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To find out
how to turn your kitchen cabinet into a medicine cabinet check out
the Pantry Prevention Page where you will find the latest on how
to eat your way to health. Even candy and chocolate are okay!
To
learn the latest on how to spend your free time in enjoyable
activities (such as sex!) that can protect you from heart attack,
stroke and other deadly conditions- click on to
Pleasurable
Pursuits.
The healing power of humor, prayer, religion optimism
and spirituality are featured in our
Positive Passions section.
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Health Yourself
The Candy Booze & Sex
Prescription
The inferior doctor treats actual
illness;
the average doctor treats impending illness;
the superior doctor prevents illness.
Ancient Chinese Proverb
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Now!
How many times have you
been to the doctor and received advice about giving up, cutting out,
or eliminating enjoyable behaviors and activities? Most of my
physician colleagues and I are very adept at dispensing this type of
advice, but we have no training in how to make positive
recommendations, especially ones that might result in adding
pleasure or enjoyment to a patient’s life. Over my 25 years of
practice, I found myself asking the same question over and over: how
can I prescribe something fun and pleasurable to help people live
longer and happier lives instead of dispensing those negative
prescriptions?
Finally, I decided to find a new and better approach after one of my
patients Leroy Farkus opened my eyes by telling me “ Doc, I’ve read
so much about the negative effects of eating and drinking that I
decided to give up reading.”
Leroy, a 67-year-old retired logger,
had just experienced his third heart attack in five years. As he was
leaving the hospital I recited the usual medical litany of
“thou-shalt-nots” that had obviously failed him again. Leroy rolled
his eyes, shook his head, and said, “Doc, if you ask me to cut out
anything else, there won’t be anything left to cut out except paper
dolls.” I resolved then and there to come up with an approach that
would allow patients to make better and more informed choices
regarding their health. I also resolved to have most of those
choices be positive and enjoyable ones. “Stop smoking and stop using
tobacco” was the only negative advice I chose to retain from my list
of prohibitions. I did away with advice like “Lose weight,” “Stop
drinking,” and “Cut out sweets.” As I began to search the medical
literature and popular press, I noticed articles coinciding with my
philosophy of adding to rather than subtracting from patients’ lives
as I treated them for their medical problems. Many of these articles
also promoted the idea that patients can be more directly involved
in their health care decisions, a notion that I also wanted to
incorporate into my practice.
I collected and studied those articles for several years and molded
them into a television program, Health Yourself: Prevention from A
to Z that appeared on the Health Sciences Television Network.
Patients as well as doctors and other members of the health care
team embraced the concepts and I began to get requests to make
presentations explaining the “Candy, Booze, and Sex Prescription.”
At these programs people began to request a copy of the book, and I
would sheepishly explain that I did not yet have a book on the
subject. After several such requests, I made another resolution: to
put the information in book form and to enlist as many patients as
possible to spread the word of my novel approach to medical care.
All those old cowboy movies I watched as a child finally paid off
when I came up with the idea of “deputizing.”
In the days of the Old West, a
sheriff could take civilians off the street and make them law
enforcement officers by deputizing them in a time of crisis or
special need. Today we are facing such a time. We Americans are
killing ourselves as the result of our poor lifestyle choices. The
effect is painfully evident when you examine Table 1, which outlines
the top 15 causes of death in America today. |
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"Dynamic Health"
and Dr. Ken Davis' new book
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Yourself"
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