If We're Healthy Today, How Come We're So Sick?
We have two contradictory statements at play in our narrative about health. We’re told that we’re healthier than ever, living longer and thanks to modern medicine, including vaccines, the plethora of drugs and advanced surgical procedures. There’s no doubt that if someone has more than 80% of their coronary arteries blocked, coronary bypass surgery can save their life. However, by the same token, that person may still be sick because the conditions in the body that led to the crisis are still there.
Then we get the opposite narrative: we’re in a health crisis. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that we’re living longer, so we assume we’re healthier. Medical care can keep people alive for an extended period, even when they are deathly ill. However, that is not being healthy. It’s the old adage, “Died at 60, but buried at 80.”
When it comes to life expectancy, even before Covid, it was starting to drop in America. This is what the CDC stated in 2009:
“For the first time in the history of man, children born after the year 2000 are not expected to live as long as their parents.”
The CDC also stated:
“The 0.9 year drop in life expectancy in 2021, along with a 1.8 year drop in 2020, was the biggest two-year decline in life expectancy since 1921-1923.”
So, years of improvement in longevity have reversed, and the figures for 2023 are static. However, life expectancy is not the whole picture. Medicine can extend the lives of people who are very sick, but how they live is a different story. In fact, chronic disease is at epidemic proportions both in the U.S. and Australia. Medicine––in its attempt to alleviate illness or prevent illness––is making us sicker.
Here are some brutal facts:
“Australia is experiencing an unsustainable disease burden – More than 11 million Australians suffer from chronic illnesses.
Some 87% of people over 65 have had at least 1 of 8 chronic illnesses. The vast majority of our health care dollars are spent treating chronic disease.”
Eight in ten (81.4%) people had at least one long-term health condition
One in two (49.9%) people had at least one chronic condition
Mental and behavioural conditions (26.1%), back problems (15.7%), and arthritis (14.5%) were the most common chronic conditions
Then there are things such as autoimmune disease, autism––almost unheard of 60 years ago––and neurological disorders. What is worrisome is that children are sicker than they’ve ever been. There may be fewer children with measles, but we have more chronic illnesses in children, and autism is at epidemic proportions.
So what is to be done? Doing one thing alone would save countless lives and reduce the degree of chronic disease.
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