Healthy Bytes

The state of health in America according to Tommy Thompson

read time: 634 words, about 5 minutes

On CNN House Call this past weekend, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. interviewed former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson.

I’m sure during his tenor he saw a lot of data and spoke with a vast number of authoritative folks.

Here’s some data:
~ 92% of all healthcare dollars are spent after people get sick. (7% spent for not sick services).
~ 75% of healthcare dollars are spent on chronic illness.

It’s funny that we even call it healthcare. Isn’t that a misnomer? Shouldn’t it be called sick care?
And if you went to your Doctor and wanted information on living a healthy life, what would you get?

In 2003 the Princeton Review surveyed every US accredited medical school (122) and accredited osteopathic school (19) about nutrition education in their curriculum.
40% of the schools had a nutrition requirement. The average amount of nutritional training at the schools that required any was 2.5 credit units – about 38 hours.

In their book “The Real Age Diet”, Drs. Michael F. Roizen and John La Puma revealed, “The two of us combined received fewer than eight hours of education on nutrition in more than six thousand lecture hours in medical schools”

Dr. Michael A. Klaper, Director of the Institute of Nutritional Education and Research:

“What’s really tragic about this is that we were so busy learning how to fix broken arms, deliver babies and do all of those ‘doctor’ things in medical school that we considered nutrition to be boring. But after we get into practice, we spend most of the day treating people with diseases that have huge nutritional components that have long been essentially ignored.”

I don’t want to bash Doctors. I’m questioning our focus. Clearly, nutrition isn’t a focus in medical school.

According to former Secretary Thompson, the top three health issues are:

Tobacco: 442,000 Americans deaths/year.

Diabetes: $1 out of $14 of the $2 trillion healthcare dollars goes to treat diabetes.
Last year 18 million folks were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. This year that bumps up to 21 million – a 17% increase. On the path to Type 2 diabetes are 41 million pre-diabetic Americans.
Following the trend out 5 years projects 62 million Type 2 diabetic Americans.

Obesity. Obesity is a chronic condition, but it’s also a bit unique in that it is increasing at rates previously experienced only with infectious diseases. More that 10% of kids between 2 and 5 are already overweight or obese. 2/3rds of adults are overweight and nearly half of those (about 30% of the total population) are obese. 16% of children – obese.

As far as the ranking, I’ll have to disagree with Thompson.
I’d put obesity first, diabetes 2nd and tobacco 3rd. Here’s why:
We’ve dumped a lot of money and education into smoking prevention and quitting.

When you look at where education and prevention effort has been, it’s tobacco, alcohol and drugs. Additionally, over the past few years smoking has been, and continues to get banned from more and more public places.

So the awareness is there, it’s heavily taxed, and it’s harder and harder to smoke anywhere. People are more educated and their behaviour is penalized.

Looking at obesity and diabetes… we’re just starting to publicly look at these very frightening numbers. We need A LOT more education and awareness. We need much clearer blueprints on healthy eating and lifestyle. And we need much better access to quality, nutritious food.

Personally, I think you’ll get a better return with eating and lifestyle education and obesity prevention, then you will with more tobacco prevention.

And since Type 2 diabetes is mostly the result of diet and exercise, you can turn the current trend around by turning the obesity trend around… two for the price of one.

You can grab the transcript of the House Call show here: CNN House Call transcripts.

This entry was posted on Mon, 6.Nov.2006 at 7:44 am and is filed under Lifestyle, Obesity, Diabetes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.