We have gained two tenths of a point in our life expectancy rate. That is supposed to be very significant. Our main causes of death are heart disease and cancer. They account for almost 50% of the two million plus deaths per year. And while the incidence of some causes of death have come down emphysema death rates have actually risen.
I want you to take pause when you read the head lines. Remember, we are living longer not because we are healthier, but because our diseases are not killing us as quickly. This is where the concept of compressed morbidity comes in, again. We don’t have compressed morbidity. We should strive to increase healthy life years and squeeze all this disease and disability into the very last years of that long life. For now, for many, it is a longer life but not a disease free longer life.
[my mom reads my blog so let me point out that she is 81 and is very active and healthy.. a role model to my 30 year old friends!]
Obesity has become such a serious threat to our health and our economy that the Cleveland Clinic CEO was on CNN last night discussing how to reward employees for not being obese. They already do not hire smokers and most laudably use the Go Slow Whoa eating concept in their cafeteria. There was discussion about not hiring the obese if that person would be too impaired to do the required work.
It is of great concern that today’s children will have the onset of chronic disease before the age of forty. For that generation, living 37 years with diabetes, heart disease and other disabling conditions does not shout PROGRESS to me.
Something must be done.
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