Beating Alzheimer’s by 2025
Health and Human Services officials gathered recently with other medical experts and stated that the No. 1 goal in the early draft of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act is to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s by 2025. Good for them. I love these proclamations that mean nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I wish they were on to something but they are not. Why? Because, once again, they are afraid to make the tough decisions and too much money from third parties is at stake. Here is what I mean. What if our diet is the main culprit in the cause of Alzheimer’s? Sound crazy? Well, having Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus increases your chances of getting Alzheimer’s by 147 times. We know that DM2 is basically all diet related. Here is a link to a neurosurgeon named Jack Kruse MD which you may like and explains a little better. He is very detailed but you get the idea. If you read the first link above in the USA Today it talks about how we need to spend more and more money to get a new drug for this terrible disease. Correct me if I am wrong but all drugs we have had for AD so far have basically sucked. We do need to fix this problem. The number of cases of dementia is likely to triple by 2050 with an annual cost to soar to $1 trillion. The illness costs the Medicare and Medicaid programs $130 billion a year. If this problem is truly diet related, however, and due to high inflammatory foods (too many carbs, too many calories, too many polyunsaturated fatty acids, a poor Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio, too many grains, too much or any wheat, too much high fructose corn syrup, etc) then no drug will really ever be the answer. So instead of having a campaign to change our ways we will allow Americans to get fatter, get DM, get AD and then spend more and more money to find an allusive medication…..all of which benefits Big Pharma. Sounds crazy, right?
Hurrah for this article! I couldn’t agree more. But of course, there is absolutely no incentive in this country to investigate how what we eat affects our health. As a matter of fact, there is disincentive because big industry (US Agriculture Association, the Dairy Farmers, big business such as Tyson, and of course big pharma) have too much to loose. Most docs have seen plenty of evidence that shows our American diet contributes to migraines, asthma, ADHD, heart disease, cancer, obesity, diebetes, dementia and more. And I would be willing to put money on a bet that fibromyalgia is completely caused by diet.
If a family doc could get paid to sit down and talk to patients for one hour every month over a one year period, we could affect disease prevention. But with noone willing to pay for talk, only procedures, we will continue to suffer with disease, and healthcare spending will continue to escalate as we develop more impressive drugs and quick fixes to extend the last few years of our sorry lives. It is sad and I hope every day that there will still be a future for family medicine. (If not, I will open a bar in the Carribean and do my wellness coaching from behind the counter!)
Might it be that while diet matters, that it’s way we have evolved as a Country? Technology, work hours, with decadence thrown in is very different from the hunting, gathering men, and the farmers of old. I wonder if people will ever be convinced that they can really change the outcomes because ignorance is bliss. Why do the hard thing and pay attention? Just a thought.