Blog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 

---

Health Care – 19 December 2007
By Mary T. Hoffman

Nowadays, it seems like the words “health care” are tossed around every way you turn. But what is really meant is “disease care.” And when you hear the word “prevention” you can be pretty sure that what they’re talking about has little to do with taking control and making positive lifestyle changes. Instead, people are urged to submit to medical procedures for “early detection” of diseases, most of which could be avoided in the first place.

According to the latest issue of The AARP Magazine, “Those with chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease account for most of health care spending, yet their care is often not as coordinated or effective as it could be. We should be taking steps to promote wellness and prevent disease now.” Sounds good doesn’t it? It’s too bad they don’t mention that adult onset diabetes and heart disease are for the most part avoidable by simply adhering to a whole food, plant-based diet, as has been proven scientifically. Imagine the improvement in people’s health and all the money that would be saved as a result, if doctors simply told their patients the truth.

The feature article in the same magazine is touted on the cover with an attention-getting “Eat Better, Live Longer – Our Easiest Diet Ever.” But, over the years I’ve learned not to get my hopes up when large organizations talk about health issues. Their advice is nearly always wishy-washy so as not to offend their large audience that keeps them in business. So it’s “one step forward, two steps backward” as the saying goes. Heaven forbid that they should ever recommend a vegan diet (or even be brave enough to call it a “plant-based” diet)! Predictably, the recommendations are the half-way measures heard over and over again; you know – the Mediterranean diet, minimizing red meat and substituting fish and chicken, etc.

Yet, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., clearly shows in his book “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” that in the well-known Lyon Diet Heart Study, although those who were on a Mediterranean diet did better than those in the control group, “By the end of the study, nearly four years after its start, fully 25 percent of the subjects on the Mediterranean diet – one out of four – had either died or experienced some new cardiovascular event.”

If AARP is really serious about helping their members achieve good health and reduce spending on “disease care,” they should recommend that their members read and follow the proven advice of physicians such as Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., John McDougall, M.D., Michael Greger, M.D., and Michael Klaper, M.D.

Also visit:
http://www.all-creatures.org/health.html
http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes.html 

Go on to: Alexander Pope – 20 December 2007
Return to: I Thought How Once Theocritus Had Sung – 18 December 2007
Return to: Blog - Main Page
Return to: Archive - By Date
Return to: Archive - By Subject

See Readers Comments