Picture of Health

Charles R. Elder, MD, MPH, FACP, received his MD and MPH degrees from Boston University School of Medicine, and completed residency training in internal medicine at the University of Michigan hospitals. He has served as a primary care internist at Kaiser Permanente Northwest (KPNW) for 26 years and has been the physician lead for the complementary and integrative medicine program at KPNW for 18 years. In this capacity, Dr. Elder offers a referral-based integrative ayurvedic clinic for KPNW patients, advising patients in the areas of diet, exercise, herbal medicine, mind-body practices, and other complementary medicine modalities. He has also provided leadership in shaping and implementing policy related to management of chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathy, and other complementary medicine benefits. Dr. Elder holds a Senior Investigator appointment at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, where he has served as principal or co-investigator on a range of federally funded studies evaluating mind-body and other complementary medicine interventions in the setting of chronic disease management. He also has a clinical faculty appointment at Oregon Health and Science University, and for more than 2 decades has mentored and taught residents and students in both internal and integrative medicine settings. He has published 59 articles and abstracts in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and his research has been widely publicized in local, national, and international media outlets.

Leslie D. Elder, MD, received her MD degree from the University of Nevada School of Medicine, and completed residency training in family medicine at the University of Michigan hospitals. She practiced urgency care medicine for 15 years, during which time she also maintained a private integrative medicine practice focused on ayurvedic herbal and dietary therapeutics. Dr. Elder is both an accomplished gourmet vegetarian cook as well as a talented visual artist (www.leslieelder.com). Her work has been displayed in multiple venues through ORA Northwest Jewish Artists, the Oregon Watercolor Society, and in other settings. She is a member of the Oregon Society of Artists.

© 2019 by The Permanente Press 

Published 2019 by The Permanente Press Portland, Oregon • Oakland, California

The Permanente Press is owned by The Permanente Federation, LLC Oakland, California

PICTURE OF HEALTH: TRANSFORM YOUR SELF-CARE AND HEALTH CARE  THROUGH AYURVEDIC AND INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE

23  22  21  20  19            1  2  3  4  5

ISBN: 978-0-9770463-8-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019944271

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly  from The Permanente Press Publishing Office, 500 NE Multnomah Street, Portland, Oregon, 97232 USA; phone 503-813-3286, fax 503-813-2348.

Artwork by Leslie D. Elder, MD
Book design by Lynette Leisure 

Printed in the United States of America

What makes this book particularly of interest is that the author is a conventional medicine provider, working in a large, comprehensive medical center, who has successfully integrated alternative modalities into his practice.— Douglas Hanes, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Research and Graduate Studies; Chair, Master of Science in Integrative Medicine Research, National University of Natural Medicine

Clinicians interested in the topic, or discouraged by vexing problems in clinical practice (as Drs Elder have been) would also like to have the material in this book as part of their tool kit, as would clinicians trying to come up with an appropriate and helpful way to assist their patients in navigating all the different care systems available. The most interested will be the consumer who wants to improve their health or self-management of chronic conditions and is open to an Ayurvedic approach. And there certainly is a need for clinician-focused books on this topic.— Keith H. Bachman, MD, Internal Medicine, Northwest Permanente; Medical Director for the Kaiser Permanente Northwest Severe Obesity/Bariatric Surgery program; Lead Physician for Weight Management for Kaiser Permanente’s Care Management Institute

The audience should be individuals and health care providers with interest in healthy life style and approaches to chronic pain, based on Ayurveda and other complementary and integrative medicine approaches. It is palpable that the authors have worked with these recommendations with many patients, and this makes the reader feel confident to try out the approaches.— Tido von Schoen-Angerer, MD, MPH, Research, Associate  ARCIM Institute, Filderstadt, Germany, and an Attending Pediatrician,  Fribourg Hospital, Switzerland

The techniques and approaches reviewed in this chapter are experiential. It is helpful to report more experiences with each treatment prescription, with case studies, to make those experiences more accessible, which the authors have done. With increased interest among my Kaiser Permanente colleagues in plant-based diets, I think there would also be an increased interest in Ayurveda, which I think is the main strength of this book.— Lonnie J. Lee, MD, L.Ac, Family Medicine, Integrative Medicine Specialist, Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group

Dr. Elder has a unique vantage point among medical doctors. He is ensconced in the values and practices of a medical delivery organization committed to examining what it does then seeking adjustments to get it right for patients. At the same time, he is an ayurvedic medicine practitioner imbued with decades-long commitment, with his physician spouse and co-author, to what may be called an ayurvedic lifestyle. I first came to know of Dr. Elder’s work when he published outcomes of an ayurvedic medicine intervention in the peer-reviewed literature. His whole-system research approach remains a beacon in the research community for those wishing to respect traditional medicine principles. In this book, one senses all of these rivers of interest at play. Gratefully, one mainly finds the presence of two physicians with good bedside manner—or, better said, “life-side manner”—guiding one to the potential for ayurvedic choices and tastes in one’s own health and healing. This book will be a life-enhancing resource for many.—John Weeks, The Integrator Blog News & Reports, Editor in Chief, Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (Paradigm, Practice and Policy Advancing Integrative Health)