The United States, like most countries in the world, is experiencing a health crisis of epic proportion: life expectancy is decreasing despite ballooning health care costs. According to the CDC, as of June 2021, six in ten adults have a chronic condition, and four in ten adults have two or more chronic conditions. Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. They are also leading drivers of the nation’s $3.8 trillion in annual health care costs. Many of them are caused by a shortlist of risk behaviors: tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke, excessive alcohol use, poor nutrition, and lack of physical activity.

The conventional medicine approach to curing infectious diseases developed in the twentieth century has been very successful: using one or a mix of chemical substances to kill an infectious agent increased lifespan dramatically. But the numbers mentioned above show its failure to treat chronic conditions. This approach of ‘disease care’ labels a set of symptoms with a disease name and recommends a specific drug known to help with these symptoms. It focuses on hiding symptoms without trying to fix the underlying issues. 

We need a new health care approach based on preventing, treating, and in some cases reversing disease through a mix of functional medicine and lifestyle interventions. This approach needs better-informed individuals who can partner with healthcare professionals such as health coaches, trainers and nutritionists/dietitians, functional medicine doctors, and mental health practitioners. The main goal of this website is to provide the evidence-based knowledge necessary to do so.

Drivers of health
If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.
Hippocrates

The previous figure shows the four main drivers of health. They will be the main areas we will talk about on these pages, along with other subjects such as data, technology and behavior change which can all help us get a better understanding of our current health and track our progress.

References