played a pivotal role in establishing a formalized tax department for the company.

In his new role, Ocon’s duties will include providing guidance in tax planning and compliance, working closely with corporate development, finance, and legal departments.

Before joining U.S. HealthWorks, Ocon worked in the entertainment industry and was a tax auditor for the California Board of Equalization for 10 years. In 1997 and 1998, he received the “Superior Achievement Award” for contributing to the improvement in auditing techniques and educating taxpayers on the tax laws and regulations.

“Ramon has done an outstanding job meeting the demands of our organization and the complexities involved with operating in 17 states,” said Robert Hutchison, Chief Finance Officer for U.S. HealthWorks.

“I’m excited about taking on additional responsibilities with U.S. HealthWorks,” Ocon said. “The company is a leader in delivering quality healthcare and brings that same quality approach to ensuring that we comply with all tax and reporting laws in the jurisdictions we serve.”

Ocon has Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from California State University, Los Angeles, and earned a Master of Science in Taxation from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Of course, that is not to say their efforts don’t deserve a card or two.

Preventive medicine deals in the health of the group, not the individual. Wholesale healthcare, if you will, paints with broad strokes. This is very attractive to people who concern themselves with the cost of healthcare, as preventive medicine gives you more bang for the buck.

A typical lung cancer patient will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, and all too often for a few extra months of life spent in physical misery. Preventing lung cancer is comparatively cheap and easy – it’s an oil change versus a new engine.

Smoking causes close to 90 percent of the lung cancer in this country. So someone figured out we could avoid a lot of lung cancer simply by reducing cigarette smoking. Through a combination of advertising, taxes and laws, smoking rates have been cut in half over the last 40 years (from 42 percent to 20 percent).

These efforts are literally saving tens of thousands of people a very nasty struggle with lung cancer. The cost of this: some anti-smoking advertising, much of which the tobacco companies pay for. Raising taxes on cigarettes discourages smoking while producing tax revenue for other worthwhile projects.

Weight loss is another area where a little work spreading the word can get you huge bonuses in the public health burden. A modest decrease in a group’s average body weight produces significant reductions in Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and osteoarthritis. How many heart surgeons could be retrained to care for the elderly or the poor?

It’s hard to tune into any media these days without seeing something about exercise. That’s because physical exercise promotes weight loss, so you get all the benefits mentioned above, and a whole lot more.

Exercise keeps you alive by cutting down on blood vessel disease, and it also helps you enjoy life by reducing depression. Your immune system works better, as does most any other system you care to name. Exercise even cuts down on cancer. If a pill did all this, they would sell it for $100 apiece and we would all stand in line to buy it.

Diet is another big part of the preventive medicine picture. We have not done as well at communicating the importance of a healthy diet as we have the dangers of smoking. Food advice has been mostly provided by the people who sell the food.

Medical providers and dietitians aren’t deeply involved in designing the original food pyramid. However, that is changing. We now have dietary advice for avoiding cancer or helping fight it. You can rev up your immune system, reverse atherosclerosis and probably extend your life span dramatically by making smart dietary choices.

Preventive medicine is worth celebrating during National Public Health Week. It’s not as razzle-dazzle as the latest PET scanner, but people are much more likely to enjoy their great-grandchildren if they commit to healthy lifestyle changes.

Take care,

Dr B.

Donald Bucklin, MD (Dr. B) is a Regional Medical Director for U.S. HealthWorks and has been practicing clinical occupational medicine for more than 25 years. Dr. B. works in our Scottsdale, Arizona clinic.