[lit-ideas] Re: Life or death
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 11:39:12 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
-----Original Message-----
>From: Judith Evans <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Apr 5, 2007 10:54 AM
>To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Life or death
>
>(Notes to Irene) the cause of my cysts/lumps remains unknown;
>probably,
>though, it was hormonal. Not hereditary, probably. My brother's
>diabetes
>is hereditary, as most late-onset diabetes is.
Late-onset diabetes is almost exclusively caused by excess weight. In fact,
it's no longer even called late-onset because so many children are getting it.
Children are now approaching the overweight/obese statistics of adults, which
is especially tragic because they have that many more years to live as
diabetics, which is to say, they'll be infirm longer and die younger.
If he'd realised
>that he
>might have been able to live the kind of somewhat restricted life
>that
>*might* have avoided it. (The circumstances
>under which family members tend to get diabetes make that
>unclear.)
Not really. Excess weight coupled with too little exercise leads first to
insulin resistance, then to diabetes. As far as restricted life, I don't know
what you mean by that. He'd have to eat more low calorie food, like fruits and
vegetables and exercise more? That could be very liberating depending on how
you look at it.
>
>I have free mammograms in the local mobile screening unit and
>free cervical
>smears at local clinics.
>
>Tests do make a difference.
>
Possibly. High quality studies show that they don't make any difference at all
in ultimate mortality rates. Much more effective is prevention. My neighbor
who was diagnosed last summer with breast cancer is overweight and sedentary.
She told me that her daughter went vegetarian and got sick from it. Is that a
way to justify meat eating or what? She feels deprived that she "can't have"
sweets anymore.
>But let's say you're right and we are all to blame for every
>degenerative
>illness/disease
I read a while back that anthropologists have done studies of Paleolithic
humans through fossils. They found that Paleolithic people into their 60's had
no disease of any kind. No osteoporosis, no heart disease, no cancer, not even
cavities. They basically did not get old. But, they also of necessity had to
exercise like athletes every day, had no refined anything, no agriculturally
raised anything, sunlight all day long, no dairy, and on and on. That's what
the body is designed to do, and the difference between what it's designed to do
and what it does becomes degenerative disease. Can we live that way? No,
obviously not and we wouldn't want to. Can we do better than we're doing?
Clearly yes.
(do I get exempted because my osteoarthritis was
>caused
>by falls?);
Osteoarthritis is possibly genetic. It's also affected by (I sound like a
broken record) Vitamin D. Vitamin D not only builds bone, it builds cartilage.
It also builds muscle, countervailing the sarcopenia (muscle wasting) of
aging. I read too that the anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen, naproxen,
Celebrex, while inhibiting the enzymes that break down cartilage, also inhibit
the enzymes that build up cartilage. Therefore people who take these drugs are
causing more inflammation than they're solving. I've never heard that
osteoarthritis is caused by falls. Arthritis, not osteoarthritis, is caused by
injury to joints. Also, falls have a reason. Balance could be an issue, weak
muscles and so on. Those are separate, solvable problems.
does that justify the US system? (No.)
>
We have a terrible system. We need better healthcare, definitely, but no
healthcare system is going to undo the fundamental causes of most illness.
And now I really have to get going. See ya later.
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