Why are we so sick?
May 3, 2006, 5:13 pm
Posted by Grant Gallicho
The United States spends an average of $5,200 in health-care per person. So why do we rank twenty-fifth in life expectancy, as a surprising new study shows?
Americans had higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, strokes, lung disease and cancer — findings that held true no matter what income or education level.
To put it more bluntly, “Why isn’t the richest country in the world the healthiest country in the world?” asks the study’s co-author, Dr. Michael Marmot. Lack of exercise? Too many cars? Maybe if we were made to pull those SUVs through the HOV lanes we’d be getting somewhere–healthwise, I mean.
Is it possible that we humans were not created for affluence?
The whole question, “Why isn’t the richest country the healthiest” assumes that everybody in the richest country is rich.
My guess is that American wealth is much less evenly distributed than it is in Britain, and there is no national health care here, so the level of health care Americans get varies.
Brits also get six weeks paid vacation per year, there are strict overtime laws, and nobody pays for health care.
Heck, even death is less stressful in Britain. To my knowledge, there is no serious push for euthanasia in Britain as there is here, perhaps because end-of-life care is saner and more humane. They use heroin to control pain and anxiety for terminal patients, whereas we routinely under-medicate terminally ill patients.
The parliamentary system also ensures that the British can call a no-confidence vote if they feel they have a downright idiot running their affairs.
Medical scientists here recently studied and discovered a link between stress and diseases like shingles and psoriasis.
Could it be that stress increases morbidity rate across the board?
I think Jean’s right–it’s stress.
The reason I love going to Rome in the summer time is that it cures stress. Sitting in a cafe in the late evening, overlooking the Pantheon, drinking a prosecco. Nothing matters–in a good sense, that is. Everything matters, in a good sense, too.
One also presumes that the immigrants are the same stock as those who remained behind.
Those who can emigrate from clan and kin are unlikely to be the same genetically, at least in mind, and also in health, as those who remain behind. And may not be from the healthier upper class stock.
Or we need to drink more, as is evident in the study.