Ezekiel J. Emanuel makes a compelling argument. Please read it all here! Here are some salient excerpts:
Rather than saving more young people, we are stretching out old age.I am 75. I have reached Emanuel's goal line. Touchdown! But now I am entering the endzone. Does that mean I'm celebrating? I don't know. But this week I have purchased the only item which was ever on my bucket list. And it's been on that short, short list a very long time. Expensive. A stretch. Definitely out of my comfort zone. But there it is...
. . . .over the past 50 years, health care hasn’t slowed the aging process so much as it has slowed the dying process.
. . . .a key issue with aging: the constricting of our ambitions and expectations.
. . . . My view does have important practical implications. One is personal and two involve policy.
Once I have lived to 75, my approach to my health care will completely change. I won’t actively end my life. But I won’t try to prolong it, either. Today, when the doctor recommends a test or treatment, especially one that will extend our lives, it becomes incumbent upon us to give a good reason why we don’t want it. The momentum of medicine and family means we will almost invariably get it.
My attitude flips this default on its head. I take guidance from what Sir William Osler wrote in his classic turn-of-the-century medical textbook, The Principles and Practice of Medicine: “Pneumonia may well be called the friend of the aged. Taken off by it in an acute, short, not often painful illness, the old man escapes those ‘cold gradations of decay’ so distressing to himself and to his friends.”
My Osler-inspired philosophy is this: At 75 and beyond, I will need a good reason to even visit the doctor and take any medical test or treatment, no matter how routine and painless. And that good reason is not “It will prolong your life.” I will stop getting any regular preventive tests, screenings, or interventions. I will accept only palliative—not curative—treatments if I am suffering pain or other disability.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEmanuel's article is such a mixed bag - one grain of truth mixed with confusion. The man is actually dangerous considering the posts that he holds. Most of the increase in life expectancy in the US in the 20th century came by preventing early deaths. People don't actually live much longer than people who reached adulthood in the 19th century lived. Many of America's older people are sick with chronic diseases. But this is where I part company with "Zeke". Because while I agree that mainstream medicine is on the wrong track and doesn't improve people's lives, I don't conclude that to defeat them I should simply die.
ReplyDeleteIt has been known for decades and has been well documented in the peer reviewed literature that the leading causes of death and disability in the countries eating the standard American diet (SAD) are preventable and even to a large degree REVERSABLE. So rather than give a fortune in money to misguided medical services to attempt to prolong a miserable life, I choose to make the simple changes in diet and lifestyle which both improve my quality of life and extend it to the natural length (whatever that happens to be). Zeke seems totally oblivious to this option.
As a culture our health has been driven down by corporate interests which profit by controlling our behavior through misinformation and advertising in order to sell us and even get us to believe in consuming their unhealthy products. They influence education, lie about their products, buy off government, and create studies that distort the truth in their efforts.
I could go on for a long while on this topic. My life has turned around over the last two and a half years after I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke from which the neurologists at the hospital I entered did not expect me to recover. But by studying the work of perhaps a dozen doctors who have saved other people from many diseases including cancer, cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis, I not only survived and regained the use of the right side of body which had been partially paralyzed, I now enjoy heath that I had not known in over twenty years and without surgery or medications.
I am not trying to live to be a 100 but rather to have a good life free of chronic disease until the end. And that is in fact possible to do. I am not afraid of death - I've been close to it a few times and as a Buddhist I see it as a part of life. But as long as I am here, why not take advantage of the scientific knowledge that is available.
It's about FOOD.. What we put in our mouths (fruit, greens, mushrooms, grains, beans, berries, and seeds are good!) and our physical (move!) and mental habits (meditate) determine our health to a very, very large extent. Even over our genes. I still value modern medicine for things like communicable disease treatment , dentistry, or emergency surgery for injuries caused by accidents, but I have stopped relying on those who push pills and invasive treatments for what are actually dietary illnesses. And I even enjoy food more than I used to.
This approach is growing in the medical field. Even Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed health care provider in the US, has adopted a dietary approach to chronic illness.
Please check out the links on my blogs to the doctors whose work has saved my life and restored my good health. Here is a sample talk by Dr. Michael Greger (a hero to me, who featured my story on his Facebook page some time ago) speaking about the leading causes of disability and how to prevent and even cure them: http://youtu.be/1DCjwIVJmMw .
So my friend, don't give up on life! Don't give up of health! Don't feel destined to experiencing pain and suffering and "declining years". You do have the power to improve your health and enjoyment of life without the drug companies and surgeons who merely pick your pocket and as Emanuel points out do not do much to either extend your life or improve its quality. You CAN do both without them! And it doesn't cost any money.