In the United States, our modern society is so preoccupied and overwhelmed with every day activities of living we have lost contact with what is important. Have you ever contemplated the miracle of the human body functioning in harmony with lungs breathing, heart beating, senses sensing, muscles moving, healing and regenerating itself? Few have the time to think about this until problems develop.
Up until recently people believed each subsequent generation entering into its retirement years would be in better physical shape than the preceding generation. Then in March 2007, Health and Retirement Study research published by the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), revealed the disturbing trend of Americans in their early to mid-50s reporting poorer health, more pain, and more trouble doing every day physical tasks than their older peers reported when they were the same age in recent years.
How can American pre-retirees be reaching retirement age in not as good health as their predecessors? Regrettably, the public is not educated enough about how our food and medical systems work together to keep us ill, thereby making money for themselves at our expense. Undesirable ingredients used in processed foods are part of the reason toward declining health in America. Disappointingly, the pharmaceuticals the medical system uses are no longer fully tested and many times contribute to further health decline instead of curing us while they become wealthy at our expense.
Earlier analyses, including an NIA-supported study suggests America’s obesity epidemic, which is contributing to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension, could be threatening the decline of our health. Furthermore, some of the today’s common diseases didn’t even exist 40 years ago. In this same time frame, we have made enormous advances in medical technology: we have more doctors, more pharmaceutical drugs, and more hospitals. In conclusion, all we have to show for all this is the sickliest generation of Americans in history with ever increasing disease rates.
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Debby Bolen
