"Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.

"WHAT?

"If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked or prescribed physical activity."

EDITOR'S NOTE: And even fewer physicians prescribe ANY Alternative Medicine!

"Kaiser Permanente, one the the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its Southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.

"Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top [of] the medical chart..."

"Dr. Robert Salis, a Kaiser family doctor, ...hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative...

"Salis said some patients may not be aware that research shows [low] physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks... As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Exercise is really Alternative Medicine, along with using vitamins and herbs as show in recognized medical journals--though rarely in the popular news media. And we've observed that most physicians don't even bother to read medical journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the A.M.A., Cancer Research or Lancet, the respected British journal, The Lancet. Nor do most care about proven Alternative Medicine techniques.

Our favorite personal anecdote is about when your Editor visited (at his request,) his surgeon a few days before getting hernia surgery. As we left his office, we asked him, "Do you want to know what Harvard Medical School does before surgeries?" His reply, "No."

EMPHASES ADDED.