Posts Tagged ‘declining health’

This is the generation that should be utilizing the rewards of all the medical advances. The upside is they are, and the downside is they are. This is putting boomers on the wrong side of illness.

Unraveling advances in care means taking a tough look at them. By dismantling the technology, we can see what we have.

Caution

The advances look like a very expensive proposition.

Prescription drugs

Routine physical exams

Preventive screenings

Immunizations

Diagnostic tests and laboratory work

This is what is called a senior fun fest. You get to go from doctor to doctor. It could be a form of entertainment. But you do not attain better health; you just get to use more pharmaceuticals, and aids. This is not the path that will help you cherish your senior years.

Choice

A study published in the American Journal of Medicine finds that seniors who drink fruit or vegetable juices at least three times a week lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by 76 percent. The researchers credit the high levels of polyphenols in juices as being responsible for these findings. The antioxidant action of polyphenols (found mainly in the skins of fruits and vegetables) is well noted in other studies.

This is the first generation exposed to a new way of eating. Also, it is the first generation that had a lifestyle that wasn’t conductive to physical activity. It is the first generation that was exposed to the newest medical technologies, and pharmaceuticals.

Problem

The problem is both in lifestyle, and the dependence on medicine to solve the problems that are the outcome of habits. This is a nation that has gotten use to pharmaceutical solutions. For baby boomers it is worrisome. Medications are harder to process when you are older.

The liver which is a filter has a harder time riding the body of toxins. Pharmaceuticals are toxins and chemical poisons. Our food supply with all the additives introduces foreign substances into our systems.

Proactive

In America proactive means getting every test under the sun for an early diagnosis. Well-being does not come from a test; it is a function of being fit. No testing or medication can make you healthy. The outlook looks bleak for a population has the largest food supply, and an arsenal of pharmaceuticals. 

The healthcare crises can’t be taken lightly. The boomers are on the wrong side of illness, but so are their children and grandchildren. The barometer of our health and the health of the nation will be seen in the doctor’s office, hospitals, adult residences, and our public schools

America’s health food straight from the junk food industry, from heart friendly migraines, vitamin waters, and sports drinks in pretty colors, calcium enriched, vitamin fortified, cholesterol lowering sweetened cereals, vitamin enhanced juices, and milk with added DHA/omega 3 fatty acids.  Comments from company dietitians have arguments for the life giving properties that go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

 America has a big appetite for these so-called functional foods and it shows. This represents $27 billion dollars in yearly sales.  It feeds the billion dollar healthcare industry, calorie dense food with no real nutritional value. The additives alone can keep the healthcare industry in business.  The energy boost is not from the extra B vitamins, but from the sugar high, and caffeine. Pumped full of fiber for digestive health, the processed food industry know what you need after devouring their concoctions.  It is a wonder that anything in your system is working.  Then they add a little gingko, for brain function or some chromium for appetite suppressant, to help us reach the pinnacle of health.

In America this is the industries idea of the path to better health.  However, with estimates of future growth ranging from 8.5 to 20 percent a year, maybe they are thinking it’s the path to better financial returns.  Many experts suggest reading the packaging labels, but better yet leave the box on the shelf.  The functional food industry makes claims, which  make you think it’s  the easy way to health.  The adage here is if it sounds too good to be true, it’s not.  Never forget that we are an unhealthy obese nation, using tons of fabricated food that may have gotten us to this point.

The generation that is a slam dunk for this industry is our children.  With a road map of nutrition taken from television, mass media, school lunches, and a cupboard filled with pre-package delights, healthcare costs should go through the roof .  The dangers to this generation is in the over consumption of foods laden with chemicals, and void of nutrition.   As our nations children devour sugar laden brightly colored cereals, and wash it down with a bubbly soft drink, we can be assured of a national health crisis.  We do not know enough about the long term effects of all the additives, genetically modified food, irradiation, and a diminished consumption of fresh foods.

 America’s health foods, straight from the functional food rely on our pocketbook, and we have extended an open ended invitation for them to empty the contents.

Alternative diets pertain to diets that are not conventional. A conventional diet is one that is practiced widely, and widely accepted. It is any eating that falls into what is broadly accepted by a majority of the group. An alternative diet is usually an unconventional choice, because the largest part of the group does not use that pattern of eating.

Alternative diet seems to be a term used for all diets that diverge from the common, and observed eating habits of the population. This is true the world over. The conventional diet that American’s consume is one of the most unnatural diets, because it is defined by marketing and industry, and it boils down to money. Nature works, and it is not accurate to think that technology can improve on the nutrition derived from the earth.

Alternative diets offers options to America’s conventional diet. Alternative diets in a way broadens our food choices, adding rather than subtraction from our diet. The majority of allopathic health care professionals point a weary eye toward this trend. They allow the responsibility of America’s diet to fall into the hands of agriculture, ranchers, FDA safety inspectors, and a whole new industry of industrialized farming and manufactured food, when they council patients on good eating patterns.

What few of us realize is that  America’s conventional diet is in a way the biggest alternative diet plan, away from a natural food supply. At no time in history has man fooled with the food supply as now. It is truly astounding that the American diet is considered natural, and most alternative diets are thought of as either extreme or detrimental to our health. While this may hold true because of the way American’s seem to go to the extreme when they approach something new, it’s usually with an all or nothing mentality. However, that does not negate the basic tenants of these proposed alternative ways of eating.

It is thought by many main stream health practitioners that many alternative diets limit food choices, and bring about nutritional deficiencies. The public is advised to tell their doctor about any alternative therapy which includes diet changes. People with chronic illness are advised many times not to start an alternative diet without first consulting a doctor, as if he is an nutritional expert.

The alternative food camp has made some rather dramatic claims with diets helping patients heal from many conditions including cancer. According to mainstream medical press, there is little scientific evidence for this. Most doctors recommend a well-balanced diet. The best quote is moderation in all things. Here lies the problem, there is no moderation in the American diet. The reason is simple, just about everything considered standard American diet fare should not be eaten for health reasons.

The proof is in the statistics, we are in a national health crises with at least 2 million Americans subcoming to heart disease, Cancer, diabetes, strokes and auto-immune disorders. Half of Americans are over weight, and a quarter of the children. With this is coming an alarming rise in chronic conditions that the world has never experience before. The remarkable part is this is not due to famine, or a starving population. We have advanced medical technology, and over the top sanitation. The only place to shift the blame is on America’s conventional diet.

America’s conventional diet is costing us $1.4 trillion dollars a year on healthcare. America spends more money than any other country on healthcare, yet we are not the top in life expectancy, or considered the healthiest people on the planet. The major degenerative diseases are increasing in all age groups. What brought us to this point is America’s technology as applied to the food industry.

America’s conventional diet has two major problems, it supplies us with toxic additives, while insuring that we are malnourished. The former Surgeon General Dr. C.  Everett Koop said in 1988 in the Surgeon General Report that the American diet was the cause of approximately two-thirds of the deaths due to disease in America. We are over 20 years from that report, and we have seen to it that we will produce more foods that are detrimental to our health. While at the same time we have increased our reliance of these foods.

The question that we keep asking is alternative diets safe, and we can answer that we know America’s conventional diet is unsafe. We have a tendency to blame overeating, taking in too many calories as the main reason. That is not to say overeating is not partly at fault, but it is not without a scientific reason why it is so widespread. It isn’t because of the over abundance of food. The over abundance is not in food, but food like substances.   If we were surrounded by all types of vegetables as far as the eye can see, we would not be overeating. However, when your diet manipulates your appetite, and turns off the signals that let you know you are full you are going to overeat.

There are very few so called alternative diets than can cause the havoc of the standard American way of eating. We eat a diet that is made up of foods high in the wrong fats, carbohydrates that are not in their natural form, agricultural practices that are stripping the value of our crops,  all puting our health at risk. We have a conventional diet that is the opposite of what nature intended. Most of the alternative diets recommend organic fruits and vegetables, dramatic reductions of chemical laden foods. They tout healthy fats, with whole grain carbohydrates, usually nothing more extreme than America’s way of eating. Which can consist of a fist full of potato chips, some ice cold soft drink, white hamburger buns with bromide, and a flame cooked hormone, antibiotic pumped hamburger. That is a good home cooked meal, beats pre-packaged chemically designed entrees straight from the freezer. Top it all off with a sugar laden treat, that may have blue, green, and red sprinkles, now you are talking America Fare.