Weight Gain Is Now Brain Loss
An article that came out in The Times titled, In the Stroke Belt; Erosion of Memory is More Likely Too, begs for comment. It alludes to a recent study showing that Southern people are afflicted with Alzheimer’s symptoms to a greater degree than people are in other parts of the country.
“Some experts believe their memory problems and other mental issues could be related to the same underlying risk factors, including lifestyle patterns that contribute to hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity.”
They go on to postulate that fried food, too little exercise, and ‘other possible causes’ contribute to this situation.
Let’s put aside the notion that Southerners are simply less bright than the rest of the country, and look at lifestyle as the reason for this predicament. A lack of exercise and poor eating, plus hypertension are three pretty good reasons.
The solution begins with diet. And until we understand that there is a war going on for the bodies (and now, it appears, minds) of our citizens, we will never make headway in this expanding problem. Clearly Michelle (and one assumes President) Obama get this. Michelle’s making diet a cornerstone of her policy for health and fitness, and I applaud her for that. That big Pharma, the AMA and the FDA still control the conversation is clear. Otherwise, Health Care would be offering a diversity of healthful solutions to health related problems—did I hear someone mention acupuncture, hypnosis and nutritional counseling? But since the Health Care system is still looking toward ‘better’ weight loss drugs as the solution, we can only assume that they still don’t get it.
So articles continue to come out stating the problems in new and unexpected ways. Perhaps it will take a health oriented Republican to make a difference; the equivalent of Nixon opening the doors to China. However it happens, I look forward to reclaiming our stake as a nation that is healthy. Not #37 out of 37 among the Western worlds ‘civilized’ nations in both health and quality of health care. Which is what we are.
The Times article can be found here.
Cheers.