Western societies are afflicted with a rapid rise of chronic degenerative diseases: obesity, arthritis, depression, diabetes, coronary artery disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer. These modern disorders are no longer due to acute invasive agents but rather to chronic changes in physiological states often referred to as a “terrain” propicious to disease development.
Advances in the last twenty years of biological research shed light on common biological mechanisms contributing to degenerative disorders, and on those that, to the contrary, can foster resistance to illness.

This presentation will review three factors of disease progression : weakened immune resistance, inflammation, and neoangiogenesis. We will then address how lifestyle factors such as nutrition, physical exercise and emotional management affect these factors, and, as a consequence, the incidence and course of disease. We will also review epidemiological and prospective studies suggesting that appropriate attention to lifestyle factors that support biological mechanisms of health — “nourishing life” as it were — have a profound impact on our resistance to illness, both mental and physical.

www.instincttoheal.org


Biografie

Prof. Dr. David Servan-Schreiber (born 1961 in Neuilly-sur-Seine Hauts-de-Seine), M.D., Ph.D. is a physician, neuroscientist and author. He is a clinical Professor of Psychiatry University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is also a lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine of Lyon. He was co-founder and then director of the Centre for Integrative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Following his volunteer activity as physician in Iraq in 1991, he was one of the founders of the US branch of Médecins Sans Frontières, the international organization that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. He also served as volunteer in Guatemala, Kurdistan, Tajikistan India and Kosovo. In 2002 he was awarded the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Society Presidential Award for Outstanding Career in Psychiatry.
He is the author of “Healing Without Freud or Prozac” (translated in 29 languages, 1.3 million copies sold), and “Anticancer, a New Way of Life” (translated in 35 languages, New York Times and international best-seller, 1 million copies in print) in which he discloses his own diagnosis with a malignant brain tumor at the age of 31 and the treatment program that he put together to help himself beyond his surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. He is also a regular columnist for Ode Magazine and other publications. Having been treated twice for a malignant brain tumor, he is a leading figure in his engagement for integrative approaches to the prevention and treatment of cancer; he popularizes his knowledge through teaching seminars, lectures, books, a blog and audio books.

David Servan-Schreiber is the eldest son of the late French journalist, author and politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber.