Doctor: Early diagnosis key to today’s ‘self-destructive’ lifestyle
MANILA, Philippines — Early diagnosis is the most practical response to deadly lifestyle diseases, medical director and doctor MJ Torres recently said during the media tour of her aesthetic clinic.
In this era of self-destructive behavior directly linked to deadly lifestyle-related health concerns such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, the diseases can be prevented through early diagnosis, and lifestyle adjustment.
Dr. Torres defines self-destructive behavior as “a set of habits or practices that we know to be detrimental to our health but that we continue to do anyway, such as smoking, eating too much fast food, or drinking too much soda.”
“The problem is that in the existing healthcare paradigm, people seek professional medical intervention only when they are sick or overtly symptomatic. In a world where lifestyle diseases are the dominant health issue, there is an under-addressed need to diagnose lifestyle disease early, and to provide professional dietary and lifestyle intervention,” said Dr. Torres.
According to her, many things that many people have been doing for much of their lives were only found out to be unhealthy in recent times.
“White rice has for some time been considered inferior to brown, red or black rice in terms of nutritional value, but recent findings show that white rice as a staple is as bad as over-indulging in sugary drinks such as soda.”
She added: “Even cigarette smoking, which is directly linked to 80 to 90 percent of cases of lung cancer, the number one killer cancer, was not found to be remotely harmful ‘til the 1960s.”
Torres has been doing her part in addressing in her practice of integrative medicine at The Zen Institute, her medical spa and longevity center.
“In this day and age, tests such as oxidative stress tests, skin and body analyzer, hormonal screening, thyroid function tests to name a few, can paint a relatively clear picture of a person’s overall health, and even their risk for specific diseases long before a person becomes symptomatic of lifestyle related diseases,” said the doctor who claims to have pioneered the body sculpting technology called Resonax in the Philippines.
At the institute, the doctor offers specific, tailor-made programs, from weight management and hormone balancing to cell regeneration.
“We promote beauty yes, but only as it flows from wellness on a cellular level. As believers in wellness, we are also believers in prevention and early diagnosis.”
