Seven Overlooked Health Challenges

Most Americans are not healthy. The reasons are numerous, but I want to focus on seven of them today. First, data published in the February 2019 issue of Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders found that only 12.2% of the population is optimally metabolically healthy. 1 The percent of adults aged 20 and over that are overweight or obese is 73.6%. The percent of adults aged 20 and over with obesity is 42.5%. 2 In 2008, 107 million Americans—almost one out of every two adults aged 18 or older had at least 1 of 6 reported chronic illnesses: cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, asthma, cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). 3 

Censorship

The CDC posted this on January 7, 2022. "Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four." They would have been de-platformed during the last two years for Tweeting this information. 4

Censorship is wrong. It is only done when the truth needs to be hidden. If an idea is incorrect, let it see the light of day. For instance, a survey of more than 8,000 American adults had one in six Americans not sure if the world is round. Additionally, a survey of more than 2,000 Brazilian adults indicated that 7% reject the earth’s roundness. The flat-Earth community has its celebrities, music, merchandise – and a weighty catalog of pseudo-scientific theories. It has even been the subject of a Netflix documentary. 5 Nobody wants to force them off the internet or treat them differently. Nobody wants to censor them in any way, which is how things should be. I wonder how many people would change their minds after reading flat earth information. My guess is very few. However, if their data were infallible, we would all believe the earth is flat. Sadly, for them, there is too much evidence that the earth is round, and nothing is likely to change.

But big tech believes they can control the narrative. For example, in August of 2018, Google changed its search algorithm. It was dubbed the medic update because many alternative health websites lost as much as 50% of their web traffic overnight after the medic update. 6 It appears that Google began promoting certain health approaches over others. I bet you are unaware of Google’s algorithmic changes. Because of their algorithms, you may, unfortunately, be unaware of certain sites that could help you be healthier.

With Covid-19, things have gotten much worse. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube began taking down posts that did not go along with the government's and big pharma's information on the pandemic, Covid-19 treatment, the origin of the virus, and more. Strangely, some views that got people banned in the last year or two are now acceptable. Two examples are the CEO of Pfizer recently stating that two vaccines are ineffective and the idea that the virus could have come out of a lab is now acceptable as well. Sadly, much of the mainstream information has proven to be faulty. For instance, the vaccines did not stop the spread of SARS Cov2 as we were originally told. These two statements would more than likely have been censored last year. Unfortunately, it seems that the mainstream narrative is monolithic, and no one is to stand in its way. Instead, they label information they don't want you to hear as misinformation. For instance, on January 26th, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that the government and Big Tech companies have a role in censoring so-called "misinformation" and curating "accurate" information to the public. 7 The truth always prevails in the end, but it takes much longer with censorship. Luckily the powerful don't realize the problem is not misinformation; it's mistrust. Trust in social media and traditional media is at an all-time low. Trust in the U.S. federal government to handle problems is near-record low. Trust in the U.S.'s major institutions is within two percentage points of the all-time low. Many can't differentiate between morality and legality and are ignorant that the government's rules can be immoral, driven by corruption. Furthermore, as Gustave Le Bon famously said, “Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”

 Corporate Medical Care

For most of history, hospitals have been intended for the very poor, especially those who were mentally ill or blind or who suffered from contagious diseases such as leprosy. By their nature, they are extremely labor-intensive and expensive to keep running. Additionally, their costs are relatively fixed and not dependent on the number of patients served. As a result, hospitals initiated the first insurance policies primarily designed to generate steady demand for hospital services and guarantee a regular cash flow to remedy the problem. In A Short History of American Medical Insurance, John Steele Gordon lays it all out. In the 1950s, major medical insurance companies arose and continued the same type of coverage as the hospitals. As a result, cases that could be treated as outpatient became much more likely to be treated in the hospital—the most expensive form of medical care. Medical insurance paid the bill for services covered by the policy, whatever the bill was. As a result, there was little incentive for the consumer of medical services to shop around. With someone else paying, patients quickly became relatively indifferent to the cost of medical care. When Medicare and Medicaid came into being in the 1960s, they increased the number of people who could afford advanced medical care. As a result, the incomes of medical professionals doubled. Subsequently, state governments became the largest single source of funds for virtually every major hospital. Medical decisions are increasingly made for political rather than medical or economic reasons. We now have a near-perfect marriage of bureaucratic and corporate-run healthcare. 8

Bureaucratic Medical Care

The NIH, CDC, NIAID, and WHO have undue influence over politicians who do not understand medicine and illness. For example, Bill Gates, who has no medical training, funds much of the WHO, who promote vaccines that generate billions for Gates and the companies he is invested in. The alignment of profit and politics over health has become a disaster. Existing cheap drugs that are easily and affordably used in clinical settings are deemed ineffective by the government, while newer, more expensive medications are promoted. For example, hospitals get bonuses for prescribing Remdesivir while physicians have been fired for prescribing other, cheaper, and potentially superior medications. 

The Food Pyramid

Nutritionist Louise Light was tasked with crafting the federal government's recommendations on healthy eating. She wrote about it in her book A Fatally Flawed Food Guide, chronicling her experience. It explains how the food pyramid was not designed in the interest of health but on behalf of those in the processed foods industry-corn, wheat, and soy growers, and the companies that process them into cheap, low-quality foods. You can read more on my take on it here. 

She quotes in her book, "I vehemently protested that the changes if followed, could lead to an epidemic of obesity and diabetes -- and couldn't be justified on either health or nutritional grounds. To my amazement, I was a lone voice on this issue, as my colleagues appeared to accept the 'policy level' decision. Over my objections, the Food Guide Pyramid was finalized, although it only saw the light of day 12 years later, in 1992. Yet it appears my warning has come to pass." 9 Sadly, as Louise predicted, we have become a country of fat, sick people.

The Constant Barrage of Pharmaceutical Advertising

 If you watch daytime TV, you will see that most ads are for medications. In a paper published in 2019 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers estimated that medical marketing reached $30 billion in 2016, up from $18 billion in 1997. Spending on direct-to-consumer marketing climbed fastest, from $2 billion or 12 percent of total marketing to almost $10 billion and one-third of overall spending. Holly Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, claims the ads increase awareness of the benefits and risks of new medicines and encourage appropriate use of medicines. However, the American Medical Association in 2015 countered Ms. Campbell's statement by supporting banning direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs and stating doctors should not accept medical industry payments or gifts intended to influence prescribing habits. 10 Let's hope this happens.

The number of prescriptions filled for American adults and children rose a frightening 85 percent between 1997 and 2016. In 2017, fifty-five percent of Americans regularly took prescription medicines. 11 According to a 2018 Consumer Reports survey, more than half of Americans take four prescription medications. 12  

Medication is so pervasive we have forgotten that our lifestyles matter. In fact, nine out of ten ailments could be avoided with proper nutrition, exercise, and a few other basics. Most of us don't realize that we would be better off if we just got more sun, moved more, slept more, etc. Physicians are so busy they don't talk about their importance. Please don't stop taking your medications, but consider how you might change other aspects of your life to improve your health. Click here for my quick guide on how you can improve your health using lifestyle modifications. 

Screen Addiction

One-third of the global population aged 15 years and older engage in insufficient physical activities. Television viewing, video viewing, and cell phone usage positively correlate with an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. 13  Additionally, there is good evidence that TVs, computers, tablets, video games, and cell phones interfere with sleep in children and the young. 14 In 2010, the average time spent using media was seven hours, and the evidence raised concerns about media's effects on aggression, sexual behavior, substance use, disordered eating, and academic difficulties. 15 We would all be better off disconnecting from our gadgets, connecting with each other in person, and going outside.

Vegetable Oils

Heart disease rose from 12.5% in 1900 to 32% in 2010. Cancer deaths had gone from .8 % in 1911 to over 30% in 2010. Type 2 diabetes has gone up 2500% in the last 80 years. 16  The largest change in our diets has been vegetable oils, not processed carbohydrates (as bad as they are).

Our consumption of vegetable oils has gone up from almost zero to fifty pounds per person per year since 1909, and poultry consumption has gone up from four pounds to over eighty per person per year as well. Both are major sources of linoleic acid, the true villain in our diets. 17,18 

We are witnessing the same trend in China now. Obesity rates have gone from 1.2% in the 1900s to 40% today. In China, thirty years ago, rates of overweight and obesity were meager compared with the rest of the world; today, nearly half the Chinese population is overweight. Edible oil nearly tripled in China as the total daily energy from carbohydrates decreased by 18%. 18  I advise minimizing your exposure to them. You can read how in this post and this one.

Drug Abuse

The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics indicates an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the United States for 12 months ending in April 2021, increasing 28.5% from the 78,056 deaths during the same period the year before. 20   Nearly 92,000 persons in the U.S. died from a drug-involved overdose in 2020, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids. In addition, deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) continued to rise, with 56,516 overdose deaths reported in 2020. The chart below shows the alarming trend. 21

https://nida.nih.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

Conclusion

I could go on and on. Destroying our health are also light pollution, toxins, junk food, stress, loneliness, and lack of emotional support. Perhaps I will cover them in another post. Meanwhile, read this post for more information on what you can do to be healthier today.