The Most Effective Prescription
What if you went to your doctor and she wrote you a prescription for fruit and vegetables.
Or exercise.
It happened to my uncle. His doctor prescribed exercise. At lest 3 times per week. And, interestingly, he wouldn’t give him a prescription for any medication (for diabetes) until he "filled" his first.
He now meets with a trainer 3-4 times per week.
Similarly, I recently saw a piece highlighting 3 physicians in Massachusetts who are giving "produce by prescription." This group of physicians is passing out coupons for family members to use at local farmers markets.
Pretty interesting and a very novel approach to trying to make small improvements in health.
While eating a little more fresh produce each day isn’t going to solve the nations obesity epidemic, it’s a great step in the right direction.
Interestingly, there are data that show that diet and exercise are MORE effective than popular diabetes medications.
So why is it that we immediately look to medicine when trying to "treat" disease?
The key to remember is that small changes go a long way.
My uncle’s physician has it right — prescribe exercise. The MD’s in Massachusetts do too — prescribing produce and giving coupons to encourage buying it.
While it seems like a novel approach within Western Medicine, 1000′s of years ago, Hippocrates said it best with "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."
Medicine is merely a cover that won’t fix the underlying issue(s).
Exercise and smart nutrition are the
two "prescriptions" that can truly prevent disease.
September 7th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Kaiser Permanente has their “Exercise Is Medicine” program that has lots of tools for doctors, trainers and patients, such as prescription pads for exercise.
Great tool. I like the idea behind prescribing veggies!!
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