Q&A: Ellsworth Wareham

A: Well, let us say I do that, and that's what the literature says will make you healthy. But there are studies that involve thousands of people. A Loma Linda University public health researcher by the name of Ian Fraser did a study of Seventh Day Adventists in California, 34,000 of them. And did you know that an Adventist vegetarian male will outlive a male in the general population of California by 10 years.

Now that's a study of 34,000. That's pretty significant. In a woman it's less. In a woman it's about six years, but that's a considerable extension of time.

Q: So do you think being Adventist has helped you and your neighbors live longer?

A: I think it's a total lifestyle. All you can do is look at the figures and try and interpret them, but the figures are there and they're real, and people take them seriously . . . So I think there's a lot of evidence. I don't think you have to be an Adventist, I just think you have to adopt their lifestyle.

Q: You've been involved in health care for nearly seven decades, but you're now witnessing a national debate on health-care reform. What do you think needs to change with the way we approach health care in this country?

A: There are a lot of people that realize that our health problems can be largely prevented. In a letter in the Wall Street Journal on June 12, Stephen Bird, who happens to be the chief executive officer of Safeway Inc., says that 70% of all health-care costs are the direct results of behavior. In other words, there's something you can do about it . . . At the Safeway company, of the nonunion members, they offer them financial incentives if they do not use tobacco, they have a healthy weight, their blood pressure and cholesterol levels are normal . . . They've done this for four years and they estimate they've cut their health-care bill by 40%.

So prevention is the name of the game, you see? Unfortunately we have been concentrating on treating the things after it's occurred. And I've been involved in that, but we've got to deal with prevention. That means behavior, which is another way of saying lifestyle.