U.S. Health Care Ranks Last

As reported in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal (1.10.13) a study by the Institute of Medicine found that our health care woes are much worse than we thought.  In fact, over the last 30 years, as compared to other Western countries, we ranked last in nearly every health indicator.  You read that correctly; we ranked last, yet we spend more money on health care than any other country on the planet.

The study found the average life expectancy at birth for American men born in 2007 (75.6 years) was the lowest among all the countries studied and nearly four years shorter than Switzerland.  Women did not fare better.  Their life expectancy was 80.8 years, second from the last and five years shorter than Japan’s. 

Neonatal mortality is a strong indicator of a country’s health status.  We spend more money on neonatal care than any other country.  Where do we rank compared to 16 other Western countries?  Dead last. 

You might think we beat the pack on cardiovascular disease since we take more statin medications than any other people on the planet.  Well, you might think wrong.  Death rates from cardiovascular disease have been declining world-wide.  But, in the U.S., the mortality rate from heart disease is 129 per 100,000 which is higher than every country studied except Finland.   Perhaps all those statin prescriptions aren’t really helping!

One of the authors, Dr. Steven Woolf stated, “Something is fundamentally wrong. Something at the core is causing the U.S. to slip behind these other high-income countries.”  He is right, something is fundamentally wrong.  That something is conventional medicine’s reliance on pharmaceutical medications that work by poisoning enzymes or blocking receptors in the body.  More often than not, these drugs treat the symptoms of the illness rather than the underlying cause.

I have been writing about the problems with conventional medicine in my Natural Way to Health newsletter and in my books.  I believe the whole medical education system needs to be overhauled.  We need to train doctors to understand the importance of the body’s biochemistry and how to maintain and optimize it.   I can assure you that most drug therapies adversely affect the body’s biochemistry.  Natural therapies that optimize vitamin, mineral, and hormonal levels allow the body’s biochemistry to optimally function. 

Finally, as physicians, we need to address the dietary needs of our patients.  We need to educate patients on how to eat better in order for their food to supply them with optimal nutrients.  Unless we make radical changes in the health care system, we will continue to waste more money and have more illness. 

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How To Increase Your Risk of Dying? Take a Statin Drug

If you are elderly, how can you increase your risk of dying?  The answer is simple:  Take a statin drug.   

Statin drugs are the most profitable drugs for the Big Pharma Cartel.  Lipitor, Baycol, Zocor, and Crestor are examples of statin medications.  These drugs are prescribed by doctors to lower cholesterol levels.  Do statin drugs lower cholesterol levels?  Yes, they are very efficient at it.  They work by poisoning an enzyme, HMG-CoA Reductase.   

Conventional medicine has succeeded in convincing doctors and patients that we all need to lower our cholesterol levels in order to reduce our risk of developing heart disease.  However, this is no long-term data that shows that lowering your cholesterol level by taking a medication reduces your mortality rate. In fact, the best studies of statin medications show they can lower the risk of developing a non-fatal heart attack by about 1% after two or three years of use.  That is the benefit of taking a medication that poisons a crucial enzyme in the body and has been associated with an increased in cancer, ALS, muscle aches and pains, as well as a decline in mental function. 

What prompted this post?  An article in Clinical Nutrition revealed that compared to elderly patients with cholesterol levels of 200mg/dl, those with cholesterol levels of 183mg/dl had a significantly higher death rate. (1)  The authors found that for every 1mg/dl increase in serum cholesterol, the death rate was reduced by 0.4%.  You read that correctly—elevated cholesterol levels protect the elderly from death.  The Honolulu Heart Program found that men aged 71-93 years in the lowest total cholesterol group had a 64% increase risk in death as compared to men with the highest cholesterol levels.(2)  The Honolulu study was reported in 2001.  It is too bad the media does not trumpet these results.

There are numerous studies showing that there is an inverse correlation between cholesterol levels and the death rate in people over 59 years old.    That means an elevated cholesterol level protects the elderly.  However, it is not just the elderly that are protected.  Cholesterol is a vital substance for all the cells in the body.  Adequate cholesterol levels are needed to promote the health of the cell.  Furthermore, cholesterol is needed to produce all the adrenal and sex hormones in the body. 

I have written extensively about this topic in my book, Drugs That Don’t Work and NaturalTherapies That Do.  Cholesterol-lowering medications should be pulled from the market place.  You can simply look at the biochemical pathway where cholesterol is produced and see the dangers that can occur when that pathway is poisoned.  I predict that within five to ten years, we will have learned our lessons about the statin drugs and they will fall out of favor.  It is not the first time conventional medicine has been wrong—just look at the disastrous story of DES which was prescribed to millions of women in the 1950’s. 

(1) Clinical Nutrition.  Nov. 7, 2012.  Doi.org/10.1016/j.cinu.2012.11.012

(2) Lancet 2001;358:351e5

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