Do Doctors Practice What They Preach?

By Dr. W. Gifford Jones

February 26, 2006

How good are you at following a healthy lifestyle? This week you can compare how you rate with the faculty of The Harvard Medical School that has 15,329 faculty. Equally important, are they paragons of virtue, practicing what they preach?

The faculty receives top marks for following a good diet. 82 per cent eat breakfast and study after study shows a healthy breakfast is the best way to start the day. And large numbers eat at least three servings of fruits and vegetables most days.

The majority of these doctors also turn a cold shoulder to fast food restaurants. 59 percent rarely go to one and 29 per cent never darken their doors. The rest go to a fast food restaurant one to two times a week.

I sent thanks to the Almighty when I read that the Harvard professors enjoy an alcoholic drink one to five times a week. They believe, as I do, that drinking moderately helps to protect against heart disease. As one old sage reminded me, there are more old wine drinkers than old doctors! But male doctors believe in moderate consumption more than the female faculty, consuming three times more alcohol than women.

If you take vitamin supplements you're in good company. 77.7 per cent of faculty thought that vitamin supplements were part of a healthy lifestyle. And 26 per cent reached for vitamin C when a cold struck although there is little evidence this vitamin has any effect on curing a cold.

Calcium supplements were popular particularly among women and for those over age 50. But it's ironic that only 8.2 per cent of Harvard's faculty took vitamin D. They forgot that in Boston and all cities in Canada from October to February skin production of vitamin D ceases.

During these months sunlight is filtered at a more oblique angle through the ozone layer decreasing ultraviolet radiation that triggers vitamin D production. The news somehow hadn't reached professors that this vitamin may also be more important than calcium in preventing osteoporosis (brittle bones).

Harvard's female faculty is more realistic when they read newspaper headlines, such as the one linking estrogen to cancer of the breast, heart attack and stroke. The majority (63 per cent) of female faculty taking hormones at that time continued on them despite these scary headlines. They, like this medical journalist, believe this statistical study had major errors. Of the women on hormones 31 per cent took estrogen alone and 57 per cent a combination of estrogen and progesterone.

Most of the doctors believed they had a low risk of heart disease. The majority have given up cigarettes and are taking the right steps to decrease cardiac risk by exercising, eating less saturated fat and using olive oil. And 32 per cent believed they were reducing the risk of heart attack by taking B vitamins (B6, B12, and Folic Acid) to decrease the level of homocysteine in the blood.

It was surprising that, with all the talk about the importance of having lower and lower blood cholesterol levels, only 42 per cent were taking a cholesterol-lowering drug. In fact, a large number in the high risk category didn't know their blood level of low density lipoprotein, the bad cholesterol! But 83 per cent of faculty over age 50 were taking a daily Aspirin to decrease the risk of coronary attack.

To limit the risk of cancer 75 per cent over age 50 underwent colonoscopy, two-thirds of women over age 50 had regular mammograms and a PSA test had been done on 84 per cent of men over age 50.

Any negatives? Some of the older professors still smoked and one-third were overweight or obese. And 40 admitted they ate stick margarine full of trans fat that's bad for the heart.

What shocked me? Only 33 per cent of faculty had a Living Will in spite of regularly seeing the tragedy of not having one. Don't let this happen to you.

W. Gifford-Jones M.D is the pen name of Dr. Ken Walker graduate of Harvard. Dr. Walker's website is: Docgiff.com

My book, �90 + How I Got There� can be obtained by sending $19.95 to:

Giff Holdings, 525 Balliol St, Unit # 6,Toronto, Ontario, M4S 1E1

Pre-2008 articles by Gifford Jones

Canada Free Press, CFP Editor Judi McLeod