​The University of Colorado* at Boulder recently reported on their study** results about a new, innovative ​antioxidant. They titled their report, "Novel antioxidant makes old blood vessels seem young again", which certainly grabs the reader's attention. Who wouldn't want to have blood vessels that seem younger? 

Their work demonstrates that pharmaceutical-grade nutritional supplements (nutraceuticals), could play an important role in (possibly?) preventing heart disease. Passive language is all the range in medical literature and one must presume that it's based on a fear of actually making claims that may not be true. The report and the study both look more like a trial balloon than documenting a scientific breakthrough in health. If the stories generate interest, the authors will want to continue their work - taking it to a final marketable product. The published reports substantiate claims about who is first to discover the new approach.

That's enough back story. The more important part of this whole story is a few lines that appear toward the end of the report from CU Boulder;
“Exercise and eating a healthy diet are the most well-established approaches for maintaining cardiovascular health,” said Seals, a professor of integrative physiology. “But the reality is, at the public health level, not enough people are willing to do that. We’re looking for complementary, evidence-based options to prevent the age-related changes that drive disease. These supplements may be among them.”

One must wonder if the authors meant that their findings are great news for everyone who wants "younger" blood vessels - or ones that “seem” younger. Furthermore, there’s a powerful indictment in that short quote. The fact remains that a healthy diet is the best approach to good heart health. Sadly, few people "...are willing to do that." Therefore, according to these reporters and many others, we need research to discover extracts and laboratory chemicals that will make us seem healthy regardless of how poorly we eat.

It is important to note another veiled proclamation, that they are promoting a "pharmaceutical grade" substance, which means it is likely to be patented and sold as a drug - most certainly called a nutraceutical to further mask the fact that it is made in a chemistry laboratory in some country outside the United States. Image is vital and using “neutra…” presents a healthier image than “drug” or “chemical”. It “seems” natural.

So, is there something inherently wrong with medical patents? Of course not, particularly when the patent is the legitimate method for protecting the interests of the inventor. While is isn't possible to patent a natural substance (no patented dried foods or vitamins), big drug companies (and their cohorts in the education world) are skilled at devising unique ways to extract or manipulate natural substances into  products they can patent. That means they will control manufacturing, distribution, and prices for the life of their patent protection (in the neighborhood of 20 years).

Too few people will eat well - according to this study and report - and we've all witnessed the same thing, and are probably just as guilty as the next person, meaning that huge numbers of us will likely buy the next prescribed innovation because it’s easier to pop a pill than to buy and prepare good food. In addition,  somebody else, the government or the insurance company,  will usually help pay for prescription drug (nutraceuticals). What many people refuse to acknowledge is that nothing is free and that insurance (private or government) doesn’t pay for anything. Instead, the citizens and/or subscribers put in their money that the third party system uses to pay for their prescriptions. It's the system. It's popular. It’s unlikely to go away anytime soon.

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*https://www.colorado.edu/today/2018/04/19/novel-antioxidant-makes-old-blood-vessels-seem-young-again

The study itself was published in the American Heart Association journal, Hypertension.
**http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/early/2018/04/13/HYPERTENSIONAHA.117.10787

Could We Actually Have TOO MUCH Health Care?

I recently read an article that claimed, “…the major problem associated with American healthcare has been a lack of access to it.” That’s clearly the basis from which our government has seen fit to approve and promote the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare). Because we are consuming ever increasing amounts of health related service our health care invoices continue to climb at an alarming rate. The ACA is a reasonable approach if increased health services are necessary and American citizens do not have equal access to it. Be clear that the ACA is about how we as a country will pay for the escalating costs of providing health services that are grounded in a belief that growing numbers of us are sick and in need of medical care.

Not too many years ago we went to see a doctor if we had a problem with our health. Today, healthy people visit the doctor on a regular basis and discover that they really aren’t as healthy as they had thought. This number is creeping up or that blood value is slightly abnormal. Forget the fact that blood levels and numbers vary throughout the day, the discoveries need treatment, starting immediately and probably continuing for the rest of our life. The prescribed treatments often cause symptoms we don’t like - side effects. For them, there are other treatments; often, more drugs.

We believe that every symptom or situation can be relieved by a drug or medical procedure. Modern medicine seems to be always on the lookout for the magic bullets – the ones that will eliminate our problems. While there is certainly “poison in every potion”, it is highly unlikely that there is a “pill for every ill”. Except

for anti-infectives, there is not a single drug that cures anything. At best, our drug cabinets only manage illness. Still, the search goes on and most of us believe that the next big breakthrough is just around the corner. And, we (individually or through the government) contribute to this program or that group to support their efforts in finding the cures we want.

The ACA is in the news and it calls our attention to the fact that we’re spending ourselves to death and a lot of it is being funneled to a dysfunctional system of health delivery. It is a mess from top to bottom and as a country we seem incapable of solving the problems. WE try, but every attempt seems to only add more costs while it further degrades our overall health. Look at any list conditions and you can see that the United States is rarely at the top when it comes to treatment, prevention, or safety. For all we spend, failures are common.

We find ourselves in this kind of a mess because we have learned to look outside ourselves for advice. We turn to doctors, hospitals, and even the government to take charge of our lives and keep us going. We take their prescriptions and submit to the surgeries with little reflection. We believe deeply that our lives are best handled by other people. We trust them over ourselves.

This is the season for making resolutions. Some of us decide to go to the gym, to stop smoking, to do any number of things that seem appropriate for the New Year. Yet, how many of us look deep into our lives and decide that our health depends only on us, that the doctors, insurance companies, laboratories, and drug makers are only out there to meet our specific needs? While there is nothing wrong with profit, there is something dramatically wrong when the desire for it trumps our need to have a healthy body that wards off disease, heals itself, and allows us to be happy.

The details about health are many and often confusing. At the root, however, is one basic decision; whether we want to live a healthy lifestyle or plod along doing what we’re told by people and companies who have ulterior motives for recommending their products and services.

Those who decide that their health is a right - and they are personally responsible - will face 2014 and beyond with the personal power to be healthy – and happy. I pray that masses of Americans will wake up to the problems and understand that the solutions are in their personal grasp, once that first decision to be healthy is made. The current system demands we have access to the health system. A superior alternative is for each of us to come to that place where we don’t need all the available services.

We are many parts

We are many parts, but all one body (from the 1986 song by Marty Haugen).

The focus of that song is on how all of us, though seeming to be distinct individuals, are actually all part of a single body. In those few words is housed a deep metaphor for the truths that support our very being. It is also a true metaphor for our individual bodies. Over the centuries we have poked and prodded, cut and changed what we came to believe were individual "parts" of the body. The liver is over there and the thyroid is a "butterfly shaped mass" right there in the neck. That just isn't true.

 

ALL TOGETHER NOW.  As we are individually part of the whole body of humankind, our body "parts" are interconnected in such deep ways as to be inseparable. Every time we lose one of our parts, the whole body is changed. Removing a breast to mastectomy isn't always a guaranteed form of curing breast cancer, but the whole is altered by the removal of what seems to be a part. Tumors can be excised but the circumstances that caused them aren't changed. The invaders return and we slice and dice some more.

Modern medicine has evolved on many fronts and is generally capable of some near miraculous acts. Yet, cures themselves continue to evade our science. When they occur, they are often accompanied by amazement, not because we DID something but because we DIDN'T - and it happened all the same.

We need to return our attention to the basic fact that all of our parts are interconnected and we need to treat ourselves as a whole and complete being who is part of a greater form of life, the metaphorical body of humanity.

Damaging even a single member of the human race is harmful to all of us. In an identical way, damage to our individual parts is damaging to our whole body that, when considered globally, is also damaging to the whole of humanity.

I recently read an article in a sports magazine about an experiment involving flashes of light and how sound or touch will alter how we perceive the flash. The study demonstrated that a single flash is detected as two flashes if we hear two rapid tones while the light is flashed. The same thing happens if we're touched on our skin twice during a single flash - we "see" two.

Our senses are connected and interdependent. Smell and taste are other examples of a similar connection. Other connections are certainly more subtle, but important nonetheless.

Why am I rambling on about this? Because I want to make the point that our current medical approaches are wrong and causing harm and death. We need to change our paradigm. It is impossible to consume a drug and expect it to work on just the specific thing we intend.

A pain pill taken for a headache also effects all other parts of the body. It doesn't just fix the head pain - it may cause constipation or drowsiness.

Antidepressants are potent drugs that cause changes throughout our entire body, yet the belief is that they somehow help us by doing something to levels of serotonin.

I mentioned mastectomy above. It isn't JUST the breast, but the entire body that is changed.Consider the emotional upheaval. Then, there are the hysterectomies. I've heard women say their doctor recommended one because they were having menopausal symptoms. Basically, get rid of the thing that causes the problems, neglecting the massive hormone shifts that take place when the hormone "factories" are removed or damaged.

No, not this kind of Magic Bullet.

I don't always oppose surgery, drugs, or radiation - when they are absolutely necessary, when there are few to no other options. I had cataracts when I was younger. Without surgery I'd surely have become sightless. With it, there was a tiny risk that I'd lose my sight, but there was a very great chance I'd be seeing well for many more years if I had the cloudy lens removed. I've worn hard contacts for over three decades, but the results are excellent - with vision better than 20/20. The main inconveniences are inserting lenses every day and the need for reading spectacles. Inconvenient but worth it.

All of our body parts work together and interact for the good of the whole. Any and all interference with even the smallest part can do harm. Ponder this and think hard before accepting the next recommendation from a medical provider. Drugs, surgery, and radiation are massively popular - and potent - but they aren't always the best answer.

SEARCHING FOR THE MAGIC BULLET? There really isn't a "pill for every ill", regardless of how much we want there to be one. We all need to follow the old saying, "Say No To Drugs" - and to surgery and radiation as well.