Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

I talk a lot about numbers and statistics, but as the Director of Yale’s Prevention Research Center put it in a recent editorial, to reach doctors, our fellow colleagues, maybe we need to put a human face on it all.

“We have known…[for at least a decade] that the leading causes of both premature death and persistent misery in our society are chronic diseases that are, in turn, attributable to the use of our feet [exercise], forks (diet…), and fingers (…smoking). Feet, forks, and fingers are the master levels of medical destiny for not just thousands of people on any one occasion [like a tsunami or earthquake] but the medical destiny of millions upon millions year after year.

“We [as doctors, as a medical profession] have known,” [Ornish published 23 years ago] “but we have not managed to care. At least, not care deeply enough to turn what we know into what we routinely do. Were we to do so, we [might be able to] eliminate [most] heart disease,…strokes, …diabetes, and…cancer.”

But, saving millions of lives is just a number. He asks doctors to forget the bland statistics of public health, and ask ourselves if we love someone “who has suffered a heart attack, stroke, cancer, or diabetes….Now imagine their faces, whisper their names. Recall what it felt like to get the news. And while [we’re] at it, [we can] imagine the faces of other[s]…imagining beloved faces.”

“Now imagine if eight [out] of 10 of us wistfully reflecting on intimate love and loss, on personal anguish, never got that dreadful news because it never happened. Mom did not get cancer; dad did not have a heart attack; grandpa did not have a stroke; sister, brother, aunt, and uncle did not lose a limb or kidney or eyes to diabetes. We are all intimately linked, in a network of personal tragedy that need never have occurred.”

“Which leads to what [he’s] asking doctors to do about it: put a face on public health every chance you get. When talking about heart disease and its prevention—or cancer or diabetes—ask your audience to see in their mind’s eye the face of a loved one affected by that condition.” Then… imagine that loved one…among the 80% who need never have succumbed if what we knew [as doctors] were what we do.”

Invoke the mind’s eye, he advises, and then bring a tear to it.

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