Julie Wendt Nutrition

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How to Prevent 80% of Chronic Disease

Did you know that 80% of chronic disease can be solved with a lifestyle change?

Let’s face it, if eating well, exercising, and taking care of ourselves were easy, we would all do it! So what makes these lifestyle changes so hard?

Research suggests that 80% of chronic disease can be solved through lifestyle changes. There’s a lot of possibilities to improve quality of life, decrease medical costs, and age more gracefully.

However, it’s not a lack of information about lifestyle changes that seems to be driving the 40% of Americans with chronic disease, but rather a social system that doesn’t value self-care. Social and personal patterns that we accept without question set us up for chronic disease.

Our current lifestyle choices can be increasing the likelihood of us experiencing chronic disease. Things such as long work weeks, minimal paid time off, families and kids over-scheduled with academics and sports, no downtime in the age of wi-fi and smartphones, a transit system that favors riding a car over physical forms of transport such as walking or riding a bike, and undervaluing of the quality of our food.

These choices add stress, increase inflammation, decrease the nutritional value of the food that we are putting in our bodies.

Yet, each of these are, in fact, lifestyle choices that we can control.

Damage done to the brain that manifests as Alzheimer’s Disease happens decades before the symptoms appear. Doing the math – that means there are lifestyle changes you can make in your 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s that makes a big difference!

What does it take to unlock a healthier lifestyle that supports cognitive health?
- Lifestyle changes take day in and day out, small moves to protect your brain.
- Lifestyle changes time, planning, intention, clarity, and prioritization to make them work.

That’s why Your Healthy Mind program is specifically designed to help you make the small lifestyle changes that work together over time to improve your brain health and help you fend off chronic disease.