Preventive Medicine

Just as with car maintenance, health maintenance is always cheaper and less painful than treatment. To know what to expect and what to change before anything bad happens is the aim of preventive medicine. When you visit a mechanic and they tell you that you have to change the oil or rotate the tires, it's because they know from experience that without doing those things, there is a chance your car may stop. In medicine, there are similar recommendations and the easiest ones to change are diet and lifestyle. We know that changes in what we eat and how we exercise can prevent health problems in the future because of major studies that have been done. One of the first such studies that has been conducted and still continues is the Framingham Heart Study. This study was started around the 1940s and has helped us to understand the effects of a number of poor habits on future health. You can learn more about the study from their website: http://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/about/index.html. Other such studies have been done here and in other parts of the world.