He showed that while a healthy lifestyle won't help us live much longer, it can stave off chronic disease and disability until our final years.
James F. Fries majored in philosophy as an undergraduate, so it's no surprise that as a medical researcher he was obsessed with how to lead a good life, even though his interest was more about physical than moral well-being.
His focus, starting in the mid-1970s, was on what Dr. Fries (pronounced freeze) and other scientists called the failure of success. They noted that one great achievement of the 20th century was the rapid increase in life expectancy, thanks to improvements in vaccinations and sanitation that dramatically reduced deaths from acute, transmissible disease.
But that increase in life span did not mean an accompanying increase in "healthspan," or the duration of one's life free from chronic conditions like hypertension, diabetes and heart disease.
Dr. Fries, who trained as a rheumatologist and spent his entire teaching career at Stanford University, was a data guy, long before large data sets became a common tool in medical research. He was among the first to create an international database of patients that tracked their health over time, an enormous effort that began in 1975 with a grant from the National Institutes of Health...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/health/james-f-fries-dead.html?smid=em-share
His focus, starting in the mid-1970s, was on what Dr. Fries (pronounced freeze) and other scientists called the failure of success. They noted that one great achievement of the 20th century was the rapid increase in life expectancy, thanks to improvements in vaccinations and sanitation that dramatically reduced deaths from acute, transmissible disease.
But that increase in life span did not mean an accompanying increase in "healthspan," or the duration of one's life free from chronic conditions like hypertension, diabetes and heart disease.
Dr. Fries, who trained as a rheumatologist and spent his entire teaching career at Stanford University, was a data guy, long before large data sets became a common tool in medical research. He was among the first to create an international database of patients that tracked their health over time, an enormous effort that began in 1975 with a grant from the National Institutes of Health...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/health/james-f-fries-dead.html?smid=em-share
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