It's the first week of a new year, which means many of us have made our "live a healthier lifestyle" new year's resolution. Well, Orlando might be just the place to do it!
As the rest of the world is beginning to discover, Metro Orlando is leading the way in the trendy field of lifestyle and preventive medicine. Our region is already home to several renowned lifestyle fitness facilities - including the National Training Center, led by Central Florida native and two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, Dr. Dot Richardson; Celebration Health Assessment, a proponent of the CREATION Health lifestyle program; the Rippe Lifestyle Institute; and the Center for Lifestyle Medicine at the University of Central Florida, both of which are led by Dr. James Rippe, one of the leading authorities on preventive cardiology, health and fitness, and healthy weight loss in the United States.
Those are all good starting places for resolution makers.
Scientific leaders in our region are also focused on future advances in this realm. For example, a recent article by M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando oncologists, published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, points to lifestyle interventions that can prevent and treat various types of cancer. The article looks at five cancers - lung, colon and rectal, breast, prostate and skin - that have causes that are lifestyle based and controllable through alterations in human behavior.
In addition, the primary focus of research at the new Burnham Institute for Medical Research at Lake Nona is on combating diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease - health problems that are often avoidable or manageable through lifestyle adaptations. To help put these research lessons quickly into practice, Burnham has teamed with Orlando-headquartered Florida Hospital to establish a Clinical Research Institute where the two organizations will work together to conduct translational research, creating a bridge between the lab and the bedside.
Could Metro Orlando one day become the healthiest region in the nation? Dr. Rippe thinks so. "You have to start somewhere... Why not Orlando?" he says. "Orlando has tremendous advantages going for it. There's the year-round warm climate; it has a powerful and large university; it has a new medical city being planned; and it also has a very visionary healthcare community... There are so many things that point to Orlando as being the ideal place for this."
New year, new you, new industry for Metro Orlando. That's a resolution worth keeping!
To read more in the latest issue of the EDC's Texture magazine: click here and here.
