Why is heath care considered to be what doctors do and not what people do with nutrition and lifestyle?

I think all of it is caring for our health. Certainly Americans need to take more responsibility and have a better understanding of how nutrition and lifestyle affects our health; but, if we are talking about paying for healthcare, which is what is the news now, that is related to services provided by medical doctors for the most part.

because with all these advances in medical technology, people have become more and more lulled into “someone else can fix it” mentalities. Way back when, people had to run laps and do pushups to lose weight. Now there are pills and powders and machines that practically do the work for you.

Basically, people pay docs lots of money to fix what’s wrong with them. Docs should be able to fix whatever we do to ourselves… that’s what they’re getting paid for.

money

if we took care of ourselves through nutrition and lifestyle there wouldn’t be as much to fix and as much money to make

by putting the emphasis on drugs and doctors they keep the control and power well and truly in their hands…

truth is…we don’t need the drugs..or we wouldn’t if we were given the true information

Right….
Doctors provide the following preventative treatments for money alone:
1. Vaccines to prevent serious, life-threatening (and expensive) illnesses
2. Aspirin (dirt cheap) to prevent heart attacks and strokes
3. Diabetes medications to prevent serious complications (kidney disease, neuropathy, blindness, heart attacks, strokes)
4. Mammograms to prevent breast cancer (life threatening, debilitating)
5. Colonoscopies to prevent colon cancer (life threatening, debilitating)
6. Cheap blood pressure medications (thiazides) to prevent heart attacks, strokes and kidney disease
And on, and on. If doctors truly were participating in a nefarious plot, why would we provide any preventative treatments at all?

The fact is, people today lead sedentary, TV filled lives munching on high carbohydrate, high fructose corn syrup containing foods and smoking healthy cigarettes. They get fat and out of shape. Yet, people are living twice as long as 100 years ago. Bodies aren’t perfect machines (though they are damn close), and break down. That is a fact. Just like your car breaks down even if you take good care of it (and more quickly if you don’t), your body breaks down and needs the help of a mechanic (doctor).

That said, every time I see a patient in clinic, I encourage them to lose weight, exercise, quit smoking, drink in moderation and eat healthily. I cannot go to their home and follow them around to make sure they do those things.

I feel like I should point out that there was definite sarcasm in what I said, and that I don’t subscribe to the ideals I put out there. I’m just saying lots and lots of people do.

@shilolo yeah…allllright..but apart from that…. ;-)

When we talk about “health care reform,” what we are talking about is that portion of health care that people cannot do for themselves. Health care includes both things people can do for themselves—getting to and maintaining a healthy weight, a moderate amount of exercise, getting enough sleep, eating a balanced diet—and things people cannot do for themselves—prescription medication, surgery, mammograms, colonoscopies.

The general term does encompass those things.

Responsibility, accountability. It’s my personal opinion (as an American about Americans) we are a country of of people feeling so much entitlement with little drive to input. People make most of the choices that affect their health: drinking, smoking, abusing meds, overeating. After all that, how can you not have a country of addicted, depressed, overweight people suffering from the all the fall out diseases and ailments?

@poofandmook If you believe in God maybe he can fix anything we do to ourselves. I am certain that he will not though. Even Jesus left when too many came for healing. Doctors have no really power over our health. It is one of those responsibilities that God does not want to alienate from the individual and that no number of laws and amount of force can. Even people in prison with almost constant surveillance manage to kill themselves.

@lynneblundell Government drug sites state obvious lies about the effectiveness of herbs and nutrition. Other parts of the government encourage the production of omega 6 and high fructose corn syrup. Still another section shuts down nutritional suppliment companies who tell the truth about their supplements. Then there is another branch that demands a billion dollars worth of testing for drugs that have been used for years in human populations. I could go on.

@shilolo That is part of my arguement. In the end as the doctor you are not responsible. The government thinking that it can be responsible is even worse. Are they planning to give us an insurance policy that if we get sick we will be compensated. That entire concept is ridiculous. Health can not be insured for. You can only insure against and then only against those things that might happen. You can not insure against things that will happen except for life insurance and that only works because of age limits or payout limits. You can’t insure against what has already happened either.
Health insurance by employers is a way of paying you for working. It has little to do with real insurance. I hate calling it insurance at all as well as calling a sick care bill a health care bill when it can not function as one.

@cwilbur I hope you know that exercise will not result in weight loss unless you do an unhealthy amout of it. We do have problems with our government subsidized diet in this country. Taking away those subsidies might not help anyone in particular but it would change the national health numbers. Obesity and what ever diseases are caused by high omega ^ in food for example. It should also reduce the number of diabetes. High Fructose Corn syrup plays havoc with people blood sugar.
With the amount of sugar it puts in a health persons blood a steady user of it is made an artificial diabetic. They are walking around with higher sugar levels than most diabetics. That has to hurt the body in some way. It sure hurts diabetics.

@walterallanhaxton: do your conspiracy-theory tinfoil-hat websites fail to recognize that a moderate amount of exercise is good for the cardiovascular system?

@walterallenhaxton: I almost don’t feel like I should dignify any of that with a response, except I feel that I need to point out that LOTS OF PEOPLE THINK THE VERY THING I MENTIONED, BUT I DO NOT. I typed it all in caps in case your tiny little eyes didn’t catch it the first time.

@cwilbur I suspect that they do. Since conspiracies are a everyday fact of the lives of people in power I don’t know why you are using that word as a swear word.
I try to walk at least a mile a day myself. It is a fundamental part of my life.
I lot of what I talk about has nothing to do with websites. I do have personal experience to draw upon.
There are two kinds of scientifically based medicine that most doctors do not practice. Sports medicine and herbal medicine. They don’t like herbal medicine or the science behind it. They prefer to remain ignorant of it. They are just ignorant of sports medicine and nutrition.
The advice that they give on nutrition is the party line that the government hands out. It might be great for an average person. The problem with that is that the average person is a myth. That person does not exist. We are each unique individuals biologically.
We use nutrients in individual ways. They act in combination with each other. This makes them incredibly complex.
Doctors would have to see you much more often to develop a program of supplements that would make you healthy. Also there would have to be a lot more tests.
The kind of medicine where the doctor sees you for 5 minutes can not do that.
So they use chemical drugs. They need to be very careful with those. They are far too powerful for the human body. It winds up being a game of Russian roulette.
I received medicine from two different doctors. They kept changing the meds. One med made me fat very fast the next one made me diabetic. At the same time the government was encouraging the use of High Fructose Corn syrup in food. It is not metabolized the same as regular sugar. It messes with the hormones controlling hunger and turns them off.
So permit me to be suspicious of both the doctors and the politicians. Politically correct medicine will kill you.
I was talking to a diabetic woman the other day. Her doctor told her that a sugar reading of 150 was good. Also he told another person that a reading of 200 was good.
Give me a break. Those levels of sugar are extremely toxic.