Mimi Guarneri, MD, FACC
Scripps Integrative Medicine
Excerpted from New Medicine Interviews

How do I start doing things that are healthier? The problem here, in [America], for chronic disease is the eating; it’s the environment; and it’s how we’re living our lives. If we think that we can work from 7 in the morning to 10 at night; come home, and have a super-sized meal and go to sleep; and that that’s going to be conducive to health; then we’re only fooling ourselves.

Integrative medicine, to me, is the only multidisciplinary medicine that can bring a program to an individual and… handle all of these aspects. And that includes mind/body. Beautiful research done by John Kabat-Zin and others on mindfulness-based stress reduction [shows that] people in chronic pain [experience] decreased pain, decrease in anxiety... relaxation. I mean, whatever issue it is, you need to factor in what someone is eating, and how someone is living, mentally, and then what kind of environment they’re in.