Warding off illnesses with a healthy lifestyle
Dr. Akshat Chadha, M.B.B.S., is a General Physician along with an M.B.A in Healthcare Management with expertise in Lifestyle Medicine. He is also a TEDx speaker and has over a lakh followers on social media.
As a doctor, he has done extensive work in the field of lifestyle and disease management with special emphasis on Diabetes, Thyroid, PCOD and Obesity. He has also been involved in the screening of school kids for obesity along with organising multiple health events for promoting wellness.
According to him, it’s you and the lifestyle you lead that will determine how healthy and disease-free your life can be in the future. The paramount for achieving a healthy lifestyle is by creating a good balance to remain Physically and Mentally fit. He himself takes health and fitness seriously and has transformed his own lifestyle by making small changes.
One thing he strongly believes in is the mind-body connect – a doctor cannot treat a body without helping the mind simultaneously and a patient cannot heal if he doesn’t believe that he can. Along with the symptoms and the reports, one must try and find the root cause of the problem which will help treat the patient and not just reduce symptoms. He also believes that if every healthcare professional starts to see the patient as a human being first and treat the person going through the disease instead of just treating the disease the world will soon see a shift in the mindset towards healthcare and not just sick care.
His biggest challenge was peoples mindsets as it’s hard for people to accept that they can be off medicines or at least be on minimum medicines. If they do accept then many find it hard to change their lifestyles again because our minds are wired a certain way since our younger years. On other side most doctors also find it impossible to see the that a patient can do well without a medicine so tend to discourage them from making changes. But these aspects are much better now as both patients & doctors are seeing positive results of lifestyle changes and are encouraging each other to take up the same.
- the moments most special to him are where where his patients and other senior citizens get off medicines be it thyroid, type 2 diabetes, pcod, cholesterol or even hypertension are very special. The others are when a couple conceives naturally, or a teenager is able to build a good routine for themselves or do better in their exams feels damn good too. He says " I think the future is definitely healthy if we adopt lifestyle changes that are not only healthy but also sustainable. The only problem with this hope is “online quackery” as many so called health experts give out gyaan which are more like hacks or sometimes down right wrong info which “influences” people in the wrong direction as mostly these tips seem easy or convenient.
You see “Living longer” isn’t the problem anymore, “Living Better” is. So if we as a community can “learn to choose” who we listen to then may be my hope of a healthy future will come true. '
By Jamuna Rangachari
You see “Living longer” isn’t the problem anymore, “Living Better” is. So if we as a community can “learn to choose” who we listen to then may be my hope of a healthy future will come true. '
By Jamuna Rangachari
