After five decades in operating rooms, Dr. Charles Antinori has witnessed America's health crisis from the inside out. His prescription is radical in its simplicity: "All Americans have to do to improve their health is do less."
After half a century in the operating room, Dr. Charles Antinori has learned a thing or two about what keeps people out of it. As a general and cardiovascular surgeon, he has spent his life repairing damaged hearts, unclogging arteries, and saving patients in their most critical moments.
Yet he knows many of those cases might never have happened if people had embraced a few simple habits earlier in life. In his book Make America Healthy Again: Lessons from a 50 Year Surgical Odyssey, he strips away the confusion and fads, offering plainspoken wisdom for living well. His philosophy is refreshingly straightforward: a healthier life does not require complicated regimens, just consistent, sensible choices.
Dr. Antinori believes the secret lies in subtraction. Less smoking, less drinking, less overeating, and less dependence on pills that may do more harm than good. Each decision, however small, shapes whether we age with vitality or spend our later years shuttling between doctor’s offices.
One of his earliest prescriptions for better health is learning to eat less. Not starving yourself, but scaling back portions and focusing on real food. He has seen, again and again, how carrying excess weight strains the body and shortens lives. Even modest weight loss, he notes, can bring blood pressure down, improve blood sugar, and ease joint pain. Forget the gimmicky diets, just pile more vegetables on your plate, cut back on processed foods, and ease up on the sugar.
He is equally adamant about the value of movement. You do not need a gym membership or a personal trainer. In decades past, daily life provided plenty of physical activity; people walked more, lifted more, bent and stretched without thinking about it. Today, when so much of life is sedentary, he suggests putting that motion back in.
Take the stairs, do your own yard work, walk around the block after dinner. Even as little as twenty minutes of walking three times a week has been shown to lower the risk of heart disease. Better still, a regular program that adds up to three to five hours of moderate exercise each week offers greater benefits for the heart, metabolism, and mood. Little bursts of activity add up, and a steady routine multiplies the payoff.
When it comes to smoking, Dr. Antinori’s stance is firm. There is no safe amount. Having treated countless cases of emphysema, lung cancer, and heart disease linked to tobacco, he urges people to quit completely rather than simply cut down. Many succeed with nicotine replacement and counseling, and others do well with prescription aids such as varenicline, known as Chantix, or bupropion.
Whatever path you choose, the goal is the same: quit for good. He also cautions that vaping is not a harmless alternative. Some use it to try to quit cigarettes, but it can be harder to stop than smoking. It clearly harms health, even if the full extent of that harm is still being studied.
Alcohol, he says, deserves the same clear eyed view. While the occasional drink may not be dangerous for most, heavy or habitual drinking can quietly erode health, raising blood pressure, damaging the liver, and padding the waistline. His advice is to listen to your own patterns. If you find yourself defending or justifying how much you drink, it might be time to pour a little less.
Perhaps most unexpectedly, Dr. Antinori urges people to take a closer look at their medicine cabinets. While modern drugs save lives, he has seen too many patients taking long lists of prescriptions that may overlap, interact, or simply mask symptoms instead of addressing causes. A regular check in with a trusted doctor to reassess what is truly necessary can sometimes lighten the load and improve health in the process.
Not only could these simple measures improve personal health, but they could go a long way to reducing the cost of health care in America. We spend approximately twice what other civilized countries spend on health care, yet Americans are less healthy. This perception of Americans as overweight and unhealthy has become a source of international embarrassment, reflecting the gap between our healthcare spending and actual health outcomes.
His guidance carries weight because it comes from a man who has been at the sharp end of medicine, literally holding lives in his hands. From high tech operating rooms in the United States to challenging field conditions abroad, he has seen the same truth play out. Prevention is not only better than cure, it is often simpler, cheaper, and far less painful.
Dr. Antinori admits that change is rarely easy. Old habits cling tightly, social pressures tempt, and convenience can override discipline. But he has also seen remarkable transformations in patients who start small and keep going. At any age, with steady effort, the tide can turn toward better health. His message is clear. The road to staying well may be simple, but the rewards are as big as life itself.
Official author site for Dr. Antinori
https://www.charlesantinorimd.
Publisher site for the book –
https://www.theewingspublishin
Amazon link-
https://www.amazon.com/America
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