Saving the Health Care System $250,000 with Nutrition
Andy is the new President of the Palm Beach County Medical Society for 2013. He gave a speech filled with physicians from Palm Beach County and the University of Miami at the inauguration gala where he addressed his agenda as it relates to Clean Cuisine, nutrition and physicians. The speech was lengthy and not entirely relevant to Clean Cuisine, but at the end he shared our family’s experience and how our decision to use nutritional therapy has saved the health care system $250,000….
“In my own experience I know there are safe, inexpensive ways to achieve the same goals that are currently most often achieved through expensive, aggressive interventions. I’m going to ask that Clean Cuisine and Full Fitness Fusion be placed on display now…..when I perform weight loss surgery I wonder if perhaps children were sent to school with more healthful lunches; if schools and parents encouraged the consumption of cheap but healthy foods like fruits, beans, canned fish like salmon, whole grains, popcorn, all-natural nut butters, and healthfully prepared vegetables and insisted their children developed a taste for these foods; if governments and doctors stood up to powerful interests that place unhealthy foods in school cafeterias and allow soft drink companies to sponsor TV shows and sporting events when these foods and beverages are now causing more deaths than tobacco products; if physical education once again became an important part of the school-age curriculum and if; worst of all, our legislatures stopped subsidizing the production of processed corn and soybean based junk food as a handout to wealthy agricultural interests, artificially making more healthful foods relatively more expensive..…I wonder how much money could be saved down the road. More surgery is not the ultimate answer to our country’s health and obesity epidemic.
I know firsthand patient directed, doctor guided lifestyle interventions can save money and save lives. My own wife, Ivy, the American College of Sports Medicine Certified Health Fitness Specialist pictured here on the cover of her Full Fitness Fusion exercise DVD coming out in February was diagnosed with MS at the University of Miami 14 years ago. Our first best-selling book the Gold Coast Cure introduced an anti-inflammatory diet that has worked to keep her condition in remission ever since. I knew the diet would work because I took the time to research it…..if you have a supportive doctor and a motivated patient, one who is involved in their own health you can’t lose! Based on the costs that would have been associated with 14 years of MS medication and annual MRI’s alone we have saved the medical system over $250 thousand dollars. My wife and I have lived Triple Aim…..better patient perception of their care, lower costs, and better health outcomes.
I was asked if I wanted to perform tonight as a musician. I laughed and politely declined as I can’t do that, just ask my trombone instructor from grade school…..my passion is nutrition and wellness and my talent is for interpreting and explaining the complex literature on this subject in a way that anyone can understand. My wife’s next book, to be released February 5th, published by the Penguin Group, edited and researched to the primary literature by me, entitled Clean Cuisine, and based upon her diet, exercise, healthy cooking, and healthy living website cleancuisine.com is an expression of this passion. Nutrition and lifestyle based interventions should become the cornerstone of all of our medical practices and we as members of the Palm Beach County Medical Society should educate ourselves better on this subject and support efforts politically to this end. I want to make Palm Beach County a better place for doctors to work and as president will fight hard to that end but in the long run there is a bigger goal…..the good health and the ultimate economic future of our nation. To this goal the medical society will continue to support grand initiatives like the Future of Medicine conference and the Triple Aim project. I look forward to continuing in this direction in 2013 and I thank you for entrusting me with your leadership.” —Andy Larson, MD, FACS, FASMBS
