Health: One Measure to Rule Them All

Posted November 30, 2018

This week, I am coining a new term: vigevity. Self-evidently, perhaps, this is the combination of vitality and longevity. I suppose “longality” might also serve, but I like vigevity better to represent the combination of years in life, plus life in years. We’ll see whether or not the term catches on. Either way, though, it is the one health measure to rule them all. It is what truly matters; the prize.

We are letting that prize slip away.

We have long known that rates of chronic disease were rising in the U.S., and around much of the world. Far worse than just a rise in the prevalence of chronic diseases- heart disease, dementia, diabetes- is the downward drift in average age of onset. That is perhaps starkest for diabetes… CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE

Dr. David L. Katz

DAVID L. KATZ MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM, is the founding director (1998) of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, and current President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He earned his BA degree from Dartmouth College (1984); his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1988); and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health (1993). He completed sequential residency training in Internal Medicine, and Preventive Medicine/Public Health. He is a two-time diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and a board-certified specialist in Preventive Medicine/Public Health. He has received two Honorary Doctorates. Dr. Katz has published roughly 200 scientific articles and textbook chapters, and 15 books to date, including multiple editions of leading textbooks in both Preventive Medicine, and nutrition. Recognized globally for expertise in nutrition, weight management and the prevention of chronic disease, he has a social media following of well over half a million. In 2015, Dr. Katz established the True Health Initiative to help convert what we know about lifestyle as medicine into what we do about it, in the service of adding years to lives and life to years around the globe.