EXERCISE IS AT BEST “COMPLIMENTARY” TO A DEDICATED “CALORIE RESTRICTIVE” DIET…PURE AND SIMPLE…NO REDUCED CALORIE CONSUMPTION, NO SUBSTANTIVE WEIGHT-LOSS…AND THE IDEA THAT THERE IS “AFTER-BURN” OF CALORIES FOLLOWING EXERCISE IS PURE FANTASY TOO…BUT REGULAR EXERCISE WILL HELP MAINTAIN MUSCLE MASS WHICH WILL HELP THE BODY BURN CALORIES, BUT NOT WITHOUT A GOOD DIET REGIMEN….

For some time, researchers have been finding that people who exercise don’t necessarily lose weight. A study in The British Journal of Sports Medicine was the latest to report apparently disappointing slimming results. In the study, 58 obese people completed 12 weeks of supervised aerobic training without changing their diets. The group lost an average of a little more than seven pounds, and many lost barely half that.

“It all comes down to energy balance,” or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out. People “are only burning 200 or 300 calories” in a typical 30-minute exercise session, Melanson points out. “You replace that with one bottle of Gatorade.”

published online in September

How can that be? Exercise, it seems, should make you thin. Activity burns calories. No one doubts that.

“Walking, even at a very easy pace, you’ll probably burn three or four calories a minute,” beyond what you would use quietly sitting in a chair, said Dan Carey, Ph.D., an assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, who studies exercise and metabolism.

But few people, an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, not without changing their eating habits. A new study from scientists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver offers some reasons why. For the study, the researchers recruited several groups of people. Some were lean endurance athletes; some sedentary and lean; some sedentary and obese. Each of the subjects agreed to spend, over the course of the experiment, several 24-hour periods in a special laboratory room (a walk-in calorimeter) that measures the number of calories a person burns. Using various calculations, the researchers could also tell whether the calories expended were in the form of fat or carbohydrates, the body’s two main fuel sources. Burning more fat than carbohydrates is obviously desirable for weight loss, since the fat being burned comes primarily from body fat stores, and we all, even the leanest among us, have plenty of those.

The Denver researchers were especially interested in how the athletes’ bodies would apportion and use calories. It has been well documented that regular endurance training increases the ability of the body to use fat as a fuel during exercise. They wondered, though, if the athletes — or any of the other subjects — would burn extra fat calories after exercising, a phenomenon that some exercisers (and even more diet and fitness books) call “afterburn.”

“Many people believe that you rev up” your metabolism after an exercise session “so that you burn additional body fat throughout the day,” said Edward Melanson, Ph.D., an associate professor in the division of endocrinology at the School of Medicine and the lead author of the study. If afterburn were found to exist, it would suggest that even if you replaced the calories you used during an exercise session, you should lose weight, without gaining weight — the proverbial free lunch.

Each of Melanson’s subjects spent 24 quiet hours in the calorimeter, followed later by another 24 hours that included an hourlong bout of stationary bicycling. The cycling was deliberately performed at a relatively easy intensity (about 55 percent of each person’s predetermined aerobic capacity). It is well known physiologically that, while high-intensity exercise demands mostly carbohydrate calories (since carbohydrates can quickly reach the bloodstream and, from there, laboring muscles), low-intensity exercise prompts the body to burn at least some stored fat. All of the subjects ate three meals a day.

To their surprise, the researchers found that none of the groups, including the athletes, experienced “afterburn.” They did not use additional body fat on the day when they exercised. In fact, most of the subjects burned slightly less fat over the 24-hour study period when they exercised than when they did not.

“The message of our work is really simple,” although not agreeable to hear, Melanson said. “It all comes down to energy balance,” or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out. People “are only burning 200 or 300 calories” in a typical 30-minute exercise session, Melanson points out. “You replace that with one bottle of Gatorade.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/phys-ed-why-doesnt-exercise-lead-to-weight-loss/?em

And just like soft drinks, juice is rich in fructose -- the simple sugar that does the most to make food sweet.

IT IS MUCH BETTER TO EAT FRESH FRUIT…DRINKING FRUIT JUICE IS JUST AS BAD AS DRINKING SODAS IF YOU NEED TO MAINTAIN A HEALTHY DIET WITH CALORIES UNDER 2,000 PER DAY….

The inconvenient truth, many experts say, is that 100% fruit juice poses the same obesity-related health risks as Coke, Pepsi and other widely vilified beverages.

With so much focus on the outsized role that sugary drinks play in the country’s collective weight gain — and the accompanying rise in conditions including diabetes, heart disease and cancer — it’s time juice lost its wholesome image, these experts say.

“It’s pretty much the same as sugar water,” said Dr. Charles Billington, an appetite researcher at the University of Minnesota. In the modern diet, “there’s no need for any juice at all.”

A glass of juice concentrates all the sugar from several pieces of fruit. Ounce per ounce, it contains more calories than soda, though it tends to be consumed in smaller servings. A cup of orange juice has 112 calories, apple juice has 114, and grape juice packs 152, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The same amount of Coke has 97 calories, and Pepsi has 100.

And just like soft drinks, juice is rich in fructose — the simple sugar that does the most to make food sweet.

UC Davis scientist Kimber Stanhope has found that consuming high levels of fructose increases risk factors for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes because it is converted into fat by the liver more readily than glucose. Her studies suggest that it doesn’t matter whether the fructose is from soda or juice.

“Both are going to promote equal weight gain,” she said, adding that she’s perplexed by the fixation on the evils of sugar-sweetened beverages: “Why are they the only culprit?”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-juice8-2009nov08,0,1821402.story?track=rss

THIS ARTICLE IS BRINGING UP SOME CRITICAL ISSUES THAT WILL SHAPE THE AVAILABILITY AND AFFORDABILITY OF “HEALTHY FOODS”….ORGANIC VEGETABLES AND FRUITS ARE VERY EXPENSIVE RELATIVE TO MORE COMMERCIAL WHOLE FOODS…THE RESEARCH SHOWS LITTLE ADDITIONAL HEALTH BENEFITS FROM “ORGANIC” FOODS…THE REAL BENEFITS ARE FRESHNESS AND LOCAL PRODUCTION….READ BELOW:

(From a Seed Magazine article)  Closer scrutiny of these assumptions, however, reveals little to back them up. As Michael Specter points out in his forthcoming book, Denialism, mercury, lead, and asbestos are “natural” too, as are E. coli and salmonella. In 2009, a salmonella outbreak killed nine people, sickened hundreds, and triggered the largest food recall in US history. Meanwhile, genetically engineered products, despite having been on the market for more than 13 years, haven’t sickened anyone, Specter says.

Nutritionally, there is no clear evidence that organic foods trump conventional ones. In one recent study, researchers funded by Denmark’s International Center for Research in Organic Food Systems compared kale, peas, potatoes, and apples grown organically with those grown according to conventional guidelines. They also fed both organic and conventional produce to rats for two years. “Overall, there was no evident trend towards differences in element content of foodstuffs or diets due to the use of different cultivation systems,” they concluded in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Neither the veggies, nor the rats nourished on them, turned out to be anything other than ordinary.

As for sizing up ecological footprints, the number of conflicting studies is dizzying, but organic farming tends to earn a slight edge over chemical-intensive conventional practices, primarily because it uses fewer pesticides and petroleum-based fertilizers. Cornell University ecologist David Pimentel, for example, has shown that crops of organically grown soybeans and corn produced the same yield but used 30 percent less energy than their conventionally grown counterparts. Scientists in Switzerland have found that cumulative energy inputs to organic farming are about half those of conventional farming and use 97 percent fewer pesticides—though yields are also dramatically lower.

Take into account the transit costs of food—“food miles”—however, and those eco-margins quickly evaporate. In 2005, researchers in the UK estimated the “environmental savings” of sourcing foods locally exceeded those of all-organic farming by roughly 2:1. That is, an organic Washington State apple trucked cross-country to a farmer’s market almost assuredly pumps more carbon into the atmosphere than a locally, conventionally grown Fuji purchased at a big-box grocery store.

Organic sources are often conflated with local ones, and with bucolic visions of small-scale farms and startup green businesses. Yet with the demand for natural foods soaring, Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, Safeway, Stop & Shop, Kroger, and Publix are now leading the market with their own discount organic food lines. And giant food conglomerates like Kraft, Tyson, Pepsi, and Heinz have eagerly swallowed smaller organic ventures.

Disturbingly, the booming popularity of organics is coming precisely at a time when science must be leveraged to confront the truly Herculean task ahead: By 2050, the world’s population could swell to 9.1 billion from the current 6.8 billion. As incomes rise across parts of the developing world, people are consuming more grain-intensive meat; as a result, food demand is actually outpacing population growth: Experts anticipate that in the next two decades, global food production will need to rise by roughly 50 percent. Meanwhile, shrinking amounts of arable land and extreme weather associated with climate change are poised to make agricultural yields plummet: Multiple studies suggest yields for various staple crops could plunge by 20 to 30 percent by mid-century.

In short, from an ever-smaller parcel of land, amidst hotter and drier conditions, we must somehow eke out nearly twice as much food as today.

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/a_natural_obsession/

Martin is a 50-year-old Sprint Cup driver/fitness fanatic whose four-times-a-week workout routine would bring tears and a whimper to men half his age.

MARK MARTIN IS IN INCREDIBLE SHAPE…VERY DISCIPLINED AND DETERMINED TO STAY SHARP….

(From a Star-Telegram article)  The person least obsessed by Mark Martin’s age is Mark Martin.

So, please, dispense with the antique jokes, the AARP barbs and the Methuselah references. This senior citizen of NASCAR is far too busy defying logic in the fast lane to keep up with geezer humor.

He wears a brush cut and sports six-pack abs. He needs reading glasses, but he also needs his iPod to listen to his favorite rap music.

He guzzles thick protein shakes with low-fat peanut butter and banana. He lives in Daytona Beach, Fla., rather than the Charlotte, N.C., area, where most NASCAR folks call home.

And, oh, one more thing: He’s not afraid of Jimmie Johnson.

“I think Jimmie Johnson is Superman, but that doesn’t mean he’s unbeatable,” Martin recently wrote in his “Chase Diary” on Yahoo Sports. “I think the more times someone wins the championship, the less likely you are to win it the next year.”

This mind-set makes the 5-foot-6, 135-pound Martin a monster in the cockpit of a race car.

Johnson — Martin’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate — is the Chase for the Sprint Cup leader with three races to go, starting next with Sunday’s Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Johnson is the three-time defending champion. By Martin’s way of thinking, he’s really due to lose some year.

Staying fit at 50

Martin, who led the Chase through the first three weeks, is now in second place, trailing Johnson by 184 points.

Time perhaps has run out on his attempt to become the oldest Cup champ in NASCAR history.

He has been runner-up four times — finishing second to Tony Stewart (2002), Jeff Gordon (’98) and twice to Dale Earnhardt (’94 and ’90). He also has had three career third-place finishes.

Martin tried to “semi-retire” three years ago, he really did, but his competitive drive wouldn’t let him. You see, his secret to life is to keep moving.

He pilots his own airplane. And while he’s not an easy man to sum up in a paragraph or two, what he is not is a novelty act. His 90-minute workout regimen four days a week is serious business.

“I never miss a workout,” Martin blogged. “I’ve been lifting for nearly 22 years now. I could be a personal trainer.”

Actually, he’s his own personal trainer. He works out alone.

A few pro athletes who have been able to achieve greatness late in their careers, and many of those have shown a penchant for fitness. Brett Favre is a good example, although he’s 10 years younger than the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet.

Martin grew up during the ’60s in Batesville, Ark. He applies Bible verse to his everyday life. He has been married to the same woman (Arlene) for 25 years, so he’s pretty much in for the long haul in whatever he does.

But he doesn’t always act his age.

http://www.star-telegram.com/340/story/1728254.html

The UK Diet has a lot in common with the Standard American Diet – it’s high in fried, processed foods and high fat dairy products. Researchers found that participants who ate a diet rich in fresh fruits, vegetables, and fish had a much lower risk for depression at the end of the five years.

Head of strategy at the mental health charity SANE, Margaret Edwards, said:

Physical and mental health are closely related, so we should not be too surprised by these results, but we hope there will be further research which may help us to understand more fully the relationship between diet and mental health.

The study was prompted by earlier research that showed the Mediterranean Diet helped reduce the risk for depression. According to Dr. Archana Singh-Manoux, the UK study’s author, they wanted to do their own research because, “the problem with that is if you live in Britain the likelihood of you eating a Mediterranean diet is not very high[...]So we wanted to look a bit differently at the link between diet and mental health.”

Researchers think the link may be due to processed food’s inflammatory properties, similar to its role in heart disease.

If you want to beat the blues by working more fresh fruits, veggies, and fish into your daily routine, we’ve got you covered! Check out our Farmers Market Fare and general recipes for tons of ideas! Lisa’s tips for roasted fall veggies is a great, easy place to start! You might also dig Lucille’s recipe for Orange Beet and Lemon Zest Salad.

http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2009/11/04/uk-study-links-processed-foods-to-depression/

IDEAL SHAPE FOR MEN OVER 40 IS A COMBINATION OF 80% DIET AND 20% EXERCISE…AND A SUCCESSFUL REGIMEN WILL HAVE BETTER RESULTS THAN “ANTI-DIABETES” DRUGS…

Compared to taking anti-diabetes drugs, adopting a healthy diet and regular exercise are more effective in staving off diabetes for a decade, a new study finds.

According to the study published in The Lancet, lifestyle changes resulting in small but long-term weight loss is twice as effective as drug treatment for preventing type 2 diabetes.

Following a healthy diet combined with a half an hour of exercise five days a week reduces the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 58 percent.

Taking metformin — a drug commonly used to treat diabetes, conversely, lowers the risk of the condition by nearly one-third.

While lifestyle intervention postpones the onset of diabetes by four years, the delay time would be about two years in those taking medication.

The benefits of intensive lifestyle intervention were reported to be stronger among the elderly.

“There seems to be no short cut, and a persistent and prolonged intensive lifestyle intervention seems to be the most effective way to travel on it,” said Anoop Misra, a specialist in diabetes in New Delhi.

Despite the fact that lifestyle and metformin are both useful for delaying or preventing diabetes, scientists concluded that dieting is more effective than medication.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110096&sectionid=3510210

“The important point about our work is that we provide the molecular explanation that links fiber in the diet to the micro-organisms in our gut to the affect on the immune response,” Professor Mackay told AFP.

RESEARCH IS CONTINUALLY GOING TO SHOW THAT DIETS RICH IN WHOLE FOODS SUCH AS FRUITS, VEGETABLES, WHOLE GRAINS AND LEGUMES WILL BENEFIT MEN’S HEALTH…READ BELOW:

Australian researchers say they may have found yet another reason why we ought to be packing our diets full of fresh fruits and vegetables.  According to a new study released by Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research, dietary fiber isn’t just important for keeping your grandmother regular, but may in fact play a significant role in staving off chronic illnesses like arthritis, diabetes and asthma.

Researchers have for some time known that fiber-rich foods such as legumes, whole grain breads and fresh fruits and vegetables are processed by intestinal bacteria to produce byproducts known as short chain fatty acids — biomolecules that naturally treat various inflammatory diseases of the bowels.

According to Professor Charles Mackay of the Garvan Institute, his group — which collaborated with research labs in the U.S. and Brazil — was able to more closely elucidate the nature of the effects of fiber on intestinal disorders, which they believe may have much broader implications for our understanding of the relationship between diet and immune response.

In short, Professor Mackay and PhD student Kendle Maslowski were able to show that a molecule known as GPR43 — known to be present in immune cells and used to bind short chain fatty acids — also doubles as an anti-inflammatory receptor.

“The important point about our work is that we provide the molecular explanation that links fiber in the diet to the micro-organisms in our gut to the affect on the immune response,” Professor Mackay told AFP.

The team’s work, published in the current edition of Nature, points to a potential link between diet and immune responses that has hitherto been the subject of guesswork.

“The notion that diet might have profound effects on immune responses or inflammatory diseases has never been taken that seriously,” explained Professor Mackay.

“We believe that changes in diet, associated with western lifestyles, contribute to the increasing incidences of asthma, Type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. Now we have a new molecular mechanism that might explain how diet is affecting our immune systems.”

According to Maslowski, taking care of the friendly bacteria that make their homes in our gut may be much more important to lifelong health than people realize.

“We’re [...] beginning to understand that from the moment you’re born, it’s incredibly important to be colonized by the right kinds of gut bacteria,” she explained.

“The kinds of foods you eat directly determine the levels of certain bacteria in your gut [and] changing diets are changing the kinds of gut bacteria we have, as well as their by-products, particularly short chain fatty acids.”

“If we have low amounts of dietary fiber, then we’re going to have low levels of short chain fatty acids, which we have demonstrated are very important in the immune systems of mice.”

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1777005/dietary_fiber_helps_immune_response/

Tobacco and obesity are overtaking hunger and infectious disease as leading causes of death and illness across the developing world, an Australian expert has warned.

OBESITY AND SMOKING…GO TOGETHER LIKE A HORSE AND CARRIAGE…UNHEALTHY IS UNHEALTHY…AND THIS ARTICLE CITES THE GROWING “BODY” OF EVIDENCE WHICH SHOWS THAT LIVING AN UNHEALTHY LIFE IS AN “ALL-IN” PROPOSITION….

As globalisation had lifted millions of people out of poverty, Dr Paul Kowal said free trade agreements had allowed the rapid movement of processed food and tobacco products into the world’s poorest nations.

Many developing countries now faced new and mounting health threats from the expanding availability of fast food, soft drinks and cigarettes, he said.

“To increase development in a country, they are forced to open up to transnational corporations including tobacco corporations,” Dr Kowal said of the trend emerging in the world’s developing nations.

“And there is a clear correlation between the local presence of a tobacco company and increasing tobacco uptake.”

Dr Kowal holds a position on a research committee within the World Health Organisation (WHO) and is also a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle.

He spoke to AAP on Tuesday after he addressed the International Conference on Realising the Rights to Health and Development for All underway in Hanoi in Vietnam.

Dr Kowal pointed to WHO estimates that, if trends continue, there will be more than eight million tobacco-related deaths a year by 2030, 80 per cent of them in the developing world.

In 2000, the number of overweight and obese adults in the world exceeded the number of underweight for the first time.

Dr Kowal said Indonesia was a classic example of a developing country that had levels of smoking and obesity “increasing as the gross national income per capita increased” while India, China and many South-East Asian countries were on a similar path.

He said tobacco companies were known to tailor their marketing efforts in developing countries to try to reach those in the population that had not traditionally smoked – women.

They also worked to sidestep advertising bans through the sponsorship of sporting teams or by selling cigarettes “by the stick”.

Vietnam, which has one of the world’s highest rates of smokers at 56 per cent of men and two per cent of women, has moved to ban smoking in indoor public places from January next year.

Another speaker told the conference that Vietnam spent about $US77.5 million ($A84.47 million) each year on health care to treat tobacco-related diseases such as lung cancer and heart disease.

“Smoking kills, that’s pretty clear, and it has overtaken infectious disease in a lot of lower-income countries yet there is still a misconception there that infectious disease is rampant,” Dr Kowal said.

“In fact, we’re seeing a double burden of disease – non-communicable disease from risk factors like induced poor eating habits or smoking uptake is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.”

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/smoking-obesity-grow-as-world-threat-20091028-hj8k.html

"If people are very overweight, inactive and smoke, they might see these health problems in their 50s and 60s, whereas people who maintain a healthy lifestyle, it's going to be more like their 70s, 80s and possibly even their 90s."

THIS ARTICLE GETS IT RIGHT…IDEAL FITNESS  ASSURES A HEALTHY LIFE 10-20 YEARS OUT…MEN OVER 40 (OGGIES) WILL ENJOY THE BENEFITS FOR YEARS….

The declines in fitness that accompany growing old typically speed up after the age of 45, new research shows.

But people can slow the inevitable by staying lean, exercising and refraining from smoking.

The findings, appearing in the Oct. 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, are not so surprising in light of the piles of other research that have drawn similar conclusions.

But the new study has broad implications, given the rising number of older adults in the United States and the explosion in the sedentary, overweight and aging population.

“The Social Security Administration actually has an aerobic capacity threshold. If you’re below the threshold, you are considered disabled,” said study author Andrew Jackson.

This means more people could qualify for government disability benefits at a younger age, further draining an already strained economy.

This study group included 3,429 women and 16,889 men aged 20 to 96 who had undergone two to 33 health exams with lifestyle counseling between 1974 and 2006.

Reductions in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) were not seen as a straight downward line. Instead, after the age of 45, the slope became much steeper, accelerating even further with increases in body-mass index (BMI), smoking and lower levels of physical activity.

“We’ve known that, as you age, your aerobic capacity goes down, and the exercise physiology literature indicates it’s a linear relationship. We found that this is not the case,” said Jackson, who is professor emeritus of health and human performance at the University of Houston. “It makes sense to me. When things aren’t working right, we tend to go down at faster rates. This was true for both men and women [although the rate of decline was faster for men than for women].”

Taking care of yourself could make you, in a sense, younger than your years.

“If you were overweight, inactive and smoked, your aerobic capacity would be lower at a given age as compared to other people who were healthy weight, active and nonsmokers,” Jackson said. “The data showed that if people had that advantage when they were in their 30s and 40s and maintained that lifestyle, their aerobic capacity as they aged was, in fact, higher.”

“It could delay the age when these health problems start to spring up,” he continued. “If people are very overweight, inactive and smoke, they might see these health problems in their 50s and 60s, whereas people who maintain a healthy lifestyle, it’s going to be more like their 70s, 80s and possibly even their 90s.”

“You have to exercise. It’s now becoming established fact, and if you don’t incorporate it, you’re going to see the effects. You will get sicker sooner,” added Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of women and heart disease for Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. “Exercise is the most potent medication around, and the Social Security Administration agrees with me.”

A second study in the same issue of the journal provides a measure of good news. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia found that blacks who partnered with a family member or friend to lose weight actually did lose pounds — but only if the partner also lost weight.

http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared-auto/healthnews/agng/632406.html

MOST OF THE STATISTICS REGARDING THE COSTS OF OBESITY ARE 3-5 YEARS OLD…WE REALLY DON’T KNOW THE CURRENT COSTS…THIS ARTICLE SITES A 2007 STUDY OF 2003 STATISTICS…THE COSTS ARE SOARING EACH YEAR…..WE KNOW THE NUMBER OF OBESE PEOPLE NOW BUT THE COSTS ARE LAGGING….

In Texas, the economic impact of chronic diseases, including obesity, is staggering. A 2007 Milken Institute study indicates that the cost of treatment was $17.2 billion in 2003 alone — and this skyrockets to $92.5 billion when you account for lost workplace productivity.

Recent headlines tell the story of a growing epidemic in America. In August, it was reported that people who are 80 or more pounds overweight live three to 12 fewer years than people who are normal weight, defined as between 18.5 and 25 on the body mass index scale. According to an article published in Health Affairs, one third of the rise in health care costs since 1987 is due to the rise in obesity. It is clear that obesity is taking its toll on our nation’s physical and financial well-being, and unless we act, our national waistline and debt will expand exponentially.

In Texas, the economic impact of chronic diseases, including obesity, is staggering. A 2007 Milken Institute study indicates that the cost of treatment was $17.2 billion in 2003 alone — and this skyrockets to $92.5 billion when you account for lost workplace productivity. This growing problem is a sad reminder that when you get right down to it, we don’t really have a health care system in America. Instead, we have a “sick care” system of uneven quality that uses most of its resources on treating people after they’re already sick.

The health care reform debate in Washington provides an opportunity to highlight prevention and wellness as both desirable and attainable goals of our system. Giving businesses incentives to create or expand workplace prevention and wellness programs would ensure that millions of Americans who get their health care through work have the tools they need to reduce their risk of illness. Stopping sickness from happening is a critical step to control the total cost of health care.

In Texas in 2007, nearly 66 percent of adults were overweight or obese. If we invested just $10 per person per year to increase physical activity, improved nutrition and prevented smoking and tobacco use, we could save $1 billion annually within five years. If current trends continue, 75 percent of Texas adults might be overweight or obese by the year 2040, and the cost to our state could quadruple from $10.5 billion to $39 billion.

The good news is that much of chronic disease is preventable or reversible, and the results are impressive: getting just one smoker to kick the habit saves approximately $1,620 in annual medical costs; encouraging one overweight or obese person to become physically active can save nearly $500.

As the Milken study shows, the cost of care is only part of the picture. Living with illness also impacts patients’ quality of life. There’s also a cost to employers beyond health insurance premiums: lost productivity, absence and disability. Healthy employees not only cost less in terms of medical care, they also work more days and are more productive.

Last year CIGNA commissioned a survey that showed 61 percent of U.S. workers said they came to work while coping with illness, stress or some other distraction. Among this group, 62 percent said they were less productive on those days and too distracted to do their best work. Employee health and well-being affects the health of companies, which makes employers an important stakeholder in improving health.

Traditionally, employers have financed health care coverage through benefits programs. Now, in addition, many are taking a more active role in promoting the health of employees and their families. More companies are creating a culture of wellness that encourages healthy lifestyles through physical activity, weight management, healthy eating and other programs. While approaches may differ, the question surrounding wellness programs is now about how to design and implement them, not whether to create one.

More than 160 million Americans have access to health care insurance through their employer; and through their health plan millions now have access to prevention and wellness services not available to them elsewhere. Many employers already pay 100 percent for immunizations and cancer screenings.

We’re encouraged by these trends. As Congress works toward the vital goal of covering all Americans, we should put “health” back at the center of the health care system by ensuring that innovative wellness and prevention strategies already working in the private sector have a central a role in health care reform.

Hanway is CEO of CIGNA, a global health service company.