Wholeness – One of our core values at LLUH
In 1863, 160 years ago, one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Ellen White, helped launch a countercultural movement against the modern medical practices of her day. She declared that eight simple remedies could restore health more than the unproven poisons and potions being promoted. These health practices — “Pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power” — became the hallmark of the young Seventh-day Adventist Church and provided them with increased health and longevity for generations.
Those eight simple remedies have stood the test of time and of science. Through the years, their title has morphed and is now best exemplified by the term “Lifestyle Medicine.” John Kelly, Franklin House, and other graduates from Loma Linda University doggedly pursued national recognition of this practice, which has now become a professional society called the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. They offer courses and certification to those learning these special skills for promoting health and preventing disease.
Another hallmark of Loma Linda University Health began near the end of World War II when a concerned Anglican minister was trying to keep his young parishioners encouraged while meeting each week in their bombed-out church in south London. He began translating the New Testament into modern English, hoping these messages would bring hope. As he labored night after night, he occasionally sent versions of his work to a friend, writer C.S. Lewis, to get his opinion on a particular passage.
As J.B. Phillips was finishing his translation, the concept of wholeness, the complete integration of all aspects of life and health — physical, mental, social, and spiritual — kept dominating his thinking. After the war, he wrote a small book summarizing his insights and titled it “Making Men Whole.”
While its circulation did not reach that of his “New Testament in Modern English” or “Your God is Too Small,” it did reach across the ocean to a struggling faculty committee in southern California. They had been tasked to come up with a motto for their small Christian school called the College of Medical Evangelists before its 50th-anniversary celebration in 1955. While their discussions are lost to history, they adopted the concept, and “To Make Man Whole” became the motto of CME, now Loma Linda University Health.
This motto has stood the test of time and is now embedded in the history and future of LLUH. Over the last 25 years, the late Wil Alexander applied this concept of Wholeness to patient care, calling it Whole Person Care, while teaching it to our students and residents. And now that phrase has been adopted by the State of California and many other organizations and practitioners as they seek to improve healthcare across the country.
Also starting in the 1950s and continuing to the present, Loma Linda University researchers conducted a series of epidemiological studies to validate the benefit of this “Adventist lifestyle.” Richard Walden and Frank Lemon used American Cancer Society funds to study and document the effects of smoking, and their research came to be called the Adventist Mortality Study. Encouraged by those positive results, Roland Phillips received National Cancer Institute funding in 1974 to launch a larger study of California Adventists called the Adventist Health Study. It was the analysis and publications from this data, conducted by Gary Fraser and colleagues, that led Dan Buettner from the National Geographic Society to designate Loma Linda in his historic listing of “Blue Zones.” This study cohort was really 34,000 Adventists from all of California, not just Loma Linda itself, but we ended up with the credit because the analysis was performed here! These five Blue Zones from around the world showed the longest and healthiest life spans. Dr. Fraser and colleagues confirmed many of these health advantages in Adventist Health Study 2, an even larger cohort from across the United States and Canada. These two studies were funded with nearly $40 million in research grants from the National Cancer Institute.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church and Loma Linda University Health have played pivotal roles in these two concepts - Lifestyle Medicine to improve personal health, and practitioners delivering Whole Person Care — and offered them to the world. Some may feel that others who now espouse these principles have stolen our thunder by adopting and promoting these ideas. But I argue that is exactly what should happen as many more now understand and pursue Wholeness through their own good health practices. May these concepts continue to flourish throughout the world.
Sincerely,
Richard Hart, MD, DrPH
President
Loma Linda University Health
