Arteries in Harmony: Defending Our Arteries, Protecting Our Lives and Preserving Our Happiness in the Era of Obesity and Diabetes

Obesity and diabetes make up an international epidemic, a "pandemic" that threatens not only the health of those affected but also the very structure of our civil society through bankrupting its resources and destroying its social safety nets.

• Why should we be concerned about obesity and diabetes, even those of us who have a perfectly healthy weight and lifestyle?
• What is the connection between obesity, diabetes, and artery disease?
• Why do many obese people never become diabetic?
• Given there are very few people with perfectly healthy arteries, how can most of us keep our arteries in "harmony"?
• What are some of the most common and most deadly misconceptions that lay people have about health and disease?
• Why are obesity and diabetes, while depending heavily on individual lifestyle choices, also social diseases?
• Why, although doctors and hospitals, medications, and procedures can help with obesity and diabetes complications, can the epidemic only be won through a prolonged campaign of well planned community-driven operations?
• What constitutes a healthy lifestyle, beyond merely healthy eating and exercise?
• What other common and deadly diseases--beyond obesity, diabetes, and their artery complications--can be prevented through a healthy lifestyle?

These are questions you may have wondered about, or may have never even thought to ask. Nonetheless, they are questions that we all need immediate answers to if we are to save our society from preventable disease. Arteries in Harmony will provide you with meticulously researched answers to these questions and a blueprint for a healthier future.

Arteries in Harmony is the second book on prevention and wellness written by Dr. Anthony, a practicing physician and a former interventional cardiologist who firmly believes that prevention of the obesity-diabetes epidemic and its complications is possible. It will require nothing short of transforming school, home, the workplace, and the way we communicate knowledge about the epidemic, but it can be done.

As a first step, it is necessary that people understand that the obesity-diabetes-artery disease epidemic concerns us all.

Second, the epidemic is not only about individual lifestyle choices, like avoiding added sugars and fat and opting for more exercise, but also about how we spend our days at school, at work, at home, at the restaurant, and at the grocery store. So, fighting the epidemic cannot be successful by only individual choices. It will also require transforming some of our pre-eminent social institutions like school and the workplace, as well as reasonable regulation of dangerous foods and drinks.

Thirdly, winning over the epidemic is not going to be a slam-dunk. Slashing tobacco smoking rates from 42% down to 15% took more than half a century; the obesity-diabetes epidemic is likely to be an even harder nut to crack. Without a well-planned and prolonged community-wide and community-driven campaign, we have no hope of success. On top of bringing the concept of a healthy lifestyle to school and the workplace, on top of regulating dangerous foods and drinks, we will also need the friendly army of Health Pals. The Health Pals are people amongst us who want to help their fellow human beings avoid disease and death. The Health Pals will learn:

• How to spread the message of prevention and wellness to their families, their friends, and their co-workers.
• When and how to persuade unwilling individuals (who feel healthy but are in desperate need of medical help, on the basis of risk factors and early signs) to see their doctor and help prevent a heart attack, a stroke, or sudden death.

This book will give you the tools to protect your arteries and put a bit of wellness in a previously unhealthy lifestyle. You will learn the important details of what a healthy lifestyle truly is (beyond just healthy diet and exercise) and the multiple benefits of healthy lifestyle, extending beyond the obesity-diabetes-artery disease epidemic.