Two of my daughters live in Minneapolis, so you can imagine that I spend a fare amount of time in the car traveling to see them. One of my favorite things to do, besides visiting with my wife, is listening to podcasts in the car. It is a great way to learn information, keep up with current events and kill some time over that 7 ½ hour trip.

One of the talks I recently listened to was by Dr. Peter Attia, he is a medical doctor with a practice in San Diego focusing on longevity, a topic he frequently speaks on. Longevity, which Webster states is: a long duration of individual life.

One of the key concepts in his talk was the cause of death. In the US, the top 5 causes of health related deaths are CV disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. When looking at a population of people that live into their 100’s, they all die of the same diseases, just later in life. His point was that if we can stave of these chronic diseases, essentially delaying their onset, we should live longer.

You are probably thinking, Steve, that's like the most obvious thing you have said in a long time. It does seem quite obvious, unfortunately, it is often times far to late for us to reverse the disease process once we are in it. This is the reason I ask the question, “Where do you see yourself in 20 years if you continue on your current path?”

We are currently in the midst of an obesity epidemic in the US. The CDC reported at the end of 2014 that 36.5 of those over 20 years old we considered obese, over 1/3 of our population. It will be interesting to see what newer data will prove but the trend is not looking good.

One area that gives me heartburn is type II diabetes (T2D), a disease that goes hand in hand with obesity, and is characterized by elevated blood glucose levels. Our bodies are designed to store glucose in our liver and in muscle with the help of insulin produced in our pancreas. In T2D, we have an excess amount of glucose in our blood stream and our pancreas eventually burns out trying to keep up with the insulin demand. I realize that this is an oversimplification of a complex metabolic issue.

The solution is complex but quite simple, decrease the consumption of glucose or food that gets converted into glucose, exercise to use up glucose and build muscle mass to take up more glucose or take a medication that will help lower glucose.

The last option is the easy way out, the first 3 require lifestyle changes and plenty of hard work. The pharmaceutical industry has found a way to make a $400 a month medication, free. Commercial insurance overs everything but the copay and with a copay discount card from the drug company, it drives the cost in most cases down to $0. If you had to pay $400 per month for your medication would that inspire you to make some lifestyle changes?

One area you can change today is by changing your diet. Encouraging patients to eliminate gluten can be a daunting task. Fortunately we have a speaker coming to Fluff Fields Winery on Thursday June 7th, Deborah Miller from Premium Gold, a central ND organic grain farm. She will be speaking on “A Gluten Free Table” giving ideas and options to making change less of a burden. If you are interested, stop by the pharmacy or give us a call to reserve a spot.