What the heck is wrong with healthcare in America today

What the heck is wrong with healthcare in America today.

There are 3 main issues and all of them are important. All 3 issues play into each other.

At the top, of course, is education.People are not educated as to what practices allow for a healthy body. Everyone says exercise and eat right but what does that mean? There are too many variables in exercise and in diet that make that statement useless. In the absence of education, people do what feels good to them and are easily manipulated by interests that are financial not health oriented. There is an appalling lack of responsibility on the part of the average American. There is a mind set of living how ever a person wants and then laying it at the feet of the medical doctor to “fix” it when they have symptoms.

The medical industry is the second issue. It completely plays into the ignorance of the typical American by dispensing drugs as a primary therapy instead of education and advice. Dominated by the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry, it is easy to see how doctor’s mindset about health does not serve the populace as well as it could. The current health care model, as anyone who has been in it recently can attest, is one symptom: one drug and 20 minutes with the doctor if you are lucky. There is simply not enough time spent with patients to educate and to investigate. This is because the managed care system is based on saving money. Therefore, a maximum number of patients are seen and a minimum number of diagnostic tests are performed all in the name of cost savings. If one HMO doc sees 1000 patients and orders 20,00 dollars of tests and another doc sees 1,000 patients and orders 4,000 dollars of tests, can you guess which doc will be let go?

The last and third issue has to do with food in America. Because we live in a capitalistic society, there is always a financial incentive to cut corners to make a buck. Do you really want the manufacturers of food cutting corners with substances you put in your mouth? For that matter, do you want food manufacturers?  Food should be real and live, not packaged and dead.

Americans ate 68 Billion dollars worth of packaged snack food in 2008, up from 60 Billion dollars in 2004. Packaged food is rarely compatible with optimum health. The main reasons for this mind boggling statistic is that Advertisers appeal to the public based on image and taste and have a vested interest in Americans being ignorant about the preservatives, colorings and chemicals that masquerade as food. As long is there is a buck to be made with cheap inferior product ingredients and as long as the public does not cry out for better quality, the free market system in America will deliver more of the same garbage that Americans will consume, much to their detriment.

So, as you can easily see, the healthcare paradigm in America is severely flawed and the primary elements needing change are education about what constitutes health,what constitutes real, healthy  food and the medical/pharmaceutical system. All have their part and are interrelated to one another.

Do I Have a Low Thyroid?

Do I have a low functioning thyroid?

This is a question many people should ask, because the symptoms
of low thyroid are so common today. Read on to learn about the symptoms and what you can do about it.

The thyroid gland is a butterfly shaped gland in your neck. It controls your rate of metabolism and has powerful effects in the functioning of your body. The effects of a low thyroid are felt in almost every part of your body because every cell in your body has a receptor on it’s cell membrane for the thyroid hormones.

So, everything you can think of that your body does, has a thyroid involvement.

The symptoms of low thyroid function, then, can be wide spread. The two most common symptoms are fatigue and depression. Since these are pretty general symptoms, low thyroid is often misdiagnosed as a female hormonal problem or a neurotransmitter serotonin problem.

The other symptoms that are classic for low thyroid are: loss of hair, hair thinning, dry rough skin, intolerance to cold, feeling abnormally cold, constipation, morning headaches, lack of motivation, low libido, and brain fog. Not much fun.

The most common way to confirm the diagnosis of low thyroid or hypothyroid as it is called in the medical community, is an elevated TSH. TSH stands for thyroid stimulating hormone and is a hormone that is sent out from the brain to the thyroid to tell it to make thyroid hormones. So, if your thyroid is not working the way it should, and the amount of thyroid hormones being pumped out is low, the brain will increase the message to the thyroid gland and it will manifest as a high TSH.

How high? Well, the standard lab ranges are .5-4.5, but I consider anything above 3 to be suspicious. I actually saw a person with hardly any symptoms have a TSH of 128! So you can not always determine the severity of the hypothyroid by the symptoms.

The first step is diagnosis, the second step treatment. For most people, going to a doctor with the above symptoms will result in a blood test and a confirmation of low thyroid output. Because doctors are trained in a certain way, the treatment is almost certainly going to be…. thyroid hormone replacement. That is to say, if a hormone is low, add more hormone to the body. While this can help alleviate symptoms, it often overlooks the reason the hormones are low in the first place.

It is extremely useful to find a health care practitioner that is experienced in managing thyroid disorders. A person that can encourage the thyroid to make the thyroid hormones rather than just replace them. However, some times the low thyroid state has gone on so long, the thyroid is incapable of producing more hormones because so much thyroid tissue is lost.
Hormone replacement in this case makes a lot of sense.

Regardless of the therapy used to prove that the TSH- Thyroid-Brain hormone loop is normalized, it is important to realize that there are many other global effects of having a low thyroid.

One of the most important questions is:“ how long after the appearance of symptoms did you get treated for a low thyroid? “ The longer that period of time, the more degeneration has occurred and the more body systems you need to support.

I talked with a woman this afternoon who told me that 15 years had elapsed before she got diagnosed and treated for low thyroid. Yikes!

The most important issue is to seek help if you have the symptoms I listed above and get the proper diagnosis. Treatment can range from thyroid hormone replacement(synthetic and natural), to iodine and selenium supplementation, thyroid glandular tissue supplement, homeopathic treatments or quieting down an overzealous immune system.

All have their place depending on the person, their symptoms and their lab tests.

Blood Pressure

Blood pressure should be checked periodically because it can be abnormal without causing any symptoms. Failing to find and adequately treat high blood pressure (hypertension) increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.Even the inexpensive wrist blood pressure monitors are useful.

Many things affect blood pressure, including neural, glandular, kidney and cardiovascular factors. High blood pressure can be caused by hardening of the arteries or kidney disease.

If the exact cause of high blood pressure cannot be determined, it is called “essential” hypertension. Often there are several factors contributing to the high blood pressure, making it impossible to find a single cause.

If there is no pathology, often high blood pressure can be improved without the use of drugs. The natural approach does not have the side-effects of the drugs. Even if the natural methods do not completely control the blood pressure, they can help reduce the amount of drugs necessary to do the job.

The Nervous System and Blood Pressure:

The autonomic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that automatically controls certain bodily functions like digestion, heart rate, blood vessel diameter and other functions that happen free of central nervous control. These are bodily functions that you don’t have to think about, they happen “autonomously”. You don’t tell your stomach to start producing acid after you eat; it is handled automatically by the autonomic nervous system.

The two divisions of the autonomic nervous system are the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. These two divisions are opposites. They are analogous to the accelerator (sympathetic) and brakes (parasympathetic) on a car.

Branches of the nerves that make up the autonomic nervous system come from the spine. They are affected by spinal subluxations (vertebrae that are out of place) and fixations (vertebrae that do not move properly). Muscle tightness, spinal subluxations and fixations interfere with proper nervous system control. They are very effectively treated by many hands-on therapies. Treating the musculoskeletal system, actually affects the nervous system. Emotion also affects neurological control of the blood pressure. Stress has an effect on the autonomic nervous system. Read the report on the adrenal gland for more information about how stress affects the body.

Nutrition and Blood Pressure:

There are several nutritional factors that can affect blood pressure. The most common nutritional approach is sodium restriction, which isn’t always a good strategy.  Magnesium supplementation has been shown to help reduce high blood pressure in some cases.

Obesity is another important link to high blood pressure. If one weighs more than 15% more than his or her ideal weight, weight loss has been shown to help reduce high blood pressure.

One nutritional issue not commonly discussed with respect to high blood pressure is sugar. Eating refined sugar (and other refined carbohydrates) can lead to “Syndrome X”. Syndrome X is a condition described by Dr. Gerald Reaven. In short, stress and insulin resistance (caused by eating too much sugar and too many refined carbohydrates) can raise cholesterol and blood pressure. The cholesterol increase has a definite pattern. Triglycides and LDL (bad cholesterol) are too high and HDL (good cholesterol) is too low.  Sugar consumption can also adversely affect the adrenal glands and can contribute to high blood pressure.

Arteriosclerosis (loss of elasticity or “hardening” of the arteries) and athlerosclerosis (accumulation of plaque on the internal arterial wall) can cause high blood pressure. High cholesterol, a lack of antioxidant nutrients, consumption of trans fats and refined carbohydrates, smoking, alcohol consumption and stress can all contribute to this condition.

Proper treatment should include dietary and lifestyle changes (whether or not medication is being used to control the blood pressure. Your chiropractor trained in applied kinesiology is equipped to help you develop an effective nutritional program to address all of the issues associated with high blood pressure. Call for a consultation to explore this issue.

Low Blood Pressure

Unless the blood pressure is so low that the kidneys can’t operate, as it is in shock, low blood pressure is not as dangerous as high blood pressure. The main problem for people with low blood pressure is fatigue.

In general, people with low blood pressure do not feel very good. Sometimes they have symptoms other than fatigue, like headaches, pain or allergies.

Sometimes people with low blood pressure are thiamin (a B vitamin) deficient. Often these people do not sleep well—waking up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back to sleep. Often when people who do not have a lot of energy, do not sleep well and have low blood pressure take thiamin, they feel and sleep much better.

Herbs, like licorice, can help to raise blood pressure. In fact, if you have high blood pressure, licorice (we are talking about the herb, not the candy) should be avoided.