Is Exercise Medicine?

I personally do not care for that designation, but it helps convey the enormous impact of a physically active lifestyle. Certainly nothing compares to regular exercise in providing a sense of overall health and well being. Or as David Nieman, director of Appalachian State University's Human Performance Lab recently stated a WSJ article, "No pill or nutritional supplement has the power of near-daily moderate activity in lowering the number of sick days people take."

The benefits of exercise are in part due to helping partakers maintain a healthy weight. But, even without weight loss exercise has significant benefits in curbing disease including infectious, metabolic and cancer related maladies. That is why I tell patients discouraged by minimal weight loss with their exercise program that they are doing themselves a tremendous benefit even if their weight remains unchanged.

Mayo Clinic Disengaging from Government Healthcare Fiasco?

From WSJ Opinion Journal "…the real Mayo story is that sclerotic Medicare is preventing more Mayos, and ObamaCare is paving the way for all of health care to operate like Medicare." Therefore, the Mayo Clinic is being forced to do a little health care reform of its own. I doubt the tyrants in the White House and on Capitol Hill will stand for this blatant insubordination for long.