Week 5 Post 2

 The American health care system kills. Quite literally, the medical institution is the third leading causing of death, topped only by cancer and heart disease. Although there are many factors that contribute to this statistic, the most threatening is overconfidence in prescription treatment. Take for example Lipitors. Lipitor treats high cholesterol and triglyceride levels. In other words, it is marketed as reducing the risk of stroke, heart attack, angina and related health concerns. The market for this product is massive. So massive that 35 million people take Lipitor or a similar prescription. In reality, Lipitor is only 5% effective. Patients do not know this before they start this treatment. The patient knows that they are at risk of a life-threatening condition and are taking life-saving precautions. If they knew the reality, they would likely prefer to attempt other measures. Lipitor is profitable, it has a market. The United States health care system was built for free market profit. No aspect of the system is meant to enhance American life or protect against illness, it is equipped to heal broken bones and innovate new money-making technology. The country does not use this profitable innovation to better the health of their people. That is not to say that there are not great doctors who care about the well being of their patients and want to see them survive. However, a doctor will practice what they have been taught until the system tells them otherwise. Maybe, society is not ready for change. It might be too uncomfortable. Consider midwives and holistic doctors. They are not regarded positively by most, sometimes being referred to as witch-doctors or labeled crazy. Until people welcome change, reform will not occur. 

The best way to avoid death by medical error is to not get sick. As stated above, reform will not happen until individual communities start to demand change. The most effective way to protest the current system is to freeze the market. Stop getting sick. There are four fairly simple and inexpensive ways to do this: consume a plant-based diet, exercise often, sleep well, and take measures to reduce stress. To break down the best way to manage this change and achieve the best results, each is broken down into five habits to practice. To reform eating habits, one should focus on  changing two of the five categories, until that person can build up to all five nutritional practices. First, denormalize sugar. Sugar is not meant to be consumed by humans. If we look to the healthiest communities, they eat sugar daily and occasionally fruit, and that is the sweetest produce that they will eat. Furthermore, because their taste buds are not over adjusted to processed sweetness, their taste buds find it sweeter and more satisfying. Instead of eating five vegetables a day, eat at least, but not limited to, five vegetables a day, but all of different colors. Introduce micro-fasts, meaning try to limit eating to twelve hours of the day. Drink more water. A person should drink at least two glasses of water thirty minutes before each meal. This will help the body to better understand when it is full. Most importantly, "unprocess you diet". Stick only to eating things with less than five ingredient on the label, but consider that in the healthiest communities, nothing has a food label, because it is all naturally produced. These are the best ways to actually reduce risk of heart attack and stroke. A healthy diet and not smoking will make a patient dramatically healthier and that is what we need to be preaching. If a doctor tells their patient this truth, the world will be healthier.