Why are you not dead yet?

[rightwinger]

Life expectancy history: Public health and medical advances that lead to long lives. - Slate Magazine

Life expectancy has doubled in the last 150 years....Key factors

Clean water may be the biggest lifesaver in history. Some historians attribute one-half of the overall reduction in mortality, two-thirds of the reduction in child mortality, and three-fourths of the reduction in infant mortality to clean water.

Technologies to move wastewater away from cities, but as Grob points out in The Deadly Truth, the first sewage systems made the transmission of fecal-borne diseases worse. Lacking an understanding of germs, people thought that dilution was the best solution and just piped their sewage into nearby waterways. Unfortunately, the sewage outlets were often near the water system inlets. Finally understanding that sewage and drinking water need to be completely separated

Germ theory of disease didn’t catch on all that quickly, but once it did, people started washing their hands. Soap became cheaper and more widespread, and people suddenly had a logical reason to wash up before surgery, after defecating, before eating. Soap stops both deadly and lingering infections; even today, kids who don’t have access to soap and clean water have stunted growth.

Housing, especially in cities, was crowded, filthy, poorly ventilated, dank, stinky, hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. These were terrible conditions to live in as a human being, but a great place to be an infectious microbe. Pretty much everyone was infected with tuberculosis (the main cause of consumption), the leading killer for most of the 19th century

Contaminated food was one of the greatest killers, especially of infants; once they stopped breast-feeding, their food could expose them to typhoid fever, botulism, salmonella, and any number of microbes that caused deadly diarrhea in young children.

 

[midcan5]

You mean the free market didn't do all that all on its own? Well I'll be.

Free Markets and the Myth of Earned Inequalities » 3:AM Magazine

 

[rightwinger]

You mean the free market didn't do all that all on its own? Well I'll be.

Free Markets and the Myth of Earned Inequalities » 3:AM Magazine

Chalk it up as a victory for the "Nanny State"

 

[editec]

Yup.

Increasing life expectancy has more to do with access to enough clean and healthy food and water than medicine, that's for damned sure.

 

[rightwinger]

The key to life expectancy back then was surviving infancy. If you could survive infancy and childhood illnesses, there was a good chance you would live to 50-60
Beyond that, it was a crapshoot. Any serious illness or injury was likely to kill you.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Hmmm ... I don't know but in dog years, I'm dead.

Interesting links, guys.

 

[numan]

Yup.

Increasing life expectancy has more to do with access to enough clean and healthy food and water than medicine, that's for damned sure.

Quite right.

I am still alive because I don't trust doctors, never enter the concentration camp murder-factories called hospitals, and never take the poisonous drugs Big Pharma touts as medicine -- not even over-the-counter "medications."

.

 

[AquaAthena]

"Why are you not dead yet?"

Because of modern medicine, healthful diet and exercise, great genes and good parents who saw to it that I had access to all things healthy and nutritious.

 

[Derideo_Te]

You mean the free market didn't do all that all on its own? Well I'll be.

Free Markets and the Myth of Earned Inequalities » 3:AM Magazine

The immediate short term profit incentive was lacking which is why the "free market" did not do it on its own. Concepts like having a healthy and well educated population only become apparent when the lack of them hurts the bottom line. Even now there are corporations who don't understand how this improves their profits just like having roads and electricity do the same.

 

[rightwinger]

You mean the free market didn't do all that all on its own? Well I'll be.

Free Markets and the Myth of Earned Inequalities » 3:AM Magazine

The immediate short term profit incentive was lacking which is why the "free market" did not do it on its own. Concepts like having a healthy and well educated population only become apparent when the lack of them hurts the bottom line. Even now there are corporations who don't understand how this improves their profits just like having roads and electricity do the same.

The free market fought health based restrictions

Stopping me from dumping waste in the river will cost jobs
Health inspections will run me out of business
If I want to rent to 12 people in a one bedroom apartment, it is my business

Thank god for the Nanny State

 

[KissMy]

Are you saying we owe our life to government after we are 25 years old?

Should we pay for our extended time like in the movie "In Time"?

[YouTube]6Re51joTIYA[/YouTube]

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Yup.

Increasing life expectancy has more to do with access to enough clean and healthy food and water than medicine, that's for damned sure.

Quite right.

I am still alive because I don't trust doctors, never enter the concentration camp murder-factories called hospitals, and never take the poisonous drugs Big Pharma touts as medicine -- not even over-the-counter "medications."

.

Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, in his book, Confessions of a Medical Heretic, wrote that 'if you are healthy and don't feel ill, don't go to a doctor for checkups. And, if you're sick, don't go to a hospital'.

IMO, there is real wisdom in that.

During WWII, most doctors had gone to treat war casualties and, because of shortages, the average diet did not include meat or sugar. Suddenly, people stopped dying.

I don't eat any animal flesh and haven't for more than 30 years, have a family history loaded with heart disease, cancer and diabetes. The siblings who are still alive are enormously fat, smoke, eat meat and have had heart attacks and do have diabetes. I'm the oldest and have none of those, don't smoke, am of normal weight feel good and am very active.

But, I've read that the danger of eating meat is that "we" eat processed meat like bacon, lunch meat - basically meat that is loaded with fat and chemicals, and then, often, load it up with even more carcinogens by grilling it.

OTOH

A very dear friend of mine died at the age of 87. His diet consisted of nothing, absolutely nothing but animal products and very tiny helpings. His lunch would often be one small slice of cheese and one small slice of meat. And always a pepsi. He had cardiac weakness due to childhood disease but was strong and healthy and active right up until his heart gave out.

At the end of the movie Julie and Julia, there's a screen message that states that Julia Child died in her 90s, as did her husband. And yet, right up until their deaths, both smoked and ate a diet heavy in butter and meat.

As the old saying goes, for every rule there are more than enough exceptions to go around. Or, something like that.

 

[Spoonman]

"Why are you not dead yet?"

Because of modern medicine, healthful diet and exercise, great genes and good parents who saw to it that I had access to all things healthy and nutritious.

a year ago i had a routine endoscopy and colonoscopy done. I was suffering from acid reflux, very bad indigestoin, bloating and a feeling of pressure that made my chest feel like it was going to explode sometimes. well they found i had sever damage to my esophagus from the reflux. on a scale of 0 to 4 i was a low 3. i had accute gastritis and a hiatal hernia. I always ate fairly well and get a lot of excercise, but i was kind of a sugar junky. so i cut out refined and processed sugars as much as possible. switched to as many whole foods and organic foods as possible. took the highly processed and refined foods out of my diet. my test last week showed significant healing to the damage in my esophagus, a healthy stomach and the gastritis gone. I no longer feel bloated, the pressure in my chest is gone. it really does make all the difference in the world. oh yea, and my energy level is incredible again

 

[Spoonman]

Life expectancy history: Public health and medical advances that lead to long lives. - Slate Magazine

Life expectancy has doubled in the last 150 years....Key factors

Clean water may be the biggest lifesaver in history. Some historians attribute one-half of the overall reduction in mortality, two-thirds of the reduction in child mortality, and three-fourths of the reduction in infant mortality to clean water.

Technologies to move wastewater away from cities, but as Grob points out in The Deadly Truth, the first sewage systems made the transmission of fecal-borne diseases worse. Lacking an understanding of germs, people thought that dilution was the best solution and just piped their sewage into nearby waterways. Unfortunately, the sewage outlets were often near the water system inlets. Finally understanding that sewage and drinking water need to be completely separated

Germ theory of disease didn’t catch on all that quickly, but once it did, people started washing their hands. Soap became cheaper and more widespread, and people suddenly had a logical reason to wash up before surgery, after defecating, before eating. Soap stops both deadly and lingering infections; even today, kids who don’t have access to soap and clean water have stunted growth.

Housing, especially in cities, was crowded, filthy, poorly ventilated, dank, stinky, hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. These were terrible conditions to live in as a human being, but a great place to be an infectious microbe. Pretty much everyone was infected with tuberculosis (the main cause of consumption), the leading killer for most of the 19th century

Contaminated food was one of the greatest killers, especially of infants; once they stopped breast-feeding, their food could expose them to typhoid fever, botulism, salmonella, and any number of microbes that caused deadly diarrhea in young children.

what causes most of our disease today? the rise in diabetis? heart attacks? aterial disease? The processed foods we eat. all approved by the FDA. Big aggriculture backed by our nanny state. we have health issues of epidemic proportions we never had before the government got involved. and what do they all support? big medicine, another pet of our government. there is a pill for everything. but those pills have side effects and require even more pills.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

spoonman, glad to hear you're getting better and agree completely that food should not come out of boxes with ingredients we can't pronounce. We also eat as much organic as possible. There's a Mennonite community near us and they don't use pesticides so we buy a lot from them. We do eat a very few eggs and get those from a neighbor who has chickens.

When at the grocery store, compare what is in people's carts with the way they look. We're becoming a nation of Pillsbury doughboys. You know how you can spot a smoker from their grey skin (and the stench). Same with food.

And yet, the right doesn't want our schools to feed our kids high quality food.

Hospitals - some actually have fast food crap in their lobby - give them the disease downstairs and admit them for treatment upstairs.

What we put up with - its just crazy.

 

[Spoonman]

You mean the free market didn't do all that all on its own? Well I'll be.

Free Markets and the Myth of Earned Inequalities » 3:AM Magazine

The immediate short term profit incentive was lacking which is why the "free market" did not do it on its own. Concepts like having a healthy and well educated population only become apparent when the lack of them hurts the bottom line. Even now there are corporations who don't understand how this improves their profits just like having roads and electricity do the same.

The free market fought health based restrictions

Stopping me from dumping waste in the river will cost jobs
Health inspections will run me out of business
If I want to rent to 12 people in a one bedroom apartment, it is my business

Thank god for the Nanny State

while i agree with you here, we have made huge strides and are so much better off then we were in the 70's, we still have miles to go. and what we have done is take a large part of our problem and transfer it to emerging nations. our own back yards are a little cleaner, but globally we have gotten worse. there are lots of promising solutions out there but no one is willing to make the big steps.

 

[rightwinger]

The immediate short term profit incentive was lacking which is why the "free market" did not do it on its own. Concepts like having a healthy and well educated population only become apparent when the lack of them hurts the bottom line. Even now there are corporations who don't understand how this improves their profits just like having roads and electricity do the same.

The free market fought health based restrictions

Stopping me from dumping waste in the river will cost jobs
Health inspections will run me out of business
If I want to rent to 12 people in a one bedroom apartment, it is my business

Thank god for the Nanny State

while i agree with you here, we have made huge strides and are so much better off then we were in the 70's, we still have miles to go. and what we have done is take a large part of our problem and transfer it to emerging nations. our own back yards are a little cleaner, but globally we have gotten worse. there are lots of promising solutions out there but no one is willing to make the big steps.

I agree with you that in many ways we are victims of our own success

Too much processed foods, salt, sugar, fats...too little exercise

We have grown lazy in looking for quick fixes and magic pills. We feel that modern medicine is invincible ant that no matter how much we screw up, there is an operation or a pill that can fix it

 

[Vandalshandle]

I have discovered that the secret to a long and healthy life is a really good quality bacon cheeseburger (not the cheap stuff, but something on par with Five Guys Burgers and Fries) followed by 40Mg of Simvastatin.

 

[Spoonman]

The free market fought health based restrictions

Stopping me from dumping waste in the river will cost jobs
Health inspections will run me out of business
If I want to rent to 12 people in a one bedroom apartment, it is my business

Thank god for the Nanny State

while i agree with you here, we have made huge strides and are so much better off then we were in the 70's, we still have miles to go. and what we have done is take a large part of our problem and transfer it to emerging nations. our own back yards are a little cleaner, but globally we have gotten worse. there are lots of promising solutions out there but no one is willing to make the big steps.

I agree with you that in many ways we are victims of our own success

Too much processed foods, salt, sugar, fats...too little exercise

We have grown lazy in looking for quick fixes and magic pills. We feel that modern medicine is invincible ant that no matter how much we screw up, there is an operation or a pill that can fix it

when you look at the rise in things like heart disease, diabetis, cancer, it really makes you wonder. they try to tell you its because we are living longer, but I don't buy that. because these aren't diseases limited to the old. it's not only people in these extended years that is contracting these diseases. they are happening at younger and younger ages and more and more frequently. then you look at things like food allergies, peanuts, whatever. when i was a kid i knew of no one with a peanut allergy. today kids are dying just from eating something that does not contain peanuts, but was processed on a machine that also processed a food containing peanuts. ADD and social disorders, also on the rise. maybe we are becoming too sterile. we have grossly overweight people who are suffering the effects of malnutrician, because the foods they eat contain limited nutritional value. there has to be a better way. Education would be a good start

 

[Old Rocks]

Yup.

Increasing life expectancy has more to do with access to enough clean and healthy food and water than medicine, that's for damned sure.

And all those damned government regulations concerning that.