A Message from MedChefs’ Chief Medical Officer

My world view has been tempered by more than 35 years of cardiology practice and the realization that there’s a huge gap between the science and how it is translated into the everyday care of patients. Too many people continue to show up with cardiovascular disease — heart attack, stroke or even worse — cardiac arrest, as their first warning. What is so clear, however, is that for the majority of Americans, attention to lifestyle can reduce the risk of serious health problems and cardiovascular diseases — the number one cause of death in the United States.

The adoption of a healthy life-style that includes avoidance of tobacco, more physical activity and a healthy nutritional pattern can truly be an investment in a more healthy future. Weight management, optimal blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels and compliance with a healthy dietary pattern are major components of the healthy lifestyle that improves the chances of ideal cardiovascular health. Ideal cardiovascular health is defined by the American Heart Association in their 2020 Impact Goal to improve cardiovascular health of all Americans by 20%, with a corresponding 20% reduction in death from cardiovascular disease and stroke.

Despite the appreciation that prevention is the most effective tool in our black bag, we healthcare professionals spend too little time discussing and implementing healthy nutrition. This is unfortunate, since more mindful eating can decrease cardiovascular events including premature death just as well as many prescription medications and without added costs or side effects. Eating healthy is certainly worth our collective attention. The Medchefs’ team sees this as an opportunity to make healthy nutrition a sustainable goal and has crafted a tool to make ideal cardiovascular health more achievable for our patients.

With so much confusion about what is healthy to eat and so many past inconsistent nutrition recommendations eating healthy can be a daunting task. Too often consensus driven guidelines have been led astray and failed to critically accept the reality of incomplete or inadequate evidence to change public policy. Nutritional science as a discipline advances slowly with many good ideas failing the test of critical study. Medchefs provides dietary recommendations that are evidence-based and will provide our MedChefs’ community timely and important nutrition insights along with a good dose of humility.

I am proud to be part of the Medchefs’ team that wants to make healthy nutrition part of the solution for good health.

Stephen Raskin, MD

 

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