HuffPost Game Changers: Who Is The Ultimate Game Changer In Wellness?

(VOTING IS NOW CLOSED)

HuffPost's Game Changers celebrates 100 innovators, visionaries, and leaders in 10 categories who are harnessing the power of new media to reshape their fields and change the world. With your help, we've picked 10 people who are changing the game in Wellness. We honor and salute them.

Now it's up to you to pick the Ultimate Wellness Game Changer. Click through the slideshow below, get the lowdown on why we chose them, then VOTE. We'll reveal the Ultimate 10 in November.

RICK STOLLMEYER

Current Status: The place for online registration for yoga and pilates classes and more

Changing The Game By: Creating an easy-to-use software package for fitness studios around the country. With online booking and self check-in, MindBody lets customers locate studios, find instructors, and pay for classes and services online. The software lets studio owners forgo the hassles of having their own online registration systems and lets them learn more about their customers. Yoga devotees save time and effort, and busier classes means more yoga and pilates studios and spas can thrive.

Killer Yoga App: The MindBody app uses GPS to provide nearby class schedules and availability, as well as notifying users of last minute substitute teachers.

Must Click Link: Mindbodyonline.com

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Comments

[bog]

gary taubes. for those that are tired of being lied to or those that just don't know any better.

[MossyOak]

Heh, thanks for this comment. I follow this the wellness topic pretty well (at least I thought I did) and never heard of Taubes. So I looked him up. I have been eating his way for many years so it's great to know about his knowledge base.

[JulieDole]

Did I miss Bill Gates and his wife on this list? He's retired & pouring his millions into 3rd world health care...

[k-ram]

I'd like to nominate two start-ups: www.ResoundingHealth.com whose mission is to empower ePatients and www.CelebrityDiagnosis.com whose mission is to increase health awareness and medical knowledge by blogging about common diseases affecting uncommon people.

[drjonz]

Your list is very short.
Check out the results of the Chicago Alternative Medicine Integration Group (amibestme­d.com/Abou­tAMI/About­AMI-Bios.h­tml) for how they make patients happier and save them bundles in the process. Vote for Richard Sarnat.

Or check out the value of helping our defensive teams at Common Sense Medicine (www.commonsensemedicine.org) and vote for us. Our nasal wash was voted BEST NEW NATURAL MEDICINE in 2004 and has saved thousands of people millions of dollars just by keeping their noses clean.

So if you can't find the flu vaccine try keeping your nose clean because that's where they get in.

[Martin 27514]

There "gamechanger" in healthcare is whoever explains Western diseases.

Why do we get all these "complex diseases" when if you eat an African diet, take some exercise, carry some water and deliver your babies in a sensible way, you don't get these diseases.

Senator Tom Harkins, John Robbins, Dr Ornish, Dr Esselstyn and many others, have laid the platform. It is a matter of explaining the mechanism. Once that is established then prevention becomes cheap; there is no question about a public option - no civilized society can be without one, and responsibility is left with the individual.

North American beliefs and values are respected and enhanced.

[Anthro]

The lifespan in Africa is considerably shorter, depending on the country. It's easier to remain healthy if you don't live to be among the very old. The "western diseases" have a lot to do with bad eating, but is also strongly correlated with living longer. These diseases are now becoming epidemic in India, China and other developing nations.

Carrying water can lead to lots of muscular/skeletal problems in later life as well. I would rather work toward clean water at the village level than encourage women to carry water long distances, but that may not be what you were referring to.

Dr. Ornish's diet has come under increasing criticism (following a good start--his research hasn't held up) and if you've ever looked at it, you will see that it is extremely difficult to stick to in the long run. I speak as someone who lost a lot of weight and has maintained it. I had to cut a lot of calories, but I could not do the Ornish plan although I do follow many of its basic principles as part of an overall healthy eating plan.

[Dice Klay]

The person who SHOULD be on that list is Weston A. Price. Someday...­someday...

[ddanimal]

Yup. Weston Price is a giant. Unfortunately, most people-especially doctors-dont even know who he is.

It just goes to show how corrupt and profit-driven the medical industry is.

[Anthro]

Price was a complete nutter and quack who has been widely discredited by real dentists and real nutritionists.

[edfurst]

Another person who should be on this list is Dr Peter D'Adamo, son of Dr James D'Adamo.
Their Blood Tpe diet dares to suggest that no one diet suits all six billion of us, which is not something that Big Business would want us mere customers (or our doctors, or even dietitians) to worry about.
After ten years on the Eat Right 4 Your Type diet, I am in better shape than I was before I started.

[Alana Kornfeld - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks to everyone who is joining in the conversation. I'd like to point out a key piece of information to clarify our selections. These are innovators, visionaries, and leaders who are harnessing the POWER OF THE NEW MEDIA to reshape their fields and change the world--not just who have influenced wellness off the WEB. I agree Deepak and Weil have done a huge job in the wellness world, but the reason our selections seem high-tech oriented is because those are the companies using the new media in the most efficient way.

[David M]

Deepak is indeed using the power of NEW MEDIA. He's releasing a new stress reducing program (see www.DeepakChopraMobile.com); it’s a first of its kind iPhone application implementing a comprehensive program to remove stress from daily life.

[dharmamom]

since when is wellness a game?

[Dice Klay]

since Operation, the goofy game for dopey doctors.

[drjonz]

To a large degree wellness is a game that we play with infecting agents in our environments. They have an offense as well as a defense and so do we. Unfortunately some of our defenses are bothersome, like a fever and a runny nose, so we would rather not be bothered and turn them off with a variety of prescription drugs. That's not too wise when you realize they are part of our defense. Read more about how to honor defenses at www.nasal-xylitol.com.

[Boadicea]

Define wellness.

I vote for Dr. Joseph Mercola, even though I think he's a bit of an a-hole.

But no one has reached more people about healthy food choices than he has. I work in a health food store, in the supplement department, and I can't tell you how many people tell me that his diet suggestions, his newsletter and/or his website have changed their life. He's calling out sugar, caffeine, alcohol and processed foods like flour as the culprits for poor longterm health. But he does more than just say it, he points you to the evidence.

He's an idiot, but he's mostly right about food and health, and he's reached a very large number of people with his message.

[ddanimal]

Mercola is great, but his website has sort of degenerated into a marketing vehicle in recent years. Its very unfortunate and I never buy his products anymore.

[Anthro]

All these people including Chopra and Weil are making big bucks telling you stuff that any rational person has heard from his or her grandma. Eat your veggies, deserts for special occasions only, make your own food (and grow some of it too), take a long walk every day, pray (or whatever helps you deal with stress), and so on. Also, hope for good genes.

Eat well, not too much, mostly plants - Michael Pollan

Supplements are a waste of money and only give you expensive urine. Any doctor not selling them will tell you this.

[maggielee]

All the mainstream docs I saw when I had a kidney stone (ultra ouch) wouldn't tell me (even though I asked about water consumption specifically) that plentiful amounts of purified water is the best prevention for kidney stones. The mainstream guys just said, "There's no hard evidence in that area. Usually people with kidney stones will get them again." But Mercola has on his site that the greatest prevention of kidney stones is water. Now the good doctor doesn't make a dime off that information. But I agree with you that his Web site is now a marketing vehicle, but I don't know that I'd agree that it sort of has degenerated because of it. Mercola is no longer seeing patients at his clinic; his Web site is NOW his office and he's doing a phenomenal job getting the word out on holistic health care. I use a few of his products and when I stopped using one of them, my acupuncturist immediately commented on my "bloating," so his supplements indeed work (for me anyway!) and I read his site every few days. It's a beautifully maintained Web site. Have you seen his sister site on "just" swine flu?

[singermuse]

The REAL "game changer" in wellness will be effective health care reform (with a robust public option), if it includes preventative health care so people won't have to wait until they are very sick to actually see a doctor when it's almost too late. The runner up for game changing is US. WE must take our well-being and our health into our own hands by doing the best we can: eating right for our own bodies, exercising daily, getting enough sleep, managing stress, avoiding health hazards. The bottom line in all this is money. When people are poor (unemployed, dealing with the ensuing homelessness from foreclosures), they are apt to not eat wholesome organic food ( too expensive) and will opt for what is cheap, and quick and filling, especially if they have children with mouths to feed and have to stretch the already too thin dollar. When people are poor without a health care system that works they won't go to a doctor for prevention, instead they go to the ER or to a doctor when it might be too late and the care they need has escalated to something much more expensive. And then they still might not get the care they now so desperately need.

[lilian101]

If a game were to be changed, I'd assume that at least the rules would be different. Alll these people and their wonderful wonderful websites, seem to me to be no more than an extension of some pre-existing construct that is designed to lightly inform, probably mislead but most of all to extract money from a large and growing larger group of consumers who are willing, ready and able to rely on advice without question.

[Anthro]

Amen.

[MossyOak]

Mayo is on the list but not Andrew Weil or Deepak Chopra? Go back and try again.

[seattleblue]

I was going to post Andrew Weil for my first choice but you (and others) have saved me the time. I'm torn between Andrew and Deepak for first place. They have both had a tremendous influence on my health.

[StThomas]

I am trying to figure out which one of the lineup is the guilty one.............

[Whatevah]

Mercola, one of the biggest quack hucksters in the history of scam artists.

[MikeyMike]

How about Lance Armstrong and LiveStrong.com ?

[Alison Rose Levy - Huffpost Blogger]

No offense, but I have to say that this is a very underwhelming list. Quite frankly, I wish I could have been part of the nominating committee. This list is all very oriented to high tech companies, which may seem "sexy" to some, but if we were going out of the box, I would love to have been able to propose the people who use integrative health to help people recover from cancer, Parkinson's disease, and the like, not just deploy the latest techno-whiz games. Then there are the scientists on the research cutting edge, the who folks who preserve health care freedoms, those who explore the health-environment interconnection-- I could go on. So I would suggest that you call this the Health Technocrat list, and do something else for health later.

For those interested in frontier, health science, information and action, and radio programs with Deepak Chopra, Larry Dossey and others, sign up for the free ezine the Health Outlook at www.health-journalist.com

[LiberalBuzz]

I could not agree more. There are so many people who are better .

[Boadicea]

I believe "gamechanger" has high-tech innovation in it's definition for this contest. The whole point is using technology and the internet to make a difference.

That's why I voted for Mercola. AMAZING website. Loads of research articles on every health topic known to man.

[Alison Rose Levy - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree that Mercola's website is the best -- I co-wrote his first bestselling book, the No-Grain Diet, and yet Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra have changed the conversation on health care more than anyone else in my opinion. Not sure why they were not included. Don't we like books?

For health news, information, and action, get the free Health Outlook at www.health-journalist.com