A recent blog post ("Restating the Obvious," www.mauinews.com) takes issue with my comments on Mana'o Radio regarding a Harvard study showing that coffee drinking has some some demonstrable benefits - not less heart attacks, as the blogger states, but rather a statistically lower incidence of major depression and suicide.
An occasional coffee drinker myself, I'm not a proponent of coffee drinking - nor a naysayer. What matters to me is education, with which we can all make intelligent choices.
I have a hereditary condition that took the lives of my father, and his father, at age 50. Thus, my interest in life-extending health practices has been more than academic. I went to medical school, graduated, and am currently licensed here.
It was clear to me all along that conventional medicine had been ignoring some of the obvious, such as the fact that - other than the indelible stamp of heredity - one's lifestyle (or health-style, as I like to call it) has everything to do with the vitality and longevity that we each enjoy.
Maui is an ideal place to adopt salutary health practices and reap their benefits - including vigorous daily outdoor exercise and a vegetarian diet.
At 66, I swim a mile every day and have completed three triathlons. I recently ran the Maui Marathon, finishing quite respectably for my age. Most importantly, I have chosen a plant-based diet that innumerable studies have shown to be optimal.
Barry Sultanoff, M.D.
Haiku
