Preventative health care includes a variety of activities with the main goal of reducing death and disability. Activities that fall under the realm of preventative health care include: exercise, eating healthy, tobacco avoidance, health counseling, preventative screening, immunizations and medications.

Life expectancy significantly increased from the beginning to the end of the 20^th century, partly due to the improvement in the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. Improvement in sanitation such as improved drinking water and waste disposal were other factors contributing to the increased life expectancy.

If we are going to continue to see this increase in life expectancy, we are going to need to improve the prevention and treatment of chronic disease. Preventative health care can potential save billions of dollars, increase quality of life, improve work productivity and extend life.

American health care is focused on acute care – not prevention. Preventative health care involves effort by both individuals and the health care system as a whole. Health care consumers must take the responsibility for exercising, eating well, not using toxic substances, maintaining a healthy weight and getting recommended preventative testing and immunizations.

Each year 1.7 million Americans die from chronic disease, which is approximately 70% of all deaths¹. Heart disease, stroke, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes are 5 of the 6 leading causes of death. Controlling these five diseases – which can all be accomplished by good preventative health care - has the potential to significantly improve morbidity and mortality.

Quality of life is significantly affected by chronic disease. It can cause physical or mental disability or even lead to a financial ruin. Preventative health care and preventative health practices can reduce this disability.

Certain risk factors put individuals at risk for chronic disease that are modifiable with good preventative health care. For many diseases there are risk factors that are not modifiable such as age, gender and genetics. This book will look at risk factors that are modifiable. Obesity, tobacco use and physical inactivity are three activities that significantly increase the risk of chronic disease.

Certain risk factors pop up regularly for a number of diseases. Controlling these risk factors have the potential to significantly reduce the impact of the most common chronic diseases and therefore has the greatest impact on health and quality of life.

Risk factors that are most important to target are smoking, obesity, poor diet and physical inactivity. Each year at least 4.9 million people die from tobacco use, 1.9 million die from physical inactivity, 2.6 million die due to excess weight and 2.7 million die form eating inadequate amounts of fruits and vegetables. What you need to know

Health care responsibility is a key element in the practice of preventative medicine. Many aspects of preventative medicine get missed within the American health care system. Do not assume that your doctor will remember to discuss, recommend or provide all the necessary measures to practice good preventive health care.

While some doctors are better at this than others, most doctors simply have too many patients and not enough time to do a complete job at preventative medicine. You need to take responsibility. Many aspects of preventative medicine are completely dependent upon the individual while others require collaboration be between patient and the health care provider.

This book will look at seven steps (broken down into chapters) that will assure you are practicing good preventative health care. If you follow the suggestions for each of the steps you will have improved health. This main goal of this book is to help you take advantage of the great resources available in the American health care system.

So many things get missed in the health care system and if you do not take charge of your health, you are at risk.