One Way to Fix the Healthcare System
This article in the LA Times is all about diabetes. Did you know that about half of Americans have diabetes or prediabetes? HALF! You can read the piece for more of the specifics but I pulled out the ones I felt important:
- The number of newly diagnosed cases of diabetes among children and teens under the age of 18 each year is 132,000 with only 17,900 being type 1.
- 61% of U.S. adults diagnosed with diabetes are obese.
- 41% of U.S. adults diagnosed with diabetes got less than 10 minutes of “moderate or vigorous” exercise at work, during their leisure time and as a means of transportation.
- 16% of U.S. adults diagnosed with diabetes are smokers; 35% used to smoke but quit.
- The total cost of caring for Americans with diabetes in 2012 is $254 billion. It averages out to $13,700 per diabetes patient, which is 2.3 times higher than for people who don’t have diabetes.
For one second let’s be realistic. Forget being political correctness. Let’s not throw around the “shaming” word. I am not trying to mock anyone. A very small part of being a type 2 diabetic comes from genetic predisposition. It is mostly a disease of lifestyle. What we eat is killing us. These numbers above are astronomical. We cannot fix the healthcare system until some responsibility is placed back on the patient. End of story. I am not saying this will be easy. I am just being honest.
“Personal responsibility” is a joke in the face of the American food environment. You can out-think your autonomic processes only in the short term. Get into an argument with your body and you will eventually lose that argument.
Like it or not, the only way to address this at the society level is to tightly regulate the production and marketing of food products. Nobody has ever done that effectively, so good luck with that.
I have a business card that says “Eat Shit and Die!” With the usual particulars to the practice.
If a patient is incensed, I don’t want them, if they laugh, I can work with them whether or not
they change their “bad” habits.
Although with the ivory tower b****rds wanting to hold me accountable for people’s behaviors
I might have to rethink this.
I talked myself blue in private practice trying to get patients to exercise.
Now they waddle into the ER for pain pills for their knee-grinding, lumbar-squashing obesity, and I just say “nope” and send them back to their PCP. It’s very sad, and sadder still that we encourage and subsidize it in so many ways.
But it’s so much easier to blame the doctors!
There is cornstarch added to Gerber baby food. Do not blame the victims here. We are addicted to added carbs from almost birth. Here is where my usual libertarian stance breaks down; added sugars by any name MUST be regulated. Doug, have you tried to eat a no-added-sugar diet? I have, and it is very, very difficult.
https://www.gerber.com/products/product/gerber-2nd-foods-chicken-chicken-gravy
At a farmers market I asked the vendor what the difference between the human grade ingredient dog cookies and the other cookies was and she said sugar. I asked my vet niece if dogs are any worse at handling sugar than humans and she said no.
Still can’t find foods prepared for humans without sugar added, and just can’t understand why the public hasn’t caught on.
Ultimately the cause of most deaths is stupidity.
Unfortunately the farmers markets where I live now don’t have dog cookies.