It’s February and with no surprise, the media is all over ‘heart disease’ awareness campaigns. But if you keep following what the media (and your doctor) push, you will probably get what most of Americans are going to get.
What are Americans going to get?
How about 1 in 3 will die of CardioVascular Disease (CVD)? How about a death from CVD every 40 seconds?
How about every 40 seconds someone has a stroke and about every 4 minutes someone dies from a stroke?
They like to say deaths have decreased from CVD by 31% from 2000 – 2010. How about an almost 30% increase in heart related surgeries from 2000 to 2010? I’ll give it to modern medicine for saving your life in the immediate danger but if our healthcare system was truly about health, you shouldn’t be laying on the OR table in the first place.
How about 920,000 Americans having a heart attack this year? How about 1/2 of those will show no prior symptom? How about 1/2 of those silent heart attacks have a first symptom of death?
And if you don’t think your health is at risk, how about your wallet? Since we are shifting to a universal health care system, your taxes go to paying $315 Billion dollars every year. Don’t think your tax dollars are paying for it? In 2010, it was estimated that over 2150 Americans died every day of CVD. That equates to about 785,000 deaths/year in 2010 (today it’s estimated closer to 1 million). ONLY 150,000 came from people younger than 65.
What rite of passage does a 65 year old have in this country? They qualify for Medicare, the government funded health plan. How does the government fund a health plan? Through your tax dollars.
One of the ways that the media via the government and heart association try to change your behavior is to drill into your head that cholesterol is the enemy and is an early warning sign of CVD and should be controlled…or you will die.
A UCLA study analyzing heart attack patients nationwide found that 75% of the heart attack victims had LDL (supposed bad cholesterol) within the safe limit. The researchers analyzed data from 136,905 patients whose lipid levels upon hospital admission were documented in the AHA data base. This accounted for 59 percent of total hospital admissions for heart attack at participating hospitals between 2000 and 2006.
The deadly irony is that the researchers conclude that maybe cholesterol isn’t low enough? How about opening your mind to the possibility that the cholesterol – heart disease connection is about as solid as the Iraq War – Weapons of Mass destruction connection?