About Ultraprevention
The 6-Week Program that Will Make You Healthy for Life.
By Mark Hyman, M.D. and Mark Liponis, M.D.
Look at the numbers. Or just look around. The current healthcare model - the fix-the-broken-parts, disease-based medicine - is simply not working. Americans are fatter and sicker than ever before. Patients, and unfortunately many doctors, continue to believe myths that make them sick, myths such as your doctor knows best, drugs cure disease, fat is a four-letter word, and if you have a diagnosis, you know what's wrong with you. In fact, doctors are the third leading cause of death in the United States (just after heart attack and cancer).
However, there is a revolution brewing in healthcare, and from an unusual source. Two medical insiders working outside the traditional healthcare system - Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Mark Liponis, at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires - have developed what they call ULTRAPREVENTION (Scribner, September 2003), the new science of reclaiming and maintaining health. These two strident anti-specialists - and survivors of catastrophic illness - have created a patient-based program that focuses on keeping people healthy, not just masking symptoms with a pill (by the time you need the drugs, it is usually too late - disease has firmly taken hold). The promise of Ultraprevention's practice is huge: to match health span with life span creating active, age-defying, disease-free life.
Drs. Hyman and Liponis's new medical model is based on the premise that disease is not inevitable and that health is everyone's birthright. By controlling The Five Forces of Illness - the root causes of all illness from Alzheimer's and cancer to depression and ADD - a person can create a healthy - and long - life.
The heart of Ultraprevention is that in any disease or condition, five common and interrelated forces can be found years, or even decades, before an ailment has progressed far enough to be diagnosed: malnutrition (or sludge, as they refer to it with their patients); impaired metabolism (burnout); inflammation (heat); impaired detoxification (waste); and oxidative stress (rust). Testing for the presence of each is easy (although most doctors don't) and all five can be arrested and controlled through simple lifestyle modification.
In the six-week Ultraprevention plan, Drs. Hyman and Liponis outline the three basic steps to a lifetime of good health - remove toxins from the body and your environment; repair the body through personalized nutrition and supplements; and recharge with stress management, sleep restoration, and gentle exercise.
Ultraprevention includes a self-test to assess your knowledge about today's medicine; detailed information on how to work with your doctor on a course of preventive medicine; which tests to have regularly and what they mean; how to research and assess health information and keep your doctor informed; in-depth information about diet and supplements that work to control the 5 Forces of Illness; and a step-by-step explanation of the six-week Ultraprevention plan.
