America’s Wellness Doctor Initiates National Health Care Reform

April 2, 2009 - PRLog -- NEWPORT BEACH, CA— America’s Wellness Doctor, Julian Whitaker, MD, challenges the nation to get a handle on our growing epidemic of diabetes.

On April 1st, the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, CA, launched Dr. Whitaker’s Diabetes Challenge, a national campaign to reform national health care by increasing awareness of the deadly and costly complications diabetes brings to individuals, their families, and their communities.

According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), diabetes affects nearly 24 million people in the United States, and this number is expected to double within 20 years. “Unless something is done to stem this tide, we are headed for disaster,” reports Dr. Whitaker, founder of Whitaker Wellness and author of the best-selling book Reversing Diabetes. “It’s time for Americans to step up to the plate and start taking responsibility for their health.”

ADA statistics cite diabetes as our leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, and amputations and a very significant risk factor for death from heart disease. But Dr. Whitaker counters that these complications are preventable. “Hundreds of clinical trials demonstrate that diabetes can not only be prevented but also reversed—not with drugs but with simple, inexpensive lifestyle measures. Over the past 30 years, we’ve helped thousands of patients at my clinic get off diabetes drugs and literally reverse their diabetes.”

Dr. Whitaker disagrees with medicine’s current dependence on a growing arsenal of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes. “Diabetes medications are now the number-one driver of growth in prescription drug spending. Doctors are prescribing two, three, or more drugs to patients in an effort to control blood sugar. Yet only 7 percent of patients achieve good control. We’re placing a huge financial burden on future generations wasting health-care dollars on therapies that don’t even work.”

He is also concerned about the adverse effects of these drugs. “Studies show that certain classes of oral diabetes drugs actually increase risk of heart attack. That’s the last thing you want for patients already at dramatically increased risk. This is especially true when weight loss, a therapeutic diet, exercise, and targeted nutrients are exceptionally effective in controlling blood sugar and lowering risk of complications.”

Dr. Whitaker acknowledges that lifestyle interventions require effort on the part of patients and physicians as well as a change in how Medicare and insurance companies look at diabetes. But he reports that the payoff, in terms of patient quality of life and the burden on our health-care system, is tremendous.

“Per capita medical costs in 2009 are expected to exceed $8,000, and Medicare’s hospital trust fund will be insolvent in as few as seven years. Medicare and insurers have no qualms about paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for lifelong drug regimens, amputations, dialysis, and other diabetes-related expenses. Yet inexpensive, scientifically proven lifestyle therapies for preventing and managing this condition and its complications are denied coverage. This outdated perspective is not only harming millions of patients—it’s bankrupting our country.”


If you’d like more information on this topic, or to schedule an interview with Julian Whitaker, MD, please contact Julia El Haj (949) 851-1550 or jelhaj@whitakerwellness.com.

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The Whitaker Wellness Institute was founded in 1979 by alternative medicine pioneer Julian Whitaker, MD. Over the past 30 years, more than 40,000 patients have come through our doors. Some of them are looking for help overcoming serious health challenges such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, or Parkinson's disease. Others hope to avoid a recommended surgery or reduce their reliance on prescription drugs.