For a Human-Centered AI

Happiness Tastes of Health: Interview with Luigi Fontana

June 3, 2018

"Eating well means telling our body how long and how we want to live"

Says Luigi Fontana, author of “La felicità ha il sapore della salute” (Happiness tastes of health), who was hosted in May at Trento-based Fondazione Bruno Kessler for a seminar on “Nutrition and lifestyles in preventing chronic diseases“, as part of the “Key to health” project.

“The research we are doing supports this concept” – adds the expert. “Nutrition is the key to maintaining health and preventing the overwhelming majority of the typical diseases of our day. When I was a medical student, I realized right away that the current health model, which is based on waiting for the patient to have the symptoms of a disease and then treat them with either drugs or surgery, is a bit old-fashioned, bound to fail. The vast majority of chronic and degenerative diseases typical of our hospitals can be prevented with nutrition, physical activity, meditation and many other things and could save billions of euros that could be used for the economic development of the country”. Mr. Fontana, who has recently moved to the University of Sydney to lecture “Medicine & Nutrition” (“Ullmann Chair in Translational Metabolic Health” chair, director of the “Longevity Program” at the Charles Perkins Center), talks in the interview about nutrition and risks to health and recalls some philosophical concepts of his research, describing the contents of his latest book (published in 2018 with Slow Food Editore), in which, from the encounter between the author and chef Vittorio Fusari, readers can find a useful program to discover the secrets of longevity, combining science and cuisine for taking steps toward health and happiness.

Born in 1969, Luigi Fontana is an internationally recognized physician and scientist, considered as one of the world’s leading experts in nutrition and longevity. He is currently a full professor at the University of Brescia and at the University of Sydney (Australia), where he carries out research and lectures in the field of preventive medicine and nutrition science. “La grande via” (with Franco Berrino) was published by Mondadori in 2017.

Interview released on 5/18/2018 at FBK, Trento
edited by Marzia Lucianer (TrentinoSalute 4.0 Press Office)
images by Alessandro Girardi (FBK Communication Unit)

 


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