Each day as I travel through downtown Tucson, I am amazed at how quickly the most ancient of human behaviors have changed. For as long as there have been Homo sapiens - roughly 200,000 years - people have filled their lives principally with two activities: talking directly with other people, and doing physical things.

I know of no culture in the world at present or any time in the past that has not been heavily involved with one or more psychoactive substances.

Following an anti-inflammato ry diet can help counteract the chronic inflammation that is a root cause of many serious diseases, including those that become more frequent as people age. It is a way of selecting and preparing foods based on science that can help people achieve and maintain optimum health over their lifetime.

I'm still not comfortable recommending that people eat saturated fat with abandon, but it's clear to me that sugar, flour and oxidized seed oils create inflammatory effects in the body that almost certainly bear most of the responsibility for elevating heart disease risk.

In Europe, when tobacco was first introduced, it was immediately banned. In Turkey, if you got caught with tobacco, you had your nose slit. China and Russia imposed the death penalty for possession of tobacco.

I don't think you can live without stress; I think the human life is stressful, and it probably always has been, although the forms of stress may change from culture to culture, and from time to time.

Most disease is lifestyle related and preventable