--- title: With Some Medical Treatment, Researchers Find Less Is More description: Many surgeries are medically necessary and even lifesaving—but increasingly, evidence suggests invasive care isn't always best. canonical: https://time.com/5766183/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-01-16T10:43:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T08:04:10.723Z article:section: Health og:title: When It Comes to Some Medical Treatment, Researchers Find Less Is More og:description: Across the medical field, doctors are reconsidering the status quo og:url: https://time.com/5766183/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6892e726d8e0730a/698a08ec22fb85de7be2a771/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1600 og:image:height: 900 og:image:alt: best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: When It Comes to Some Medical Treatment, Researchers Find Less Is More twitter:description: Across the medical field, doctors are reconsidering the status quo twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6892e726d8e0730a/698a08ec22fb85de7be2a771/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # When It Comes to Some Medical Treatment, Researchers Find Less Is More > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Jan 16, 2020 10:43 AM UTC  Illustration by Chris Gash for TIME  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Jan 16, 2020 10:43 AM UTC Beyond its effects on the body, medical care can be a balm for the mind. Extensive treatment can feel like a promise that doctors have done everything possible. But that perceived security can come at a high price. As health costs soar, patients are emptying their pockets for care that may not make them healthier, research suggests. Last year, a 5,000-person trial showed that for patients with chronic but stable heart disease, surgical procedures such as stenting and bypass did not reduce the risk of heart attack or death more than lifestyle interventions and medication. Even patients with extensive damage did not, on average, experience fewer heart problems after surgery than those who simply took meds, ate well, exercised and didn’t smoke. The findings upended assumptions about cardiac care, says co-author Dr. Robert Harrington, a cardiologist and the chair of the department of medicine at Stanford University. Harrington says doctors have long assumed surgery is the way to go for patients with blocked arteries–but the new study adds nuance to that notion. “We can’t just trust our intuition. We need data,” Harrington says. “I actually think this is a good thing for medicine, to pause and think, Why do we do that?” Across the medical field, doctors are reconsidering the status quo. Many surgeries are medically necessary and even lifesaving–but increasingly, evidence suggests invasive care shouldn’t always be a physician’s knee-jerk reaction. A 2016 paper found that men who actively monitored their early-stage prostate cancer were no more likely to die over the next decade than those who opted for surgery or radiation. Research has shown that physical therapy can be just as restorative as surgery for a torn meniscus. Studies have found that C-sections are not only unnecessary for many deliveries but also potentially risky. Numerous minimally invasive alternatives to open surgery have been shown to be safer and equally effective. Taken together, these results from disparate corners of the medical field point to a changing approach to treatment. That shift stands not only to improve patient outcomes; it could also chip away at care costs. A 2010 Institute of Medicine report estimated that overtreatment costs the U.S. medical system $210 billion per year. In a 2017 survey, U.S. doctors said more than 20% of medical care was unnecessary–even as access to care is lacking for many. Fear of malpractice lawsuits and patient requests or pressure were the most common reasons for ordering unnecessary prescriptions, tests and procedures, while more than 70% of respondents said physicians are more likely to perform unnecessary services when they profit from them. Overtreatment also often begets overtreatment. In a fall 2019 survey of about 400 internists, 94% said they had observed an unnecessary “cascade of care”–an ultimately frivolous chain of interventions often triggered by a fluke test or screening. Lead author Dr. Ishani Ganguli, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says these cascades waste patients’ time and money and lead to unnecessary pain and stress. She and other doctors are bringing awareness to these consequences through research and resources like ChoosingWisely.org, a website that aims to spark conversation between doctors and patients about which tests and procedures are actually worth it. “Things are changing, but slowly,” Ganguli says. Harrington, meanwhile, hopes the growing body of evidence on overtreatment will be seen not as a total condemnation of invasive procedures but rather as a call for more thoughtful treatment decisions. In some cases, of course, surgery will still be the right decision. But patients who opt against it can take comfort in knowing their health may not be the worse for it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5766183/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5766183/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes/"},"headline":"When It Comes to Some Medical Treatment, Researchers Find Less Is More","datePublished":"2020-01-16T10:43:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T08:04:10.723Z","description":"Many surgeries are medically necessary and even lifesaving—but increasingly, evidence suggests invasive care isn't always best.","url":"https://time.com/5766183/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes/","keywords":["Surgery"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6892e726d8e0730a/698a08ec22fb85de7be2a771/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6892e726d8e0730a/698a08ec22fb85de7be2a771/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes","caption":"","creditText":"Illustration by Chris Gash for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/surgery/","name":"Surgery"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5766183/best-medical-treatment-lifestyle-changes/","name":"When It Comes to Some Medical Treatment, Researchers Find Less Is More"}}]}] ```