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E Your best PRESCRIPTION Our own Dr. Tedd is leading the charge as two major medical associations encourage doctors to prescribe the medicine that aids more ills than any other: Exercise. WHAT IF I told you I could write a prescription for a medicine that would do all of the following; lower blood pressure, blood sugar and weight; improve cholesterol, sleep, and bone and heart health; and decrease the risk for cancer? Imagine one prescription that could do all of those things and more. Would you be interested? I bet most of you would. Well, that prescription really exists. There’s just one catch; You’ll need 30 Countless studies link a physically active lifestyle to good health. ous and profound. Many scientists, in cluding several here at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, have spent their entire careers studying this interaction. Yet the majority of Americans don’t get nearly enough exercise. Understanding the need for our sed entary nation to get off its collective duff, physicians have been less than effective at getting patients active. Busy medical practices can make conversations about exercise mostly superficial, but there are some determined folks who would like to change that. 10 USA WEEKEND • Nov. 2-4,2007 By DR. TEDD MITCHELL Bob Sallis, M.D., is a family medicine doctor and president of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). Ron Davis, M.D., is a preventive medicine doctor and president of the American Medical Association (AMA). Both want to make a difference in our nation’s health. They understand that health is determined to a large extent by lifestyle choices, in cluding physical activ ity. They also under stand that many doc tors feel either over whelmed or inadequate when it comes to pre scribing exercise to their patients. To change this atti tude, they are launch ing the “Exercise is Medicine” initiative on Monday. It aims not minutes each day to take it. 'Yes, the “medicine” that I’m talking about is exercise. Studies linking a physically active lifestyle to good health are numer- only to raise public awareness of the need for a physically active lifestyle, but also to help drive home the medical im portance of exercise to physicians and other health care workers. “Why physi cians are so quick to accept research data on expensive medications while es sentially ignoring even stronger data on the benefits of physical activity is at the core of this program,” Sallis says. Smart What the new "Exercise is Medicine" campaign will do: I ; ' Raise public awareness of the need for a physically active lifestyle. Drive home the medical importance of exercise to physicians and other health care workers. Instruct physicians in writing prescriptions for exercise. Go to exerdseismedidne.org to learn more. /'Exel&cise | \ V Medicines U / H ■ I’m excited that my USA WEEKEND col umn is one of the first to announce this monu mental initiative. I’m also proud that these two medical power houses are coming to gether to advocate for exercise—the easiest, cheapest and most effective medicine around. The initiative reiterates the effective ness of exercise as a therapy for treat ing numerous health conditions. It also instructs doctors on how to write exer cise prescriptions something that most physicians have little, if any, ex perience doing. As the baby boomers begin to enter their senior years, more and more are looking for ways to fight the aging proc ess. It’s an age-old quest: Bonce de Leon was looking for the fountain of youth when he came to America hundreds of years ago. But it’s like a friend of mine says: If Pbnce de Leon wanted to find the fountain of youth, he should have been looking for a gym! Sallis and Davis understand the im portance of physical activity, which is why they hope to make this initiative stick with both the public and the medi cal community. E 3 Contributing editor Tedd Mitchell, M.D., is president and medical director of the Coojjer Clinic in Dallas, and lie is on the board of trustees of the Ammcan College of Sports Medicine. He writes Healths mart every week.