Why is the US so unhealthy? Part II

Continuing on from the last post on health, the next most important factors are probably alcohol consumption and smoking.  Does anyone think that these things are good for you?

 Well, in moderate amounts, alcohol appears to have some benefits including: increase to longevity; lower chance of cardiovascular disease; reduce risk of stroke; less likelihood of contracting Type II diabetes; and other benefits.  This article has a more complete list along with extensive references.  Not every doctor and researcher agrees with this advice, but these benefits only accrue with moderate drinking (1/day for women and 1-2/day for men).  This article from WebMD suggests that any amount of drinking raises the risks of certain types of cancer, especially if you already have other risk factors

But if you drink more than a moderate amount your chances of death increase.  There are approximately 79,000 deaths a year attributed to excessive alcohol use making it the 3^rd leading lifestyle-related cause of death.  Here is the CDC fact sheet on alcohol use.  It is important to understand if you use alcohol moderately, you are abusing it, or if you suffer from alcoholism.  Use this guideline to see if you have a problem.

It is up to each individual to determine if they can benefit from alcohol consumption since it is a major part of many lifestyles and cultural events.  Personally, I don’t think that the benefits outweigh the detriments.  It is expensive, adds calories and increases the odds that you will eat more, is linked to several diseases, and  increases the chances of having an accident (not just in a vehicle).  On the benefit side, my family already lives into their 80s and has an extremely low rate of cancer and heart disease.  So, all-in-all I think that I am better off not drinking, but you decide for yourself.

On to smoking.  I couldn’t find any current source that suggested that smoking was good for your health, unlike the advertisements in the 1920s through the 1950s.  Here is a retrospective article from Time magazine that is amusing in light of our current knowledge.  I don’t really see the point in elaborating on this particular topic.  It’s bad for your health and that of those around you – stop doing it.

The last major area of health improvement includes several small items that individually contribute little, but together can increase overall health; several of which were mentioned in this link from my previous post.

• Retirement, before age 65 anyway, seems to lower longevity by a fair amount.  It is not clear why this is, and more research is needed, but this article has some interesting facts.

• Flossing you teeth would seem to have little effect on your overall health, but some recent research shows that to be untrue.  Heart disease, arterial plaque, and even diabetes have been linked to the same bacterium that causes gingivitis.  So not only can you save your smile, not have to worry about your dentures falling out, but also save your life by flossing every day.

• Sleeping enough has been linked to weight gain, high blood pressure, and decreases the effectiveness of your immune system (and you are grumpier).  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that sleep deprivation is responsible for 100,000 car crashes each year.  Work-place accidents are as much as twice as common with poor sleep habits.

• Stress, especially in today’s fast-paced environment, can have a huge impact on your health.  The causes of stress or myriad, but the effects on the body are the same as our flight-or-fight reflexes.  In this state the body increases adrenaline and cortisol which ups heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar; all of benefit if you need to run away from a threat, but much lees beneficial in a meeting.  Stress increases your risk of other problems and makes ones you already have worse.  It has been linked to heart disease, depression, gastrointestinal ailments, and memory impairment.  Here are some ways to manage your stress.

• Social interactions have been shown to increase your life span and reduce the incidence of depression.  The reasons for this are not clear, but considering that humans are social animals, it stands to reason that we need to interact with others.  Read more about that here.

 

None of these things are going to let you live forever, but combined they may extend your life, and the quality of your life, quite a bit.  My main point about staying healthy was to decrease medical costs, and most of the things I have described are cheap or free.  If everyone does what they can to lower their own healthcare costs then shouldn’t market forces drive down the costs of doctors, hospitals, and insurance?  Even if it doesn’t, it still seems like a worthwhile effort.

Why is the US so unhealthy? Part I

In my second post I was complaining about cost of health care in the US, which is ridiculously high.  My goal was to point out that as a component of the overall healthcare costs our personal choices play a large part.  To be sure, insurance, pharmaceuticals, hospitals (and doctors), and lawyers all have portions of the blame, some much higher than others.  But it is my opinion that the single most important thing a person can do to keep their own healthcare costs down is to stay healthy.  It is understood that many people have medical issues over which they have little control, but it is also true that in many cases they would be of less impact, or more easily manageable, if those people had better overall health.

None of this is rocket science – the basics are pretty simple – doctors and scientists have been saying these same things for over 50 years.  Diet and exercise is number one, followed by moderation of alcohol and no smoking, finished with things like flossing, sleeping, and sunscreen.  Ultimately though, every person is completely responsible for their own health, with advice provided by doctors, nutritionists, etc.  

Be more informed and be healthier.

People lived healthy, happy lives long before we had MRIs, advanced drugs, or arthroscopic surgery, and for the most part so can we.  Certainly we have a better chance of living into our 90s now than they did 200 years ago, and infant mortality has dropped, in most first-world countries, to near zero, but a lot of people lived a lot of years without extensive, expensive medical care.  It almost seems like the medico-legal-pharmaceutical complex is forcing us to be sicker so that they can rush to the rescue (or in the case of lawyers, rush to court).

There is a lot, perhaps too much, information available today on how to live a healthy lifestyle.  Given this over-abundance, how can you know what is the most important?  Read everything you can find and consider whether it makes sense to you.  I am including several web sites that I think have interesting and important material, but it is up to you to understand what information is most beneficial to you.  This first one is a very general guide of dos and don’ts.

First, and perhaps most important to good health, is proper nutrition.  Certainly, you should eat enough but not too much, of the right foods in the correct proportions, to stay healthy.  Fast, or processed, foods are one of the worst things we have ever devised.  Now don’t get me wrong, I have eaten, and still occasionally eat, fast food.  But over the last several years I have tried to cut back on this habit and have seen dramatic weight loss and overall health increase.  I have long had the opinion that if you could see how our ancient ancestors lived, and how and what they ate, you could learn a lot.

This article very closely matches my thoughts on how we have evolved to process different foods, and added some to my understanding of why we seems to have problems with processed foods – even bread is a processed food.

The gist of the article is that for several hundred-thousand years we lived as hunter-gatherers (HG), and have adapted to those kinds of foods that were available in that style of living.  The cooking of food started long enough ago that we have adapted to it, but it still seems that the less we cook the better off we are.  Harvested grain consumption was a relatively recent change to our diet which is why there are problems with it, although this is a somewhat new theory.  Dr. Oz has gone so far as to compare highly processed carbohydrates to cocaine, both in its addictiveness and in its damage to the body.

So we have natural foods, processed as little as possible, which should be eaten in moderation; no binging and no starving.  In fact, recent studies have suggested that eating less per meal and increasing meal numbers is better overall for health.  This aligns nicely with the HG lifestyle; snacking on fruits, nuts, seeds, and perhaps fresh vegetables while on the hunt.

Along with the types of food, the quantities of it, and the frequency of eating, I want to add drinking water.  Everyone has heard that you should drink 8 glasses of 8 ounces of water every day, but there is some controversy surrounding this advice.  I personally think that this is good advice and try and follow it, but each person has to decide for themselves.  Additionally, the consumption of caffeinated, highly sugared, or alcohol-added drinks frequently cause the body to lose more water.  At any rate, here is an article listing the benefits and has recommendations – as always, decide for yourself.

The second major health style concern is exercise.  Imagine how fit you would be if you had to chase down your food every day, or gather all of the fruits and vegetables you need.  Even as recently as 100 years ago, it appears that farmers and ranchers were generally healthier than the average person today.  How could anyone not see that the more active you are the better your overall health would be?

How much exercise is enough is a highly debated number, which depends on several factors including but not limited to: current and optimum weight; amount of activity during work hours; physical and medical conditions; etc.  I think that it is obvious from looking at statistics collected by experts, that we as a nation don’t get enough exercise.  But many of those experts have arrived at some guidelines for, if not preparing for a triathlon, at least maintaining general fitness.  So somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes per day seems to be the right amount.

I think that this is one of the things that each person has to determine for themselves.  If you are exercising at some specific level and duration, and you feel good, aren’t gaining or losing weight (unless that is your goal), then you are probably getting enough.  But keep in mind that if you perform exactly the same exercises every day, your body will become accustomed to it and, over time, you will not be gaining as much benefit.  Many fitness experts suggest that you vary the type of exercise that you do over some schedule, for instance: hiking or biking alternated with weight lifting or resistance exercises (which is what I do).  The combination of cardiovascular exercise and some amount of weight or resistance training seems to have the most long-term health benefits.  I like this article on principles and techniques of resistance training.

Let’s again imagine our ancestors, climbing hills, running after prey, throwing rocks or sticks, or beating an animal to death, every day of their lives.  We clearly don’t get enough exercise.  I will continue on this thought tomorrow.

Can we do anything to improve the job and economy situation?

I made some comments in several forums today that got me to thinking about how to get unemployed people back to work.  If we can get the unemployment rate down, I believe that the economy will improve; investors will have more confidence, buyers will spend more, people will be able to buy houses, and the republicans will get richer (really, no matter what happens to the economy, they will get richer).

The main problem I see with unemployment is that as an entitlement program it gives away money, but there is no other gain from it.  By this I mean that the person receiving it does not gain any new tangible knowledge, skills, or abilities.  All of the entitlement programs should be restructured so that the person benefits in some other way than just receiving a pay check.  Additionally, if the country could benefit in some way while disbursing the money, we would all be better off.

In the 1930s FDR started several programs to ease the US out of the great depression, including the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA later re-designated as Works Projects Admin).  Both of these programs used unemployed, unskilled labor to improve the infrastructure of the country.

The CCC was primarily responsible for the conservation and development of natural resources, which included such things as: bridges, fire towers, and buildings in national forest areas; irrigation, drainage, dams, and other flood control measures; planting trees, collecting seeds, working in nurseries, and related forestry work, building and maintaining camps and picnic areas, clearing areas, developing and maintaining lakes and ponds; and miscellaneous work such as surveying, large scale mosquito control, and emergency relief.  As many as 2.5 million men took advantage of this program over about nine years.  The WPA made use of another roughly 3 million people over some 8 years on basic infrastructure improvements such as roads, bridges, parks, and dams.  Altogether these two programs employed more than 5 million people that would otherwise been on what we would today call welfare.  That 5 M people represented approximately 4.5% of the 1935 US population.  In 2011 the total unemployed number is around 13 million or about 4.4% of the population.  If we ran similar, proportionally sized projects now, we could give jobs to all of the unemployed and satisfy important national needs.

The question becomes: what projects should we tackle? 

One possibility, right out of the 1930s, that would surely help both the newly employed and others, is dam and levee construction and/or maintenance.  All along the Mississippi river and its feeder rivers are miles of damaged or broken levees.  We have seen in the last few years what the failure of these river control measures can mean to those who live in the flood paths.  Homes and farms destroyed, cities ravaged by the water, and lives lost when the levees break.

Another suggestion is repair of the 50+ year old interstate highway system.

A third is fire prevention in the national forests by clearing brush, creating new fire roads, even reforestation of recently burned areas.

I slightly over 20 minutes I have come up with three possible uses for millions of unemployed people.  How many other possibilities are there?

This kind of work would seem to be a much more valuable stimulus both to the individuals and to the country, than just giving people money and saying “keep looking for work”.

I leave you with a few quotes by FDR – a man and president that lived through the worst times that our country has ever seen, and brought us out of it.

--“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”

--“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

--“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”

--“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

--“There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbol of the great human principle.”

--“To the Congress:

Unhappy events abroad have re-taught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.

Both lessons hit home.

Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

This concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the people of the nation as a whole.”

Have I said enough about OWS?

We have already established that protesters, in general, have the right to assemble and make their grievances heard.  But they don’t have the right to disturb others – the first amendment does not cover that.  And they certainly should obey all of the local laws, respect the neighborhoods where they meet, and the rights of the people, businesses, and property.  It’s hard to tell in all of the conflicting stories whether the protesters are following the rules, or not.  From reading this article, I’m not sure if the man described is innocent or guilty. 

 

In other cities, San Francisco comes to mind, the police are clearly in the wrong.  Embedded in this article is video of officers using pepper spray on a group of students (UC Davis) that are sitting on a curb.  I would love to know what the police were thinking – I mean, we live in a Rodney King world where everyone has the ability to capture video.  At the least it shows stupidity on the part of the officers, and at best…well, I can’t see how there was a best there.  The University of California is not the only school with protesters – OWS organizers say that over 120 colleges and universities have had some sort of affiliated protest.

But, we can feel slightly better given that the police aren’t above arresting one of their own, as shown here.  It’s not all police versus protesters in bloodbaths, nor people living in parks and fighting to use the restrooms of private businesses, there is a little fun going on.  One man thought of a way to project a “bat signal” onto, of all ironic places, the side of the Verizon building in NYC.   To help get into the spirit of Thanksgiving, an unemployed chef is planning a feast for the protesters.

 
We can see that these are real people making up the ranks of the protesters; they have a message and are willing to undergo hardship, deprivation, and even arrest (do beatings and pepper spray count?) to get their message heard – but, who is listening.   This report is about that topic, what comes next?  Millions  of people, all across the US are ready to do something, but I don’t think even they know what that should be.

I don’t see where this can go if it is nothing more than some general grumbling.  If these people can become something more, perhaps a separate political party, THEN things might begin to happen.  Gathering together just to complain as a group doesn’t seem to be working. 

DO SOMETHING!