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Training Webinar on Environmental Drivers of Chronic Disease
Based on the peer-reviewed report Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging
Expand your knowledge of environmental health across the lifespan, and your comfort level on speaking to others on this topic. Join Greater Boston PSR and Ted Schettler MD MPH, Healthy Aging report co-author and a leading expert on environmental health, in a training webinar based on key findings of the Healthy Aging report.
The 1.5 hour webinar will be held on the following dates:
Tuesday, May 18th 1pm EDT, 10am PDT
Wednesday, May 19th 9pm EDT, 6pm PDT
Please respond by May 14th to psrmabo@igc.org with the subject "EDCC Training Webinar" and indicate which date you will attend. You will be sent instructions on how to access the webinar and provided background material. The webinar will feature a PowerPoint Presentation complete with references and speaker notes, and time for questions and answers.
It will cover the following:
- Environmental factors as key drivers of many common chronic diseases
- How environmental factors alter key biological pathways leading to chronic disease
- Important environmental determinants of health including:
- Food system/nutrition and diet
- Toxic chemicals
- Built environment / physical activity
- Psychological & socioeconomic stress
- Examples of cross cutting solutions for healthy people & a healthy environment
The webinar PowerPoint and other Healthy Aging materials will be made available to attendees.
Please forward this invitation to colleagues and help us expand the cadre of health professionals working to promote health and well being. The webinar is open and relevant to all as exposure to toxic chemicals occurs across the lifespan.
Background:
Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging
A Report by Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility and Science and Environmental Health Network - www.agehealthy.org 
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A new synthesis of medical research reveals that, even in people who are genetically predisposed, environmental factors play a major role in the overwhelming majority of cases of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Diet, exercise, exposure to toxic chemicals and other environmental pollutants, and socioeconomic stress can alter biochemical pathways influencing the risk of these diseases, and other chronic illnesses termed the "Western disease cluster" – diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome – themselves risk factors for neurodegeneration.
This collection of diseases is driven by dramatic alterations over the past 50 to 100 years in the U.S. food supply, a built environment that encourages an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, proliferation of environmental chemicals, and other factors. By modifying these factors, the risks for these diseases can be dramatically reduced, and the odds greatly improved for delaying or even preventing disease onset.