[lit-ideas] Re: Life or Death
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 19:40:22 -0400 (EDT)
-----Original Message-----
>From: Judith Evans <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Apr 6, 2007 3:33 PM
>To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Life or Death
>
>
>
>"Arthritis" is the umbrella term, osteoarthritis is a type of
>arthritis. On injury as a cause of osteoarthritis (not the only
>cause) see
>
>
According to http://www.medicinenet.com/osteoarthritis/article.htm Primary OA
is caused by aging or "repetitive use of the joints over the years" and
possible heredity. Okay, so I guess that can qualify as injury. "Secondary
osteoarthritis is caused by another disease or condition ... obesity, repeated
trauma or surgery to the joint structures, abnormal joints at birth (congenital
abnormalities), gout, diabetes and other hormone disorders.
"Obesity causes osteoarthritis by increasing the mechanical stress on the
cartilage. In fact, next to aging, obesity is the most powerful risk factor for
osteoarthritis of the knees. The early development of osteoarthritis of the
knees among weight lifters is believed to be in part due to their high body
weight. Repeated trauma to joint tissues (ligaments, bones and cartilage) is
believed to lead to early osteoarthritis of the knees in soccer players.
Interestingly, recent studies have not found an increased risk of
osteoarthritis in long-distance runners." [I thought it was reduced OA of the
hips but apparently it's the hips and knees.]
So, injury it is. People who type a lot are prone to OA of the distal joints
of the fingers. I don't think of typing as particularly injurious or stressful
but it is repetitive.
>
>
>> Physical therapy maybe. Beyond that, what can they do?
>
>the physio I had not only reduced the pain, it stopped it. And my
>cartilage
>stopped creaking as I moved, which is a nice bonus.
>
The original question was that doctors can offer only medication or surgery, to
which we added physical therapy. Physical therapy is the body's self healing.
Medical care is therefore very limited in what it can offer, and much of what
it does offer can cause more problems than it resolves; the fact that the so
called NSAIDS actually inhibit cartilage production, leading to a worsening of
OA, for example. Likewise, in my opinion the worst of the worst is when
children desperately need fathers and instead they're put on drugs to calm them
down. That's driven by pharma. But so many other conditions are also treated
by modern medicine counterproductively.
>> Diagnostic testing of the sick doesn't help them get well.
>
>True. But it does (with luck) show what's wrong with them and
>what treatment
>would be appropriate.
>
Again, medication or surgery. Also, medical care is an industry. Truly, if
people weren't sick, how would doctors make money? They paid tens if not
hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical school. Imagine if most people
did what it takes to have a cholesterol of 150 and triglycerides of 75 and
blood pressure of 110/60 and were fit to boot. Who would need a doctor? Who
would need pharma? It's a collusion between consumers and the healthcare
industry that work hand in glove with the food industry that says, eat those
greasy calories, look how irresistible they are, and sit on your butts, and
then pay us to give you a drug to keep you going. Unfortunately, when the
poor, like everybody else, are fat and sedentary, they can't pay for the drugs
and they die sooner. Our healthcare is not only unequal, it's fundamentally,
structurally out of whack, upside down, inside out and backwards.
>But perhaps not: not all who get diabetes are
>obese, not all who are obese, get diabetes.
Exceptions are not useful for public health policy.
>Obsessive
>prophylactic dieting and exercise may not in fact be helpful
>for people at low risk of diabetes.
>
Obsessive dieting is an emotional disorder. Dieting is a short term condition
and it doesn't work. Permanent lifestyle changes are necessary. Permanent
lifestyle changes are not only not happily embraced, they're summarily
dispatched with a remote control and a second helping of fried mozzarella
sticks.
>> Medical care keeps people alive despite their best efforts to
>keep themselves sick.
>
>epileptics? people with cerebral palsy? people with lung cancer
>not caused by smoking? people with hereditary heart defects?
>non-obese people who get breast cancer? people who live in
>polluted environments? Coal miners? Asbestos workers? (and so
>on).
>
Those are the people medical care should be aimed at. They are the
overwhelming minority of cases. Most everybody else is sick from the major
lifestyle driven degenerative changes. Half of the other illnesses on your
list are environmental. Rather than put the emphasis on treating these people
(while certainly treating them to the extent it's possible, which isn't much),
why not put the emphasis on finding cleaner, safer ways to produce energy, for
that matter, cleaner safer ways to produce food? And create jobs in the
process. Realistically, it's all fantasy.
>> People like Tony Snow are not helped significantly by medical
>care, which is to say, his >cancer is still prominent and getting
>worse, and presumably he's getting the best care >available.
>
>I don't know about his kind of cancer, also I don't know what you
>mean by "significantly".
>
>
Well, he's 51 and he's dying. Seems what medical care has done for him is not
terribly significant, by my standards anyway.
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