Some diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or emphysema, are almost totally preventable by making one simple lifestyle change - not smoking. Even for those diseases with strong genetic factors, such as some cancers, lifestyle changes greatly reduce the risk of these diseases.

HealthAuthority offers a practical perspective on the most useful and important changes you can make to improve your health. Each section of HealthAuthority provides a current, authoritative summary of the behaviors that affect your health and what you can do about them. Each section has been designed to provide you with easily understandable and accurate information about various lifestyle changes and how best to make these changes.

These summaries were written based on the current scientific literature by the research division of PICS, Inc., a research and development company dedicated to providing innovative methods to assist people with making lifestyle changes that improve their health. PICS, Inc. develops, evaluates, and markets health behavior products such as QuitKey for smoking cessation and DietMate for dietary management of weight loss, cholesterol, or hypertension.

The HealthAuthority website is edited by Allison Sowell, M.S., Research Associate and William Riley, Ph.D., Director of Research at PICS. The summaries are written by PICS research division staff based primarily on the references and links cited with each summary. Staff contributors are William Riley, Ph.D, Allison Sowell, M.S., Patti Mihm, M.A., Renee Shields, B.A. and Melissa Pici, B.A. For more information on the current research activities of PICS, visit www.healthtrials.org. If you have comments or suggestions regarding this website, including any suggestions for additional links or reference materials, send them using this form.