Adopting a healthy lifestyle by exercising, eating a well-balanced diet and not smoking can improve health and prevent disease, but articles about preventive medicine rarely appear in major US medical journals.

A review in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine for August looked at articles that were published in 1998 in the Journal of the American Medical Association and The New England Journal of Medicine. Just 2% of articles focused on the importance of a healthy lifestyle, according to the report.

Since much of the health news in the United States comes from studies published in these two major journals, ordinary people may be missing out on the prevention message. There are many prevention articles published in other medical journals, including ones that focus on preventive medicine.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine August 2000;19:79-86.