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Most
of us are resigned to lead ordinary lives. Secure in the daily
routine of job, commute and the week's laundry, there's no reason to
question the balance. There are those who dream of something more:
wild secret fantasies of intigue and adventure in some faraway exotic
paradise, indulging in the pleasures of life while riding off into
the crimson-red sunset. And then there are the select few who live
their dreams.
Most
of us are resigned to the predictable future of growing old with
everyone else, with its attendant consequences of Alzheimer's,
incontinence and nursing homes. There will be 1 million American
centenarians by the year 2040. If your goal is to soar with the
eagles--to reach for and grasp a full active life well beyond
100---then you must seek information and act on it before your time
is up. And you must realize there is more to this game than diet
alone, especially when vested financial interests do not share your
goals.
Since
the Industrial Revolution beginning in 1848, Western society
has fundamentally altered the biological basis of human existence
(diet and environment) from which health arises. Chronic disease is
now considered normal. Well people are disappearing.
U.S.
Health Care
Despite
its armamentarium of powerful drugs and aggressive treatment
strategies, conventional medicine demonstrates scant progress against
the growing specter of resistant infections, autoimmune disorders and
environmental afflictions of unknown origin.
Heart
attack patients, after undergoing heroically complex surgical
procedures, are served the same abysmal foods that brought them to
the hospital in the first place. President Bush was served steak on
the night of his heart scare. U.S. soldiers returning from the
Persian Gulf War were welcomed back with first-class medical
treatment, ice cream and hot dogs. America has the world's most
expensive health-care system, yet we rank 16th in life expectancy. No
intervention with drugs or surgery can erase a lifetime of self
abuse.
Each
year, nearly 400,000 Americans undergo heart bypass surgery for
blocked coronary arteries. Most patients believe surgery will correct
their problem. However, it is an immutable law of biology that a
disease cause dby a detrimental diet cannot be corrected by surgery.
We ignore this principle at our peril.
Following
heart bypass surgery, 50% of bypassed arteries clog up
within 5 years. Following balloon agioplasty, 33% of dilated arteries
clog up within 4--6 months. Each heart bypass operation
replaces only 6 inches of an arterial system, but leaves the other
60,000 miles of total length. In most cases, these procedures do not
improve survival.
By
treating symptoms with drugs or surgery while ignoring the
underlying cause (diet), treatment often becomes an expensive
exercise in futility. During recent doctor strikes in Canada,
England, Israel and America, the death rates actually fell. Dubious
and mercenary procedures lie at the core of America's health-care
crisis.
In
1985, the National Research Council recommended that U.S. medical
schools include more courses in nutrition. Since that time, the
number of medical schools offering nutrition courses has dropped.
U.S. medical schools receive large endowments and grants from
pharmaceutical companies.
The
Practice of Medicine
Most
physicians practice early detection or treatment to the
exclusion of prevention. Doctors know that a 10% fat diet can prevent
or reverse degenerative disease, yet few make this recommendation.
There are several possible reasons:
Insurance coverage - there is no
realistic reimbursement for
nutritional counseling.
Tradition - doctors are not
comfortable requiring behavioral
change.
Compliance fear - doctors are afraid
people won't do anything
if the changes are too drastic.
Peer review fear - doctors don't
wish to practice differently
from their colleagues.
Expectations - patients expect
doctors to perform procedures,
but successful prevention means no procedures performed.
Lack of nutrition education - most
physicians receive less than 3
hours of nutrition training during medical school.
High-tech training - MDs trained in
high-tech procedures think
nutrition is beneath them. Real doctors don't talk about food.
Personal eating habits - fewer than
20% of doctors have
improved their own diets.
Economics - moderate fat
reommendation (20-30% fat) insure the
continuing supply of cancer and heart disease patients. Patients
generate profit.
Prevention
The
healthiest, longest-lived people on earth have no access to
modern medicine. They practice prevention. Profound social changes
will occur when it's no longer considered normal to die young. The
medical profession, pesticide industry, cattle ranchers and general
public all share the same philosophical aspirations for a better
world. There is, however, disagreement over the best way to get
there.
During
the 1950s, dentists became so successful in promoting
prevention (dental hygiene) that their efforts resulted in fewer
cavities, fewer patients and a tougher environment to make a living.
Several dental schools have since closed. This economic lesson is not
lost on the medical profession.
Dietary
Advice
Despite
their education and training, physicians, chiropractors,
dietitians and government scientists have a track record of dying
from the same degenerative diseases as everyone else, because they
have the same diet as everyone else. You can do better.
Expert
nutritional advice carries an air of reasonableness that often
masks deeper, more vexing issues. Everyone, it seems, has a different
opinion. At a time when contradictory studies and dueling authorities
on both sides are the norm, it's little wonder why controversy
prevails.
The
airwaves are now awash in oat bran commercials, claims,
counterclaims and hype--as are we. Wading through the muddled piles
gets pretty slippery when droppings of nutritional nuggets lie thick
on the ground. The best defense is to realize that dietary advice
originating from government agencies and prestigious national
institutions is, in fact, economically-driven. As always, the devil
is in the details, not the headlines.
Disinformation
Powerful
special interests often influence national organizations.
Protect yourself by recognizing corporate tentacles, tactics and
marketing practices. Do not gracefully surrender your youth by
falling prey to deception. To beat the system, don;t play by the
company rules.
Major
industries know quite well that contentious issues are often
adjudicated in the court of public opinion. Corporate public
relations firms manipulate public opinion using various deceptive
practices. Corporations often hire "third party" scientists to argue
their case before the media. They represent themselves as independent
and objective institutions, yet their positions closely follow those
of their sponsors:
In
1990, the National Dairy Board hired a PR firm to promote growth
hormones in milk.
The
California Department of Agriculture claims that counties with
the highest exposure to pesticides have the lowest breast cancer
rates. This position conflicts with current evidence.
The
Ad Council's Partnership for a Drug-Free America receives funding
from the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries. Consequently
their public-service ads ingore America's real drug problems, caused
by legal prescription drugs.
Monsanto
Corporation, which ranks among the 10 worst polluters,
recently joined Earth Day USA and Business for Social
Responsibility.
The
American Council on Science and Health (funded by Burger King)
promotes fast foods.
Dietary
Components
The
U.S. holds the dubious distinction of consuming more meat than
any other nation, with 70% of its protein from animal sources. Less
fortunate nations forego that luxury and their low chronic disease
rates contrast sharply with ours.
There's
a parallel between our nation and the Roman Empire: the
Romans ate themselves to death. Emperor Claudius I regularly served
banquets of port-stuffed sea urchins, roast deer, jellyfish, flamingo
and parrot. The Roman upper class suffered from lead poisoning
because their aqueducts, water pipes, wine vessels and glazed cooking
pots all contained lead. Meanwhile, the poorer folks enjoyed good
health by doing without banquets and lead pipes.
Lest
one believe that such indiscretions are a quaint oddity of the
less enlightened and distant past, consider the billions spent by
industrialized nations in waging war on degenerative disease (cancer,
heart disease, osteoporosis) afflictions rare in developing
countries.
Informed
Choices
Health
does not spring from magic bullets or soundbites. Modern
diseases of affluence arise primarily from dietary exess, not
deficiency. The notion of excess doesn't sit well in corporate
circles since it doesn't sell products.
To
focus on products while ignoring the underlying cause is a formula
ripe with failure. Isolated nutrients are not substitutes for the
thousands of undiscovered essential components which whole foods
likely contain. And isolated nutrients are no substitute for changing
the diet either.
Studies
report that increasing fruit and vegetable intake can cut
cancer and heart disease risk by 35-50%. Therein lies the seeds of
dangerous advice: that the way to counteract dietary intemperance is
to eat more of something else. The underlying cause (excess fat and
protein) is seldom addressed due to aggressive marketing by the meat
and dairy industries.
In
America, health is a business and most businesses operate by
giving the public what they want. National institutions advocate 30%
fat diets, while assuming anything less is "unrealistic and
culturally unacceptable." Such cosmetic advice is arrogant. Consumers
have a right to the information they need to make informed
choices.
No
one wants their life cut short. No one wants to waste away in a
nursing home as a stagnant pond of body fluids, bedsores and clogged
conduits tethered to an IV pole. Immunity from chronic illness
requires building a fortress of knowledge, hardened against the
vagaries of artful deception, ornamental government recommendations
and deeply-instilled aberrations that corporations would have you
believe.
This
article was excerped [with permission] from the
book Long
Life Now by Lee Hitchcox,
D.C.©1996. Dr. Hitchcox is a chemical warfare trained
researcher, author and chiropractor with 10 years of clinical
practice. He brings his unique perspective to bear on the critical
health issues of our time. He currently lives in Marin County,
California. For more information, see his listing under
Alternative Medicine in The Share Guide's
Holistic Health
Directory.
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