Should We Question Our Assumptions About Health and Longevity?

One thing about life is that we should always question our assumptions. We should check that we are on the right path regarding our health and well-being. Medicine forever changes what it says people need to be healthy. For instance, the statin drugs prescribed for decades to lower cholesterol are now being rejected by many medical doctors. In the past, they were touted as a panacea for heart disease. Many patients found, however, that statins gave them other health problems.

I have seen many patients in the past 51 years as a chiropractor. People have come from all walks of life: top executives, the unemployed, drug addicts, thin people, others obese, some on the verge of death and still others with world-class fitness.

I started to observe that people who appeared to exhibit severe health issues and looked to be on the way out kept surviving and living beyond my expectations. Others, who were in tip-top shape, seemingly with the flip of a coin, were suddenly deathly ill. It didn't seem to follow the existing health and longevity paradigm, and I realized we can't assume anything.

Smoking

One of the things that I found annoying was the narrative concerning smoking. As an ex-smoker, I am not a fan of cigarette smoke around me, and I don't think it's a particularly healthy habit. However, I always felt that perhaps we were not getting the whole story. For one, the label on cigarette packets stating that "Smoking Causes Lung Cancer" is erroneous. Otherwise, everyone who smoked would die of lung cancer. It turns out that only 6% of smokers die of lung cancer. Perhaps the labelling needs to be "Smoking Increases Your Risk Of Lung Cancer."