Health, Politics, and You —a blog by the authors of A Return to Healing

Picture your state of health as a spectrum that extends from one pole on the left—where there is (theoretically) perfect functioning of body, mind, and spirit—to the opposite pole on the right, where death exists. In between these two extremes lies a place where symptoms of dysfunction have not quite yet surfaced but where we have lost some of our "perfect functionality." We call this critical zone our wellness buffer. Sadly, in conventional medicine, this place is usually not on the map. “Disease-care” medicine just doesn’t get involved in the issue of wellness unless symptoms have developed. In today’s medicine, the gold standard for diagnosing good health is the act of documenting the absence of signs and symptoms of disease—that is, it’s in the business of exploring only 50 percent of the total spectrum! Optimal health is not under investigation; a “clean bill of health” simply means that nothing is severe enough to show evidence of symptoms during a physical examination or abnormal findings in routine laboratory testing. Such measures don’t identify the magnitude or extent of the patient’s wellness buffer or how close they may be to theoretic perfect function; nor do they show the patient explicitly how to move toward optimal function once symptoms have disappeared.

It’s a matter of paradigm: Today’s diagnostics are geared to detect diseases from the middle to the far right end of the spectrum, where the horse is already out of the barn—maladies such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. These tests accurately measure the biochemical and physiological function of many organ systems; many of them sensitively assay the total function of such organs as the heart, lungs, and kidneys. However, as long as the results of these analyses are within the so-called normal range with no overt symptoms present, nothing more will be done.

Let us not be fooled by the large but hidden middle ground that spans the distance from perfect functioning to the onset of symptoms. Instead, we should all be working to maintain the optimum amount of reserve protection in our organs. Our most potent defense is a good offense, one based on living a healthy lifestyle.

Maintaining a wellness buffer is, for the most part, a personal issue—a matter of personal discipline.
As for a public program that supports wellness, one of the best public programs we have seen is something that popped up in the hometown of Dr. Saputo himself.

In Walnut Creek, California, the location of Dr. Saputo’s Health Medicine Center, an activist named Cindy Gershen has recruited an enormous team of experts that includes farmers, doctors, dietitians, nutritionists, chefs, politicians, filmmakers, professors, and philosophers who care enough about the quality of the food we consume that they have donated hundreds of hours of service to create the Wellness City Challenge (www.wellnesscitychallenge.com). This program’s first priority, and Dr. Saputo’s assignment as its committee chair, was to create guidelines for healthy eating that were realistic and doable. Over several months, he developed a subcommittee of 25 specialists who met and discussed a wide range of ideals to accomplish this. The group eventually narrowed its goals to three simple principles:

• Avoid food with sugar or a sweetener as one of the first three ingredients, unless it is a dessert.
• Choose whole grains with 3 or more grams of fiber per 100 calories.
• Never eat trans fats or hydrogenated oils.

As of February 2009, the program has been endorsed by the city councils of Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill, and Martinez, and by state senator Mark DeSaulnier and congressional representative Ellen Tauscher. These cities have agreed to follow WCC guidelines in all vending machines as well as in all city facilities where food is served. The intent of the WCC is to have this legislation enacted in all Contra Costa County cities and then begin working on school, restaurant, and hospital menus. We believe that WCC is a model that can be taken statewide and, eventually, nationwide.

For more information, go to:
http://wellnesscitychallenge.com/