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National Health, How Healthy Are We?
Posted By: Robert Brown
Date: 11, November 05, at 12:10 p.m.
National Health
How healthy are we?We spend more per capita on health care than any other nation. Are we the healthiest?
United States health care, is a large industry, an understatement. We will spend more than $1.6 trillion dollars or 15% of our gross national product on health care this year, an average of $5,000 each. What are we getting out of this substantial investment? This article will help you answer that question.
Depression, obesity, anxiety, cardiovascular diseases, anger, cognitive dysfunction, frustration, memory impairment and immune deficiency are common. Depression is a major concern and we will spend $11 billion on anti-depression prescription drugs this year. Nearly 40 million of us are diagnosed as being depressed and 100 million, plus, of our citizens are receiving professional help, and or medication to help them with a diagnosable psychological disorder and to help them make it through their day. These numbers increase by about 4% per year. As the number of prescriptions increase, the number of people diagnosed as needing help increases. To look at this geographically, nearly everyone living west of the Mississippi River, is diagnosably in need of some form of drug to be mentally functional. Prescription drugs and other medical treatments are not keeping up with the “depressing” demand. Are we becoming more depressed at a rate of about 4% per year? At some time in the future, the need should start to decrease, if the treatments are effective, or is the prescribed need somehow artificially manipulated. If the need keeps increasing, we may want to start exploring the possibility of cause prevention.
For about the last 20 years we have been on a low fat/no fat eating trend, gaining more weight and getting fatter. Now, low carb/no carb is in, will it work better? Will this latest eating trend facilitate better health and less fat? Quite possibly not, I believe “no”. The Guru of the low carb/no carb craze did have a long history of Cardiovascular Disease. We have more fat sucked out of our bodies and more silicone implanted into our bodies than any other country. This does make us look healthier and sexier; however, this may be just an “illusion.”
We have been concerned with Cholesterol for many years. Twelve million people will take cholesterol lowering medications this year and as diagnosed, another 23 million should be taking the medications. Once again, those are large numbers. Some of these medications may make you sick and possibly kill you. FDA approved (formerly approved that is) medications like Altoprev, Crestor, Lescol, Lescol LX, Mevacor and Zocor are no longer on the approved/recommended list. I remember seeing advertisements selling these medications and then shortly after, there were advertisements by lawyers looking for clients to participate in legal action because of these medications. Nearly 750,000 have had their health negatively affected by the afore mentioned medications. Is the focus on Cholesterol working? Business is good in the Heart and Cardiovascular disease industry. About 65 million people have some form of cardiovascular disease. Invasive cardiovascular related procedures will cost us more than $10 billion this year. A few numbers: 1,500,000 Angiograms, 500,000 Bypass Surgeries and 450,000 Angioplasties. These procedures will take place at least 50% more often here, per capita than in any other country. Cardiovascular disease is common.
We like diets, we diet well and spend about $30 billion a year on diets and 60% of our population is over weight, some “morbidly obese.” We take massive amounts of medications, gladly participate in the latest food/diet/eating crazes and we still have a large problem with weight, high Cholesterol, Heart and Cardiovascular diseases. About 1,000,000 will die this year as the result of some form of cardiovascular disease. Are we treating cardiovascular disease effectively?
Cognitive dysfunction is a growing challenge or problem. We don’t seem to age well. It is tragic and increasingly more common to have your life end with Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Mild Cognitive Impairment, Stroke or another “age” related disease. Nearly 5 million people are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, 12 million with Mild Cognitive Impairment and 50% of those diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment will develop Alzheimer's disease. Close to 850,000 unfortunate individuals will suffer a Stroke this year and some of them will be left cognitively impaired. The accumulative numbers of cognitively impaired stroke survivors and other head injury survivors is large. All of these numbers increase in size yearly and cognitive impairment diseases are more frequently being diagnosed in younger people. The youngest stroke related, cognitively impaired individual I worked with was 23 years old. I don’t think she can be considered “old.”
As a nation, we like our drugs and chemicals. We like to get stoned and high and these forms of recreation add to the growing problem of Cognitive Impairment. Eighteen million people abuse inhalant chemicals and of those huffing, many suffer a 20% decrease in cognitive functioning because of their “recreation.” A documented 44 million individuals are considered heavy alcohol users or binge drinkers. The negative effects of alcohol on the brain are well known. More than 50 million people regularly abuse drugs like PCP, Crack, Ecstasy, Amphetamines, etc. and some in this large group suffer cognitive impairment, because of their drug use.
Drugs have an affect on your body and your brain, another no-brainer statement. We do use and abuse tons of these drugs/chemicals/prescriptions every year and we don’t seem to be as healthy, mentally or physically, as the usage indicates. Do drugs interfere with the natural production and utilization of body chemicals? Yes, they do. Can legal, prescribed drugs have some of the same characteristic as non-legal drugs? Yes, they can. Can prescription drugs have a negative effect on you and your cognitive functioning? Yes, it is possible. It is realistic to say that we have a large and growing population of cognitively impaired people.
What do you think so far. Are we getting good bang for our health care buck and is our health care system working well? Medical health care is a monopoly and that is one possible reason it may not be functioning at its best. The information, numbers and statistics indicate that we should be looking for alternatives to be used instead of and with medical health care. Do you think we could benefit from this competition?
Alternative forms of health care are discouraged by the FDA and AMA, with the active participation and blessing of our government. It may be possible that they don’t have access to the information you have just read. If they did, do you think they would prescribe some competition? I don’t think so and money may be the reason. Every pharmaceutical company, medical supply company, agency, medical insurance company, hospital, clinic, and their employees, every doctor, nurse, clinician and every individual, working in and around the medical (health) care industry has a vested interest in your health. They also have an interest in their well being, staying employed and making their payments.
Our health care industry will spend about $2.8 billion dollars this year promoting their products and services to you. They will also spend more than $130 million lobbying our government and this money could have a negative effect on the nations health. Do you think that this money effects the way our elected politicians perceive health care? A cynical person would say this money purchases political favors, buys politicians and assures the monopoly status of our medical health care system.
In conclusion, we do have some health care challenges and we may not be as healthy as the dollar amount spent would indicate. One of the challenges and potential large problem flying our way is the “Bird Flu” and we don’t seem to be ready for it. As a nation, we don’t have good immunity to diseases like the Bird Flu and immunity enhancement is one area where our health care system may be the least competent. After reading this, what do you think? Do we need to support alternative health care practices? Do we need to keep our freedom to chose alternative or conventional health care? Who is watching out for you; who is watching out for your health? Suggested reading: “Health, Greed, Power”, found at Lulu.com, “Racketeering in Medicine”, “Lipitor: Thief of Memory, Statin Drugs and the Misquided war on Cholesterol”, found at Amazon or your favorite book store. rbrown
To further educate yourself and to verify these statistics and this information, do an on line search: National Institute of Drug Abuse - Alzheimer’s Disease, Statistics - Cardiovascular, Coronary Heart Disease Statistics - Mild Cognitive Impairment Statistics - Alzheimer’s Disease Research and Prevention - Healing With Nutrition - National Heart Disease Statistics - American Medical Association Statistics - Statistics on Aging - Disease Research and Prevention - Americanheart.org - healingwithnutrition.com - alzheimer’ssupport.com - drugintel.com, this will get you started. The resources for more information are endless and readily available; however, it is not in the form of advertisements in the TV, in magazines or on the Radio. Educate yourself “very important.”
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