Listen to nature. The challenge of lifestyle medicine.

Unlike the days of Robert Koch when infectious diseases were the principal contributors to morbidity and mortality, today's illness and death are most often caused by noncommunicable diseases that have the special characteristics of resulting largely from one's own lifestyle, especially tobacco use and nutritional excesses. By "listening to nature", we can detect and identify risk factors for various types of cancer, explore their mechanisms of action, and execute preventive strategies leading to their reduction or modification, thereby, decreasing the incidence and mortality of disease. An example of the role of metabolic overload in carcinogenesis is the impact of an excessive intake of dietary fat on the development and progression of breast cancer. For the general pathogenesis of cancer, the risks associated with metabolic overloads are contrasted with those of low-level exposures. To broaden the impact of preventive medicine beyond factorial nutritional education in Germany, we recommend that (a) every medical school have a department of preventive medicine with emphasis on epidemiology and health promotion, and (b) all schools beginning in first grade have a comprehensive school health education program coordinated by a full-time health education teacher.