My Message

Been getting lots of flak on a recent post about health care costs, and you know how much I love that. But one thing that comes up time and again, because people just can't seem to see past the political brainwashing, is that my message is NOT about whether people should have, get, or pay (or not pay) for health insurance. No, that's what the politicians talk about...that's not my message.

My message is this: Health comes from within. It's what you do for your body, regularly, that determines whether you will experience wellness or not. Absolutely no medicine will give you health. No organ removal will give you health. Either one may help you get over a hump, but none will provide you with health--only YOU can do that.

The western medical system is necessary for, and outstanding at, saving lives--it's crisis care, or more aptly, sick care. As far as saving lives goes, nothing is better then western medicine. But let's not mistake that for health. The reality is that the medical system has been the dominant system for over a century; and in its desire to protect the public (and retain full and absolute power economically, politically and as the cultural authority), it has infused its sick-care paradigm into every facet of the cultural psyche. The predominant view of "health care" is of going to the doctor for a check-up and then getting medication.

Except for one little problem: What medical doctors provide for the public has nothing to do with good health. Now let me explain, because certainly, saving lives preserves health in the most fundamental sense. Yes, I will give you that. But is health merely the absence of illness or disease? No! No logical person believes that today. In fact the World Health Organization's (WHO) definition is just that:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Duh.

Worse yet, we see now how irresponsible use and/or overuse of the medical system actually makes people sicker. Why the hell are people fighting for more of that? Everybody in the U.S. has access to emergency care, so nobody is ever left out in the street to die because they have no medical insurance--nobody.

Do not fool yourself into thinking that the current health care debates are about that. Nobody gets turned away from crisis care. No, what some people and politicians are so desperately fighting for is for medical care to continue as the predominant form of "health care", beyond crisis care, in illness or in health.

And the medical industry sits well in the paradigm it has created, with many people never really thinking about their health until it goes awry.

It's the I-can-neglect-my-health-and-then-be-saved-by-medical-care syndrome; the "just give me the statins, it's too hard to change my lifestyle" mentality; the "I just can't get myself to exercise and change my diet, so I think I'll get a stomach staple" way of thinking, just perfect for the elective-c-section,-run-to the-doctor-for-every-sniffle,-and-undergo-multiple-cosmetic-enhancements crowd.

Yes, today's medical care has very little to do with health--it's the sickness paradigm imposed onto the public perceptions of health. And you wonder why the U.S. ranks so poorly in health status for a developed nation that spends a large portion of its economy of medical care? Duh.

No, medical care ain't health care--it's sick care. And it's foolish to so adamantly demand it as an inalienable right. You want the drug addiction and the poor health that comes along with the reliance on modern medicine and it's prehistoric "health" paradigm? Then be my guest. But not me...I'll take my chances taking care of my health. And if I have a crisis, well I know the best place to go, insurance or not.

ADD: How Dx is Made

Have you ever wondered how the powers that be determine whether a kid is ADD/ADHD or not?  How do they know...like are there specific tests or markers, an ADD litmus of sorts?  Because remember from last post, the predominant "health" paradigm in the world today is a mechanistic medical model--there's usually a physical problem--so shouldn't there be distinct physical evidence?  In the next two posts we'll investigate each one of these questions as well as consider another, perhaps better, way of looking at things.

To be diagnosed ADD/ADHD, a child has to exhibit particular behaviors for an extended period.  Because a number of other disorders have similar (if not exactly the same) symptoms as ADD, it's important for the diagnosing doctor, school nurse, teacher or principal (ya don't think so?...then I've got a bridge to sell ya...) to be able to differentiate between this behavior disorder and all others that cause lack of focus.

Yes, that's right, I said a behavioral disorder.  That's a crucial distinction to be made for ADD; in other words, NO PHYSICAL MARKER--no specific test or neurophysiological change that can be measured, just the observation of a professional.  Don't worry, medical science is working hard to find that marker.  And as I always say, "If you look hard enough, you're bound to find something."  But, I know, you'd think after more than 100 years, and being the best studied disorder in all of medicine that, well...

The signs necessary to classify a child (or adult) as ADD are the following (six or more must be present for at least 6 months to a point that is disruptive and inappropriate for the developmental level):

• Inattention:

1. Often does not give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities.
2. Often has trouble keeping attention on tasks or play activities.
3. Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.
4. Often does not follow instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions).
5. Often has trouble organizing activities.
6. Often avoids, dislikes, or doesn't want to do things that take a lot of mental effort for a long period of time (such as schoolwork or homework).
7. Often loses things needed for tasks and activities (such as toys, school assignments, pencils, books, or tools).
8. Is often easily distracted.
9. Often forgetful in daily activities.

For hyperactivity-impulsiveness (six or more must be present for at least 6 months to a point that is disruptive and inappropriate for the developmental level):

•  Hyperactivity:

1. Often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat.
2. Often gets up from seat when remaining in seat is expected.
3. Often runs about or climbs when and where it is not appropriate (adolescents or adults may feel very restless).
4. Often has trouble playing or enjoying leisure activities quietly.
5. Is often "on the go" or often acts as if "driven by a motor".
6. Often talks excessively.

• Impulsiveness:

1. Often blurts out answers before questions have been finished.
2. Often has trouble waiting one's turn.
3. Often interrupts or intrudes on others (example: butts into conversations or games).

Interestingly, these are the criteria used in the U.S.; they come from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).  In Europe, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) is used instead.  According to one review, use of the DSM criteria increases the likelihood of an ADD diagnosis 3-4 times more than if the ICD-10 is used.

And what causes ADD...according to the current model, that is?  Well, no one really knows for sure.  Here are a few existing theories:

• Genetics: Researchers believe that a number of genes may be implicated in the cause of ADD; but alas, with the sheer numbers so high, they admit it doesn't follow the typical pattern of a "genetic disease" and thus must instead be a complex genetic/epigenetic interaction.  Sigh, always the genetic explanation when things don't add up.  I always say, "Genetic cause means 'we just don't know!'"
• Hunter vs. farmer theory: the idea that hyperactivity may actually have evolutionary advantages.  So back when man was a doltish hunter, hyperactivity likely served him.  As he moved into more intelligent means of survival (read: farming), requiring more complex tasks, he shed his hyperactivity trait.  People with ADD contain a sort of vestige of this once useful trait.  Uh...any of my hunter readership like to comment on this harebrained hypothesis?
• Environmental: Cigarette smoke, head injuries, toxins, pesticides, organophosphates, global warming, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...
• Diet: Artificial foods, preservatives, food coloring, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...
• Social: Family dysfunction, child abuse, inattentive parents, time in orphanages.
• Neurological: Underdeveloped neurological pathways, and the list goes on...

In all of this, the pathophysiology (the functional changes) of ADD remain UNCLEAR!!!  Did I get that point across strong enough?  Many signs, many symptoms, no consensus, many theories...but no clear-cut evidence.  Frickin' duh!!!  Part 2 tomorrow.

The American Way

I hate to say I told you so, but well...I did. Here's the latest on American health insurance habits: Americans spend more on medical care than their foreign counterparts. But not their own money...oh no, uh uh...Americans spend more insurance dollars, because the perception is that their health is somebody else's responsibility.

According to new research conducted at George Washington University, insured immigrants spend less on medical expenses than U.S.-born citizens, even after accounting for lower levels of insurance coverage. Well, no kidding; you don't say. In fact, overall health care spending was 20% less for American immigrants, even when controlling for factors like health status and age.

No surprise to me--I've been reporting on the convoluted American health paradigm for quite some time. Americans, in general, think that health care is an entitlement--which might not be a problem if the average citizen did all they could to take care of themselves. But when a large number of all illnesses are lifestyle related, it really skews the stats, doesn't it?

The authors of the study point out that these results "contradict the popular belief that immigrants are a drain on the U.S. health system." I agree. But even more telling in my opinion is that Americans overuse the medical system for one simple reason: They aren't footing the entire bill. Truth is that all insured people foot the bill for those using health care the most--the obese, drug addicts (both recreational and pharmaceutical), and the neglectful. And our current government wants to now give us more to pay for with universal health care. You really think this is the answer to "fixing" the health care crisis? Wake up call: not only is there not a crisis, but universal health care is going to cost way more than ever imagined. You'll see.

Flawed Paradigm or Religious Propoganda?

I get most of my health news off the news wires like Reuters or Associated Press. For anyone not familiar with these news outlets, they provide stories for use by newspapers, radio and television programs and other media outlets. It comes over as a "just-the-facts" piece that other writers can use to create a story, which essentially leaves the writer to choose how the story is told without losing its essential meaning and information.

So, as you can probably tell, I have a blast getting these facts-only stories and sending them back out with what I consider a more realistic twist. I know that nobody reading this believes for a second that the information we get over traditional outlets is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's not about being a born skeptic as much as it's about having way too many experiences of being told one thing but seeing another that makes us question what we are told.

Take for example the latest news being reported in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, which says that people who take a proactive approach to their health may, in fact, be better informed, but by no means are they necessarily more healthy. Now, when I see opening words of this sort, along with the headline, "Involved" patients not always healthier, I get an immediate chuckle. I chuckle because I know that either, one: they are providing faulty information; or two: they are defining terms a little differently than I would. I know this because I read the health news every day. I know that studies pour out every week showing that a proactive approach of incorporating healthy lifestyle habits is, without a doubt, the number one beneficial thing people can do to ensure better health and a longer life. But, then, stories like this one come out and, well...they make me chuckle.

So, according to this study, 189 people with high blood pressure were observed: Those people who wanted a greater say in their health care tended to have higher blood pressure and cholesterol than the people who let their doctors have most of the control. Oy vey. And the conclusion of the research team was that, "merely being involved in health care decisions does not necessarily make patients healthier."

Well no ship, Sherlock.

Here are the flaws with these conclusions: First, being proactive goes way beyond "being informed." Could you imagine if we extrapolated that idea--that is, considering simply being informed the same as being proactive--to voting (I'm informed but I don't vote), to our work life (I went to college but I prefer not to work), or to our finances (I know I should save, pay my taxes, and my bills...but I don't). We can all appreciate that proactivity is taking action--in the realm of health it's exercise, adopting a healthy diet, regular bodywork, getting enough sleep, and so on, and so forth.

The second flaw of this study is that they used high blood pressure--hardly a measure of health, and more accurately a measure of potential disease--as the health parameter. People who have high blood pressure are already on the verge of illness. Please. Aren't they already doing something wrong or neglecting to do some things right? And these are the folks we should use as our reference point that "simply being informed doesn't lead people to be healthier"? How amusing. I really could go on for hours about the absurdity of this notion.

Studies like this are an unfortunate relic of the old health paradigm that I am so proactively trying to get you to abandon. That paradigm says, health is a chance occurrence and is fleeting. In other words, illness is inevitable (I've got no argument there) and only through medical intervention can you hope to stand a chance of survival (this, however, is false). Obviously, that message is not presented so blatantly, but you'll find it if you simply read between the lines.

And this is exactly how powerful institutions attempt to control you. Just ask any major religion outside of the Church of Medical Science and they'll tell you: It all starts with brainwashing. You need us. We've saved hundreds of millions of lives, and we save millions more every year; we're here to save you. This has been propagandized for years; nothing new there. But the next step is to tell you that you can't make it without said religion. Don't meddle when it comes to your health; we know what we're doing; we know your health and your body better than you do, and we're here to save you. That's where we are now. The third step is mandating conformity. Mandatory treatments, mandatory inoculations, mandatory obedience. We're just starting to get a glimpse of this practice now. Hang on, we should be seeing much more of this in the future.

Then the break occurs; the unfoldment of upheaval. It has happened in every major revolt in history, including the American Revolution. And now, we are in the midst of a health paradigm revolution. Damn, I feel like Thomas Paine!

Here's the bottom line: people who take a proactive approach to their health and well-being stand an exceptionally high chance of having better health, period. Proactivity means, "acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty." Acting. Not just being informed. Big difference.

Although this study comes to one very true conclusion, that "studies have found that patients generally tend to do better when they agree with their doctors on how to manage their health problems." This, however, is not the same thing as people taking a proactive approach to their health. For sure, it helps when doctor and patient are on the same page; however, I highly doubt that anyone sets out to deliberately challenge one's doctor when one's health is on the line. But in an era of medical mistakes, profiteering, and just plain incompetency, where 98,000 people a year die as a result of medical errors (not accidents, not natural acts, but mistakes)...then yeah, people will question. And that, in my opinion, is highly proactive.

We've Still Got A Long Way to Go

 They say we're in a health care crisis. Everywhere we turn we hear that our system is failing. I would disagree. In fact, I would say that based on the current health paradigm in which we now live, our system works beautifully, and there is nothing to fix.

Huh?!?! Has Campos finally lost his mind?

Hardly. Let me say this loud and clear: WE ARE NOT IN A HEALTH CARE CRISIS. We are in a conceptual crisis--a crisis of paradigms, if you will. Our current approach to health is to take it for granted until something goes wrong, then to run to the doctor or hospital to get cured.

Please tell me what's wrong with our current system in context of this conceptualization of health care. It's too expensive? Hey, it costs money to save lives. You think drug research, organ removal training, or high-resolution imaging diagnostics come cheap. Why should the medical industry spend years and years studying, researching and developing, and billions of dollars in funding just to give it away free? Think about that real hard.

Let me add even more perspective--why would you spend years studying in college, and many more years learning a business or craft, no matter what the discipline, to not earn a reasonable and proper paycheck today? Dry cleaning is too expensive! Restaurants are too expensive? Hair stylists are too expensive? Fix these industries! They're too damn expensive! (Where's Michael Moore when you really need him?)

Case in point: A new study shows that when women have to pay a portion of a medical bill in the form of a co-payment (sometimes as low as $10), the number who go in for regular mammograms decreases substantially. What the...? This is mind-blowing to me. Women who'd rather not get screened for a life-threatening and essentially preventative (if caught early enough) cancer (breast) to save ten bucks is just incomprehensible. But I think it's more prevalent a practice than we know right now--among all genders, races, ages, and socioeconomic classes. I see it in my own practice all the time. Does this mean the system needs to be fixed? Well the Federal government seems to be buckling to the pressure--Medicare is now considering waving co-payments for routine mammograms. Hmmm.

The reality is that if we want something more out of health care, we need to put more into our own health. Period. It's the concept of taking responsibility for our own health; not relying on the government or our employer to foot the bill for our neglect. This is a new way, and one which I heavily believe in and promote. Take better care of yourself and your health care costs will go down. I've had one major medical and one major dental situation in the last two years. I paid a pretty penny for sure (about $5,000 total) to get them taken care of. And guess what? It was worth it. You think I just had the money lying around begging for a place to spend it?--oh, wouldn't that be nice. Sorry, no fat chance--it hurt coming up with the dough. But it was still worth it.

My point is this: Take care of yourself. It will minimize your need for medical care. When something does come up--and it will--your catastrophic medical coverage will come in handy, but it won't cost you an arm and a leg during more healthy times. Not doing the things necessary to maintain good health in the meantime is just dollar dumb. You might save a penny today, but you'll be a big contributor to the false notion that our current non-health system needs fixing.

America's Health Slips Some More

Just another blow to American health care. New reports show the U.S. slipping in life expectancy rankings compared to other countries of the world. In my book, The Six Keys to Optimal Health, I point out that the World Health Organization (WHO) ranks the U.S. 37th out of 191 nations with regard to overall health. And now we've fallen to number 42 on the life expectancy chart with countries such as Jordan, Guam, and the Caymen Islands ranking ahead of us.

Can anybody else see the paradox in all of this? How can one of the richest nations in the world, the most technologically advanced, and the most medically innovative fall so low on the world health scale? Some very important people in health care and politics (as well as one obnoxious film maker) believe it's because we do not have socialized health care. But is it?

Let's look at the facts. The biggest killers in this country are heart disease and cancer, both preventable conditions, not a lack of medical care. Perhaps, a lack of access leads to a few less saved lives, but these people are still having heart attacks. The problem, once again, has to do with our current health paradigm. It's all about saving the lives of people who are dying, rather than preserving the lives of people who are living, before they get ill. Duh. What's so hard about that concept? Why don't these brilliant policy makers see that? I just don't get it.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't focus on saving lives - heck no. Please save my life, my wife's, or my daughter's if you can. Please! I'm ever so grateful for having the best system in the world for doing that (there is no denying that we are at the very top in saving lives in the U.S.). But we are talking about health and life expectancy here. Very different concepts indeed. Health and life expectancy depend on what we do to take care of ourselves, not how quickly you can perform a bypass surgery on Mr. Jones, whose left anterior descending artery is clogged shut.

If we continue to make the process of saving lives the focus of health, then we're fighting a losing battle. Don't get me wrong, innovation in the medical sciences will continue to flourish, and newer, more incredible ways to save lives will be discovered for years to come. And it will continue to be a trillion, maybe even quadrillion, dollar industry. You certainly can't complain about that. However, if we are to ever raise our position within the world health rankings, then we will need to start by focusing on the basics - that is, doing the things that preserve and optimize health; diet, exercise, bodywork, rest, and so on. There isn't a better place to start than by learning how, and I know of a great source coming out this fall that can guide you purposefully. Stay tuned for more.