If you were watching professional football this past weekend you saw a lot of promotion for breast cancer awareness. Players were wearing pink shoes, hats, armbands and various other paraphernalia associated with breast cancer.

I think awareness is huge in fighting this and any other cancer, autoimmune or degenerative diseases that are plaguing our nation. The only problem I have with this and many of the other ‘awareness’ campaign’s out there are they spend too little time, effort or money with the root of the problem. Most of the donations are spent on various cures and medications, which is great when you first look at it.

Unfortunately research has and continues to show the biggest cause of cancer is a result of stress, diet and environmental influences. It has been reported in the most prestigious journals that over 75% of cancer can be prevented if you get regular exercise, eat a healthy diet that includes lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Get a good night sleep, an adequate amount of sunshine and most importantly manage your stress.

These awareness campaigns should focus more on prevention – instead of spending so much donated money on studies and drugs that address a smaller portion of the problems.  Cancer isn't something you wake up with one morning, it is growing inside you and often times it takes 20-30 years before it reaches detectable levels.  Many of us know what causes these problems, but there isn’t a lot of money to be made by telling someone to eat more oranges and apples and less fast food and junk food. The amount of money spent on unhealthy food is one thing and I don’t have a problem with capitalism. The problem I have is when we hear ‘fat cats’ in Washington talking about wanting to help the growing health epidemics of obesity, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, etc….and nothing is being done to educate and inform the public.

There are lots of financial subsidies going to the farmers, manufacturer and producers of a lot of the foods that are making us obese and unhealthy. Look at how much it costs to buy your favorite fast food burger, fries and soft drink? Why is everything we spend money on going up, yet these guys can still pump out this fast food for the same price as it has the last couple of decades. It has to be the extra help from all the subsidies they are getting.

If we really wanted to make a difference in our health care, we would be subsidizing the cost of or growing apples, bananas, pecans and all the other healthy foods we know are better for our overall health. When that will happen…I don’t know but that would be the first step in the right direction to help anyone fighting any health problem.

It was Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine who said over 2,400 years ago, "let food be your medicine and let medicine be your food." What he knew then as we know now is that some foods can have healing, healthy benefits…while other foods have negative destructive effects on your health. The question I always have my patients answer is, which foods do you eat more of? Do you eat more healthy foods or do you choose to eat more of the unhealthy foods and wonder why your energy, weight, cravings, moods, sleep or heart isn’t functioning properly.  It's a choice we all have to make.

I also want to thank you guys for being some of the first ones to start using The Work Horse.  The reviews we are getting are great...thank you!