Nov
18
By Paolo von Schirach
November 18, 2011
WASHINGTON – Two separate news items illustrate the incredible waste in the way common diseases are treated and health care is provided in America. The first one indicated that regular exercise can heal diseased leg arteries, a common occurrence among (mostly sedentary) elderly Americans. Right now the prevailing ”cure” is to insert stents in the arteries to reestablish normal blood flow. So, big business for stent manufactures and big business for physicians who perform the procedure. But it is now demonstrated that vigorous exercise cures the disease in most cases. No need for stents, no procedures. This will not work in all cases, of course. But in most instances it would take care of a medical condition until now treated only through expensive procedures. Imagine, this: no drugs, no stents, zero cost for yourself and for your insurance, just good exercise and “you are cured”. Novel concept.
Diet and exercise prevents or delays the onset of prostate cancer
On an unrelated topic, it would appear that good diet and exercise does help prevent prostate cancer in many men or at least delay both its onset and progression. In other words, healthy habits can help avoid the need for prostate surgeries, radiation therapies and what not. These routine remedies are invasive and in the aggregate they cost America a huge amount of money, because prostate cancer is very common. Let’s be clear, the article did not indicate that exercise and nutrition would eliminate prostate cancer. But it did say that they would greatly diminish its incidence and progression up to a point that an elderly man with a slow advancing, non aggressive tumor, may just safely ignore it. He will eventually die of something else.
Good life style keeps people healthy
These two stories do not mean that we can just have people go to the gym and to the health food store while we close down hospitals and medical care facilities. Of course not. But it does mean that we could dramatically cut the demand for expensive and often invasive medical services that are now routinely provided to an increasingly unhealthy population by making the same population much healthier.
Add to these two stories the cost of treating the explosion of type two diabetes, a chronic condition mostly related to bad diet and obesity. Adopt and follow a healthy diet and your type two diabetes will be gone. No more (expensive) contraptions to constantly test your blood sugar level. No more insulin. You are healed! Take good care of your body and you will be healthy again, while saving vast amounts of money.
This “wellness rather than therapy” approach is a matter of common sense and good fiscal policy. Health care costs in America are about double those of other rich nations. Is it because we get better care? Not really. US health statistics, from child mortality to life expectancy, are average at best. The extravagant costs have to do with a system that rewards doctors financially for doing more rather than less to a population that needs everything done to them because relatively few people practice healthy habits.
Growing costs
And this is no detail. Another recent news story indicated that doctors will now recommend children to be tested for high cholesterol. Children with high cholesterol? Yes, because bad diet starts early in America and children develop problems normally associated with older people. Treating children with high cholesterol means adding more to the national medical bill. And to this dismal picture let’s add the far larger impact on total health care costs of more and more elderly Americans in poor shape. Keeping seniors in good physical conditions should be a matter of good public health and a matter of good fiscal policy. If we do not reduce health care costs for seniors, (Medicare), this country will be in a perpetual fiscal crisis.
Prevention would improve quality of life, reduce costs
In the end all this may sound far too simplistic. And yet most serious doctors would agree that regular physical exercise and healthy nutrition can do wonders to maintain good health and to preserve it even well into old age. Provided that it is kept in good working conditions, the human body does not have to progressively disintegrate. Chronic diseases can be prevented. Following simple wellness practices would improve quality of life for all, while it would reduce demand for health services and therefore overall cost. “Do you mean that we can stay healthy without fancy technology, miracle drugs or other super advanced remedies?” Yes, this is exactly it.
This is not an argument against the value of the medical profession. Medical science is important and useful. There will always be real disease in need of treatment. But if America learns and practices “wellness”, we can greatly reduce the number of sick people in need of care. Healthy people will enjoy a higher quality of life and the nation will save literally hundreds of billions every year.
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