Statistics on health can drive a person a little nuts if they focus on them too closely. If you are intent on not getting sick with one of the common illnesses that has touched all of our lives at one time or another, try not to read too much information about aging diseases, it’ll kill ya! I am willing to bet the money that is spent on studies to determine death rates caused by the age associated diseases would be enough to find a cure for one or two of them.
We certainly seem to be our own worst enemies when it comes to following preventive medicine and taking care of ourselves. The majority of us do not get enough exercise; we make poor lifestyle choices by smoking and overdoing it with alcohol and “light” colored chocolate, not to mention anything from a vending machine or corner store that we consume. Red flags abound yet we continue to make lousy choices that affect our longevity and health. The entire western world needs a wakeup call, specifically for those who eat food from grocery stores and restaurants. Surely, we all know someone who would qualify.
Similar to the ancients in many cultures, today, western societies are quite plainly eating their way to their graves. Perhaps with just a bit of information, combined with still MORE statistics and quality research from the best medical science has to offer, people can begin to level the playing field with some rudimentary changes. Living a longer and healthier life does not need to be a game of roulette where our health is a game of chance, at least we can turn the odds in our favor. Since the mid twentieth century, there have been eight main diseases demonizing humankind. All of them practically unheard of until the start of the last century.
Being born into that select group of very special, and might I add, charming and attractive boomers between the years 1946 to 1964, age is creeping up on me and the rest of the gang and most of us are doing whatever we can to squeeze a few extra years out of the original contract. Therefore, it was time to look into prolonging the life span.
There is certainly a lot of contrary data offered and this is partially why confusion exists concerning our health and how we can sustain what we have left of it. How often have you heard people say they are going to live their lives however, they want and the heck with the risk since the inconsistencies out there are too frustrating to deal with?
When you take a look at some of the research being conducted, you would be mystified by the number of special interest groups sponsoring “research” studies into their own products. At first blush, this sounds fine until you realize the consuming public is buying into these reports and these interested sponsors know this. For instance, there is the Dairy Council of America funding a study on the effect of dairy foods on asthma and allergy patients?
There is a name for this type of research but out of a sense of politeness, I will refer to it here as “trash” science. These groups begin with project theories to verify and they find a means to influence the information so it can be confirmed. Much of this material winds up on the Internet where average folks find it, read it and take it to the bank. Always check the references and see who funds a particular study.
Additionally, I began observing people that had come through adversity from personal illness through innate methods of treatment and naturopathic cures, people who triumphed over disease by traditional medicines and could confirm these remedies. Modern medical efforts have a place certainly but they are not the only means by which people are cured of illnesses. Not everyone requires medication and surgical intervention in order to get well. A large quantity of people e believe the way to healing and good health can be achieved by eating proper foods, getting adequate nutrition, water exercise and recuperative respite. Through intense research and sorting out proper scientific data, personal testimony and general common intellect, it was discovered that when the body is provided these five components in correct quantities and formulation, nearly any issue could be alleviated.
The common perception is the population is enjoying an extended life span since statistics have shown a rise over the past one hundred years or so. However, the unfortunate truth is that due to these eight fatal diseases growing so quickly, our lives are shorter; we just take longer to pass away. Technology is doing its part to keep us upright but what kind of health are we in? How important are those few extra months or years if we are bedridden and out of conscious thought? Maybe kept alive by machines?
These Diseases Are Coming From Somewhere
When you are younger, you believe that aging is a normal process that everyone goes through equally. You get older, contract one of the deadly age related illnesses and die a slow death. How could this be the case when one realizes that the initial case of heart disease was first diagnosed in 1912 and now it is the primary killer of the American people? Even in the early twentieth century, heart disease was considered to be an extremely unlikely cause of death. Heart disease a hundred years later kills four times as many women in the United States as breast cancer. Three hundred thousand individuals die annually of heart disease and their first indication of it is sudden mortality. How on earth could a disease rise from obscurity to a number one killer in such short order?
Then there is cancer. Three percent of the American population succumbed to cancer a century ago and today, nearly one third of us will pass on due to cancer. In 1909, an edition of the Text, Principles and Practices of Medicine, only featured fifteen pages to cancer. There was no discussion of prostate or breast cancer and colon cancer had two sentences devoted to it. Compare those numbers to the 1994 journal of Principle of Internal Medicine, where a total of one hundred seventy four pages concerned this disease.
One hundred years ago stroke took very few lives and yet these days it is the third deadliest of all diseases In the United States.
Alzheimer’s disease was not even on the medical radar until 1907. Currently more than forty percent of the over eighty five age group suffers from Alzheimer’s and many more with dementia.
In only the last generation diabetes has risen by a stunning six hundred percent! In an average year, diabetes will kill double the number of women in the U.S. as breast cancer.
More than forty million United States citizens are plagued with some variety of painful arthritis or osteoporosis. If you were to quiz any women in the U.S. what disease she was most frightened of, her answer would likely be breast cancer. That said, more women die each year as a result of fractured hips than of three forms of cancer united – [breast, cervix and uterus].
Lastly, the autoimmune diseases / disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome, Epstein Barr virus, lupus, fibromyalgia, and AIDS, are all placed in one group. A group of illnesses that are developing at incredible speed today in North America. Several decades ago, these diseases barely had a name and physicians simply told patients complaining of them that it was psychosomatic. The cruel indicators of these autoimmune illnesses are right now causing untold distress to the health and well being of thousands in our Western societies. As far as AIDS is concerned, people are dying in startling numbers with little sign of let up.
There is no doubt that the health of our society has somehow been terribly compromised and it is occurring in our own generation. What is really scary is we seem to portray this medical calamity as a normal part of aging – a culling of the herd if you will. Nothing could be further from truth! This is not normal by any means and degenerative illness should never be considered part of life or death. As a society we have been coerced into thinking this is all natural to our existence as humans. We have been programmed to look at these diseases as the new reality of contemporary life and death.
The True Reality Is These Diseases Are Needless
This is the heartbreaking truth. When a natural disaster happens, several hundred people perish and the media picks up on it for days. A million individuals perish from heart disease or half a million from cancer and one would think we would put up more of an uproar. This is the equivalent of a natural disaster killing hundreds of people each hour of every day, every single month of every year, one year after another…people dying in hordes from illness.
Are you making plans to live for a long time? How old do you hope to become? Seventy? Eighty? Maybe Ninety to Hundred or More? Factor in the risk of illness along the way and recalculate. Say you choose eighty years. Add a further ten years to that number. Imagine living to ninety years of age or more, free from pain and the disease we believe is part of that aging process.
These days the average life span is about seventy six years of age and then some. Almost eighty years for women and close to seventy three for men. There are places in the world where 100 years of age is not unusual. We just now are beginning to discover their secrets for longevity.
In current times, the chances of passing away prior to the age of forty are actually pretty minute. However, after the age of forty you enter in the twilight zone for age related illnesses. Just how fatal can these diseases be? More than four fifths of us will perish due to an age related disease. Truly disheartening when so many of these much of the time are perfectly avoidable.
There is absolutely something wrong when what is responsible for killing us has only begun to rear its ugly head in the past several generations and we do not need to sit idly by while death stalks us. There are things we can do to fight back while medical science continues to investigate endlessly. Searching for cures to these diseases that seem like they should have been found by now given the resources poured into medical research. We simply cannot afford to wait for science to bail us out on this one. Not if we plan to live for as long as possible.
As mentioned earlier, food, nutrition, water, exercise and adequate rest are the chief methods to celebrating our best possible health and well being for an extended life. We have the ability to control what happens with our health if we follow some simple principals for survivability. Perhaps we will live many more years than we ever thought were possible.
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Theories, Health And Aging, Longevity
Mon, Mar 15, 2010
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Theories, Health And Aging, Longevity