Chosen as “One of America’s 20 Super-Heroes of the Health Movement,” Dr. Hans Diehl is the clinical director of the Lifestyle Medicine Institute in Loma Linda, CA and Clinical Professor in the Dept. of Preventive Medicine at the School of Medicine of Loma Linda University. Offering more than 25 years of leadership in the emerging field of Lifestyle Medicine his pioneering efforts as an epidemiologically trained lifestyle interventionist
with the Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) have shown how simple lifestyle changes can prevent, arrest, and facilitate the reversal of many of our largely lifestyle related diseases. With more than 50,000 graduates, the results of the Randomized Clinical CHIP Trial have been published in 23 peer reviewed medical journals.
His books, Health Power, Dynamic Health, and Dynamic Living book & workbook (co-authored with Aileen Ludington), and the Optimal Diet Cookbook (with Darlene Blaney) have over two million copies in 19 languages in circulation. As an invited guest, he recently addressed, for the second year in a row, the World Congress on Weight Management in Chicago. He earned his doctorate in Health Science and an MPH in Public Health Nutrition from Loma Linda University.
Questions & Answers
Since CHIP’s basic premise is the prevention, arrest and reversal of chronic disease through lifestyle intervention, and that this intervention is primarily focused on changing what we eat and how we move, it is almost universally applicable. While be don’t believe that the science allows for adaptation without losing its validity, the cookbook can be easily adjusted to suit different palates and ethnicities, provided that the basic principles of a plant based, whole foods, foods as grown diet are maintained.
The most effective and scientific evaluation of the program by practitioners is the comparison of the bio-markers of participants pre and post program. The reduction of BMI, blood pressure, lipids, cholesterol and blood sugar levels as a result of the lifestyle changes are rock-solid proof of the efficacy of the program.
One of the challenges is that the CHIP-trained and -certified facilitators act like a director when they have been trained to be facilitators. This means that they may feel tempted to answer questions of scientific/medical content coming from the CHIP participants according to their own personal view point and perspective. The CHIP curriculum is structured in such a way that content questions are largely answered by the experts featured on the DVD series. If questions of scientific content come up, then the guidelines call for a facilitator to check with the home office expert on call.
The proof of plaque regression in arteries, the long-term benefits/effects of CHIP and the financial benefits (ROI) that CHIP provides.