How Common Is Common Sense?
If people have a disease that has been directly connected to poor diet, lack of exercise, or both, it only seems logical they would make the simple changes necessary to be healthy. Common sense and logic would also seem to be identical, just a different way of expressing the same thing. But, there lots of people who appear to posses large amounts of logic but no common sense where happiness and health are concerned.
According to many sources, diabetes is the most expensive disease worldwide and that’s only the cost in dollars, which is calculated to have a price tag of over $132 billion per year in the US. That doesn’t account for lost hours or poor productivity at work and the suffering that accompanies diabetes and resulting poor health. Diabetes is the fifth leading cause of death in the US and is part of what’s called “metabolic syndrome.” Metabolic syndrome, also known as insulin resistance syndrome or dysmetabolic syndrome, refers to the connections between various diseases. The metabolic syndrome connections involved with diabetes are increased instances of heart disease and stroke. You are considered to have metabolic syndrome if you have three or more of the following:
1. Blood pressure of 130/85 mm Hg or are on blood pressure medication (mmHg is the pressure exerted at the base of a column of fluid exactly 1 mm high, plus other factors including gravity).
2. A fasting blood glucose level greater than 100 m/dl (m/dl is milligrams per deciliter, a medical measurement) or are on blood glucose lowering medication.
3. High density lipoprotein (HDL is the good cholesterol) levels of less than 40 mg/dl for men or less than 50 mg/dl for women.
4. Triglyceride levels above 150mg/dl.
5. A waistline more than 40 inches, if male or over 35 inches, if female.
Type 1 diabetes is when the body refuses to produce insulin and type 2 diabetes is when the body becomes insulin resistant. Type 2, which is more common than type 1, is known to affect over 16 million children and adults in the US. It’s estimated that another 6.2 million have the diseases but haven’t been diagnosed and don’t know they have diabetes. Diabetes is projected to double by the year 2025. What is the number one major risk factor connected with type 2 diabetes? Overweight and/or obesity. Which brings us full circle and back to common sense.
Type 2 diabetes was relatively unknown until the 20th century and has risen worldwide in concert with the increase in highly processed foods and chemical food additives, such as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). If you believe HFCS isn’t a chemical or chemical derivative, find out how it’s made and what chemicals are required to convert it from corn into HFCS.
With all the information that’s out there, it would seem common sense that we could connect the dots. Somehow, common sense appears to be very uncommon. Family history is a factor in diabetes but, if we strip away all the misinformation and excuses that are connected with genetics, we find that by changing the diet that our relatives have eaten for generations to one that’s healthful and life supporting, we can move family history and genetics way down the disease ladder.
Insulin is not a cure for diabetes; it’s only a treatment for the symptoms. Diabetes can lower life expectancy by as much as one third. Adults with diabetes, type 1 and type 2, have a two to four times higher risk of heart disease and stroke than those who aren’t diabetic. Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness and kidney failure, and diabetics are many times more likely to die of pneumonia or influenza and have non-traumatic lower-limb amputations than non-diabetics.
If common sense were to prevail, we’d realize if we’re doing something that doesn’t work, the most logical thing to do would be to change what we’re doing. Physical well being isn’t the only component in true, overall health. Many other things enter into the equation. Our emotional state, our mental outlook and our outlook on life in general, our spiritual wellness (with religion and spirituality not necessarily being the same) all enter into our overall health profile. There are many factors that contribute to each of the categories. One that comes to mind, but is too often overlooked is, who’s running our lives? If we allow others to run our lives and it isn’t working, doesn’t it seem logical that we should make a change?
If you’re not happy with the people you voted into office, wouldn’t it make sense to ask some questions about the things that are negatively impacting your life, seek out those who are in agreement with how you’d like to see things done and vote them in and the others out? If you feel you have no choice, as in “I’m genetically predisposed to this political disease” then maybe common sense isn’t common at all and you should just ignore the truths and treat the symptoms. If you feel that’s the case, accept what you get, go sit in a corner and don’t complain.
Of course, you could always resort to an expensive treatment for diabetes and have gastric bypass surgery. That way it wouldn’t be necessary to change anything. But that leaves us with another problem: we wouldn’t be able to complain about the high cost of health care.
Leave Your Comments