May 8th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Celebrity Interviews
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I had the exciting opportunity to interview Governor Mike Huckabee at a recent conference for the National Changing Diabetes Program. As most of you know, Mike lost 110 pounds through lifestyle interventions and has kept the weight off for over 5 years.
Since I’m leading a weight loss group, I was inspired to read his new book, “Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork.” I really enjoyed his witty and down-to-earth, positive approach to health. If you can imagine Dave Barry and Norman Vincent Peele getting together to talk about weight loss strategies, you’d pretty much have Gov. Huckabee’s book. I highly recommend it.
As for our interview, I’ll split the Q&As into two posts. This first post is about Mike’s personal journey, the second is about his view of healthcare. One thing’s for sure, after meeting Mike Huckabee in person, I can say that I’ve joined the team of folks who wear the “I heart Huckabee” t-shirts. He is a softspoken, kind-hearted, honest man with a quirky sense of humor and a gift for parables and analogies. Enjoy his thoughts below…
Dr. Val: It seems to me that your weight loss journey began the day when you sat in a chair at the State Capitol, and it broke under your weight (in front of a group of government officials). Do you think that successful weight loss usually begins with an “ah-ha moment” like yours?
Huckabee: I don’t think it’s always the case that people have that level of epiphany. Most people who are overweight know it – every time they bend over to tie their shoes and can’t, every time they need a seat belt extender on the airplane, etc. they realize that there’s a problem. Unfortunately, though, their response is often one of helplessness. They believe that they just have to live with their weight problem instead of believing they can do something about it.
Sometimes an epiphany can make people really angry, and cause them to say – “I don’t care what I have to do, I need to change.” Most people have made numerous attempts to lose weight and have tried many different diets, but they don’t understand the real problem. It’s a lifestyle issue, not a program issue. Diets fail because they have a beginning and an end. You’ve got to see this as change not so much of the menu but of your mind. Don’t focus on losing weight – that’s a big mistake. Focus on the things that make you healthy and then the weight takes care of itself. You may never be the skinniest person, but you’re better off healthy than you are skinny.
Sometimes I find that when people make weight loss their goal they lose weight but they’re not healthy because they haven’t done it in a healthy way. They haven’t combined activity with the weight loss. They’ve just starved themselves, and that’s not health.
Your health is like a dashboard. If the only thing you ever look at is your speedometer, and you don’t look at the oil gauge and the water gauge, you can get into serious trouble. You think, “hey, I’m going the speed limit” but that’s not the point. That’s how fast your car’s going, not how well it’s running. Health is the same way – you can’t just focus on weight, you’ve got to look at your cholesterol levels, hemoglobin A1C, blood sugar, and blood pressure as well.
After I broke the chair I went to see my doctor and he ran some tests that confirmed I was a diabetic.
Dr. Val: What did your doctor say to you at that point?
Huckabee: My doctor gave me a talk that changed my life. A lot of doctors simply say, “you’re a diabetic, here’s some medication, try to lose some weight and do some exercise.” But my doctor looked me in the eye and said, “you need to understand that if you don’t make a lifestyle change, you’re in the last decade of your life, and let me describe the decade…”
Quite frankly if he had just said that I was in my last decade I might have said, “Hmm, that’s not good, but you know what? I bet a drug company will solve this problem for me in the next few years. That way I can eat what I want and do what I want and just take a pill and everything will be fine.”
But that’s not what he told me. Instead he told me the truth, and he said “let me describe the decade…” And in great detail my doctor began to explain what diabetes would do to my body, organ by organ – my vision, my extremities, my heart. He made it sound like a slow, lingering death. And right then and there I vowed to come up with a different exit strategy for my life.
I gave up sweets and fried foods and began to exercise. You have to understand that this was a huge turning point for a southern boy. I used to say that exercise is for people who have nothing better to do with their lives than to get on a treadmill and play the role of a hamster. But I became one of those people that I used to make fun of – I’ve already completed four marathons. But most importantly, I haven’t needed any medications in 5 years and my doctor says that it’s as if I never had diabetes at all.
Dr. Val: You wrote, “If you really hate yourself when you’re fat, you’ll also hate yourself when you’re thin.” What did you mean by that?
Huckabee: Well, you have to be honest and tell people that their weight is a reflection of their personality. There is something inside of them that let them get completely out of control. It may have been a feeling of inadequacy, or some guilt – every person is different. But usually something is underlying the weight problem. It may be the fear of not having anything to eat next week. But something has to give a person that reckless abandon. Just because you change the physical aspects of your life, doesn’t mean that your emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects are going to change.
Dr. Val: How do you get to the bottom of what’s driving unhealthy behaviors?
Huckabee: I know that for me it was when I started to ask myself, “why is it that I’m triggered to overeat?” Some of it was childhood memories – it was the comfort that food brought. As a child, the few privileges I had were related to food. So food was always a reward. I received affirmation from dessert and would indulge myself to re-experience those childhood memories. I know that sounds awfully elementary but these things get imprinted on us. When we’re adults and someone is cruel to us or something bad happens, we affirm ourselves with food so that we can feel as if we’re a good person again. But once you come to terms with this, you regain control. You can tell yourself you’re alright and you don’t need food for comfort or affirmation.
**Up next, Mike speaks out about healthcare**This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
May 6th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Patient Interviews
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Cameron J. Mitchell was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme (or GBM, an aggressive form of brain cancer) over four years ago. The prognosis for this tumor is usually grim, as most people succumb to it within 4 to 18 months of diagnosis. However, Cameron got involved in a clinical trial for a promising new therapy and has beaten the odds. Since Revolution Health was founded partly in response to Dan Case’s battle with a GBM (and I had the opportunity to participate in the Race for Hope to benefit Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure last weekend), I thought it would be great to highlight Cameron’s story. Cameron also happens to be a close friend of one of our staff at Revolution Health.
Dr. Val: Tell me about how you were diagnosed with a brain tumor. What symptoms did you have? What led up to the diagnosis?
First of all as you can imagine getting the news is like being hit by a truck. You think, “this just can’t be happening to me.” And of course the “why me?” scenario comes into play.
My initial diagnosis came after having a bout of seizures, both grand mal and partial. After a series of tests and procedures they determined that the ongoing problem was the result of a brain tumor. The typical protocol requires 6 weeks of radiation along with oral chemotherapy followed up with a visit to your oncologist to determine a plan of action.
Dr. Val: How did you find out about the Duke clinical trial?
Being that the “plan of action” did not have a very favorable outlook I asked my oncologist, “What would you do in this case?” He suggested I contact the Duke Brain Tumor Center. He actually made the initial call. Later that night I received a call from Dr. Henry Friedman saying that they could help. By the end of the week I received a call from Dr. John Sampson telling me that he was working on a specific clinical trial. As long as I could meet some prerequisites I would be eligible to participate. A lot of thought and pondering goes into that decision: “Is it the right one?” “What if it does not work?” But at that point nothing else had been proven, so my wife and I decided that I have nothing to lose to give it a chance.
Dr. Val: What have the treatments been like for you? Do you have any advice for other patients with GBM?
The treatments are an ongoing, once a month procedure, and I travel from Michigan to North Carolina for them. So it definitely is a huge sacrifice but at for very worthy cause. Having MRIs every two months can create a lot of anxiety not knowing if the tumor is back or not.
The four main pieces of advice I could give to new GBM patients are: 1) Get as much as information as you can. Ask lots of questions. 2) Keep a positive attitude (SO IMPORTANT). 3) Keep a strong group of supporters like family, friends and especially spouse. 4) Remember that this is NOT your fault.
There are a lot of very good sites out there on the internet for advice. But one thing to keep in mind, some of them are a little outdated. The better sites allow you to ask questions.
Dr. Val: What advice do you have for family members and loved ones of those diagnosed with a GBM?
Family members must be informed about what is going on. Under absolutely no circumstances should they be left out in the cold. Most patients find out early that their spouse has at least as much (if not more) difficulty dealing with this disease as the patient.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
May 5th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, Health Tips
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Do you know your state’s momScore? Revolution Health and I have teamed up with leading medical experts and mommy bloggers to create a new health index just in time for Mother’s Day: the momScore.
Check out this fun interactive map that ranks states by 10 key maternal health variables*:
- Access to prenatal care
- Availability of childcare services
- Number of insured moms
- Maternal mortality
- Affordability of childrens’ health insurance
- Air quality
- Family paid leave policy
- Infant mortality
- Risk of pregnancy complications
- Violent crime rate
We also created a combined average of these variables (weighted according to expert perceived importance) to get an overall ranking. So, do you know where it’s best to be a mom in the United States?
Apparently, Vermont ranks most favorably (on average) in all of these variables. Don’t live in Vermont? Check out how your state compares.
Would you like to discuss your state’s rankings with others or debate the momScore? You can post your comments in our interactive momScore community. This is a really exciting opportunity to discuss women’s health issues in a fresh new way. I hope that the momScore will challenge states to strengthen their efforts to keep moms and babies healthy. At the very least, we’ve made a lot of Vermonters quite smug.
*Variables are based on state reporting to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the United States Census Bureau, as well as leading non-profit organizations such as the Kaiser Family Foundation and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. For more information about momScore methodology, click here.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
April 29th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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We’ve been conducting a series of opinion polls at Revolution Health, some of which have turned up interesting and surprising findings. This one caught my attention (there were 392 respondents):
What one factor would most improve your health?
- 23% Less stress at work
- 4% More time to cook
- 18% Being in a happier relationship
- 31% Getting more sleep
- 22% More time to work out
I thought it was very interesting that SLEEP is perceived by our viewers as their number one most important health intervention, more important than exercise, relationships, or stress reduction.
Does this result surprise you?
I suspect that there was selection bias at play since the poll appeared in the sleep disorders section of our site – but it was also featured in non-sleep related areas of Revolution Health.
Anecdotal for sure, but interesting.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
April 26th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Expert Interviews
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In my quest to bring the best possible health advice to the Revolution Health community I am actively pursuing interviews with credible sources. At the top of the list is America’s #1 doctor, the Surgeon General. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Vice Admiral Richard H. Carmona, M.D., who served as Surgeon General from August 2002 to August 2006. He addressed a range of health issues facing Americans today. I am posting the interview in segments; the following post is part of that series.
Dr. Val: What role could consumer-directed healthcare initiatives play in helping to reduce healthcare costs associated with chronic disease? Is the government doing enough to support this movement?
Dr. Carmona: I think the consumer-driven initiatives struggle for a number of reasons, and the most important one is that we’re a health illiterate nation. Studies show that about one third of our population doesn’t understand the connection between their lifestyle and their health outcomes. Consumer-driven initiatives are predicated on the assumption that the consumer can understand the issue and take appropriate action to change behavior.
Are we doing enough? No. The government could pour all of its budget into patient education, but if the people don’t receive a message that they can understand and act upon, we’re wasting our time. The real challenge for consumer-directed initiatives is to deliver health literate, culturally competent messages that resonate with diverse populations. If I sent a bunch of posters to certain communities with a picture of the Surgeon General saying, “eat less and exercise more” would that change behaviors in that community? No. What we need to do is partner with community leaders, whether it be a priest or a rabbi or a grandmother or a block neighborhood captain – someone who has credibility in that community and work with them and spend the time necessary to change the culture.
The American public wants the best of everything, they want it yesterday, and they don’t want to pay for it. That pretty much characterizes the problem that we have. We see health as a right, we want somebody to give us a card, and if we want to smoke, that’s our right too. There’s this attitude that if we want to drink excessively, that’s our right, and if we want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, that’s our right (“you can’t tell us what to do”). However, when I crash my motorcycle and I have a head injury and I’m disabled for life, I also expect society to pay for that.
We have to do a better job of improving health literacy so that American people of all socio-economic strata can understand the consequences of the choices that are deleterious to their health and help them to adopt appropriate behaviors that optimize health and wellness. Health literacy is the currency of success for everything we need to do to improve the health, safety, and security of our nation. It’s part of what we include in every project we do at Canyon Ranch Institute, with all our partners.
Dr. Val: And how do we get the message across to them, then?
Dr. Carmona: Boy, people have written books on that one. I’ve been plagued by this question, Val, ever since I came into the office of Surgeon General. I remember one day sitting down with my staff and taking a look at the previous Surgeon General reports. I thought they made pretty good book ends and looked nice in my office, but I wanted to know what we used them for. One staff member said, “Well sir, these have been developed to define the base of knowledge on a given topic and it helps our peers decide what needs to be done. It has a long bibliography and it’s based on science.”
But then other staff told me, “Really these are written for the public, so they’ll understand the information.”
And I thought to myself “I don’t know that any of the ‘public’ that I grew up with could read this.”
So I started a program to help communicate health messages to the American public. The goal was to develop resonant messages that would result in maximal behavior change over time. My advisors told me that the messages had to be written at a sixth grade level. So what we did with every Surgeon General’s Report and every Surgeon General’s Call to Action and other publication – we published the “Peoples’ Piece” to go along with it. It was full of pictures and written like a comic book to facilitate parent-child dialog about health. We also wrote them with cultural sensitivities in mind. The science behind our recommendations doesn’t change, but you have to send out thousands of messages to resonate with people from different cultures and languages – who are all Americans – in order to change their behaviors. So that’s what makes this so difficult.
Dr. Val: How do you get the ‘Peoples’ Piece’ to the people? Do you use the Internet or new media approaches?
Dr. Carmona: Unfortunately it’s often the case that the people who need the information the most don’t have Internet access. But the Internet can be incredibly powerful. For example, Dr. Francis Collins (the head of the human genome project at NIH) helped me with the U.S. Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative. We put our heads together to help people understand the significance of family health history.
We put it on the Internet and also distributed it to libraries, post offices, community centers, and schools. It helped people to create a family health tree to use as a talking point with their doctors. They could remind their doctors that, for example, their aunt and grandmother had breast cancer and then ask if they should be monitored more closely. Or they could discuss the fact that their uncles and cousins all had heart attacks before age 50. This tool helped people to begin identifying their risks based on a good family history – which busy docs don’t pay enough attention to anymore. When you know your history, genomics becomes valuable. If we can characterize disease, then we can search for potential genetic loci to help explain what’s going on and take a preventive approach to modifying the person’s environment to mitigate risk.
This concept is extraordinarily hard to communicate, but the Family History Initiative helped to make it accessible to people. We released the project at Thanksgiving time – when we knew that families would be together and could discuss their health histories, and it was a resounding success. Within a week or two we had hundreds and thousands of hits, with people asking for more information.
***
The Surgeon General series: see what else Dr. Carmona has to say about…
Cost Savings Associated with Preventive Health
Obesity is America’s #1 Health Concern
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Preventing Chronic DiseaseThis post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
