Here you’ll find information and advice on healthy living from Ed Dodge, M.D., as well as dispatches from Africa (where he taught health sciences), glimpses into his own healthy lifestyle, and more.
Much of this content was published first on Dr. Dodge’s original blog, so if you have followed him at The Joys of Healthy Living blog at WordPress.com, you are in the right place!
Research shows that healthy lifestyles lower the risk of disorders like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, cancer, and stroke that plague our society. An editorial in The Journal of the American Medical Association stated in September 2009: Initiatives aimed at improving lifestyle behaviors have the largest influence on reducing the future burden of disease.
In other words, you have more personal health power than anyone else, even your doctor! Dr. Dodge’s desire is to help you use your own health power effectively.
Most of us know a bit about the gut microbiome but may not fully appreciate its importance. Your complete microbiome consists of all the microbes that live in and on your body. Estimates range up to more than 100 trillion micro-organisms, far more than your own body’s 30 trillion cells.…
Introductory Note: This is the final issue of the Wellness Newsletter. I will not be writing any more newsletters, though I may write an occasional blog post looking at life from an octogenarian’s perspective. This final issue of the newsletter deals with a subject close to my heart, namely, the…
Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself, published in March 2019, is an excellent addition to the growing literature on the healing power of food. Author William Li, MD, emphasizes the scientific evidence that supports food’s healing power. Part I of the book…
Abundant research confirms that good nutrition is a major factor in health. Good food not only nourishes healthy muscles, bones and internal organs, but helps to prevent and even reverse serious diseases. Today’s newsletter features a book on the healing power of good food with a healthy lifestyle. Is Most…
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine held its annual conference in Indianapolis this year. My two sons and their families live in Indianapolis, so the conference was doubly appealing for me. As always, it was excellent. Most presentations highlighted some aspect of improved health achievable for millions of people through…
We had spaghetti squash as our entrée for dinner tonight, and it was delicious. The secret that made it extra good was the warm HEB Vegetable Primavera pasta sauce topping enriched with green peas. The overall taste combination was irresistible. Other veggies on the plate included kale, quartered beets, Brussel…
I’m flying to Africa next week with other family members. A total of 15 of us are going to revisit family connections from the past sixty years. We will be in Zimbabwe June 7-12 and Ethiopia June 12-17, 2018. It will be a trip filled with wonderful experiences as we…
I stepped out the front door into our sheltered entryway a little after midnight as I sometimes do to check the night-time weather. It was a quiet balmy evening. I surprised a young 2-prong buck that was grazing in our front yard. He looked up toward me for a minute,…
We enjoy the produce from our little backyard box gardens so much that we’ve decided to add more of them. In fact, we’re converting most of our small backyard into box gardens. Look at the picture to see what this may look like. What you see is the sunny side…
I was able to do some garden work in our backyard this weekend, something I always enjoy. We’ve had several garden boxes in the backyard for a number of years. I’ve had green beans growing in one of them this spring. They’ve been blooming for a couple weeks now. I…