Navigating the numbers
My whole blog series is entitled “Navigating the Journey”. Of course, not only does that fall in line with my company’s tagline, but it is the honest truth: one is always navigating their journey. For so many of us, our health is usually put on the back burner to success, money, work, play, and in some instances it isn’t even on the stove on any burner. So what is health? How does one know that they have it? According to Dictionary.com, health is the general condition of body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor.
Broaden the lens and take a step back: is health what is seen in the United States today? When you look to the numbers, it’s a staggering and resounding NO.
A perfect example was the recent release of a report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in August 2022, which detailed that the American life expectancy is actually has decreased to 76.1. This rate is the lowest number since 1996, and the largest 2-year decrease since 1921-1923. With these types of numbers, along with those of chronic illness and autoimmune disease statistics, the United States is not exactly the portrait of health.
Let us dig into the numbers a bit. About 60% of all American adults have at least one chronic disease, according to the CDC. That’s 6 out of 10 American adults, have at least 1 chronic illness, and 4 out of every 10 have 2 or more illnesses. For those chronic illnesses, the top illness, cardiovascular disease, costs $216 billion a year in the health system, and more than $140 billion in lost productivity because of premature death for those that fall victim to these illnesses. All the money numbers aside, chronic illness claims millions of lives a year, and those are the priceless numbers that matter most.
Along with chronic illness are illness caused by autoimmune disease conditions. These types of diseases, more than 100 known conditions, have grown exponentially in the past few decades. Autoimmune conditions are when the body’s immune cells attack its own cells because it recognizes it as a foreign invader. According to a July 2020 Harvard Health research article, autoimmunity has increased from 11% in 1988-1991 to almost 16% in 2012. The rise is concerning because it is too small of a time frame for it to be evolutionary. The report concluded, “lifestyle changes or environmental factors are driving the increases.” And not only is the rate increasing, but it is also targeting a younger subset, mainly teenagers. Roughly, $100 billion is spent on autoimmune diseases each year, with that number climbing as more diagnoses are made.
The “health” care industry is a more than $3.2 trillion a year industry. Let that number resonate. It’s a statistic illustrating that the health of the United States is in bad shape. Need another statistic? A 2018 study out of University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill came to find that only 12% of the United States population is metabolically healthy. This means that only 1 out of 8 Americans is metabolically healthy. When metabolic health wanes, the rise of serious health issues increases.
So what does all of this mean? It means the current paradigm is not working. Conventional medicine isn’t keeping up with the pace of illness. Perhaps it is time to look to a different way to combat illness in the United States. Could Functional Medicine hold the key to unlocking true health in our country? Possibly.
Reflect back to what was said about autoimmune disease: the change in the statistics was too fast to be evolutionary, so it has to come from lifestyle and environmental factors. Lifestyle and environmental factors are a huge impact on our health. By making changes to lifestyle, people can start to take control of their own health and the decisions that go along with it. What is clear and obvious is that the medical industry needs a paradigm shift. Could Functional Medicine be the new paradigm to empower people to take control over their own health?
Join in me in next week’s blog, when we discuss how Functional Medicine could be the new paradigm that helps the United States find true health.