225,000 Innocent American’s Killed Last Year – You Won’t Believe How…

The United States has the most expensive health care system in the world. But not only is it among the least effective, it’s also a killer.

Would you believe that doctors and hospitals are the third leading cause of death in America? Only cancer and heart disease take more lives annually (and stress drives both).

How can this be? Aren’t doctors the ones to call and aren’t hospitals the places to go when we’re ill? Perhaps so-but as medical research indicates-we do so at considerable risk.

Dr. Barbara Starfield of the John Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health published her research findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), findings that show clearly that America’s health care system can be dangerous to our health. Here’s how dangerous: 12,000 people die annually from unnecessary surgery; 27,000 people from hospital errors; 80,000 from hospital infections, and 106,000 people from drug side-effects. This sad state of affairs costs the American taxpayer $77 billion annually.

Drug Side Effects Are A Scandal

You’ve seen the TV ads right, for drugs for make believe diseases like “erectile dysfunction”. At the end of the ad there’s sweet music in the background while someone tells you if you have an erection for more than four hours go to your nearest hospital. More seriously, listen to the side effect warning for drugs that include liver failure, heart failure and stroke, among others. Well these “side effects” as they are euphemistically called-actually happen. And they do kill people in significant numbers.

The drug side-effect deaths are especially scandalous because drug companies throw a ton of money around to gain influence over doctors, universities and even the FDA. They do this to make even more money selling Americans drugs, dangerous drugs they often don’t really need.

According to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the drug review process does not ensure that harmful medications won’t be approved for public consumption. The approval review for new drugs cannot be trusted when the reviewers are being paid by the companies making the drugs. These same companies spend billions of dollars marketing and promoting their drugs to physicians, physicians who too often fall prey to the marketing hype or to the financial rewards they get from a company for prescribing its drugs.

Greed and Manipulative Marketing

The drug company Pfizer, for example, was forced to pay $425 million plus in 2004 to settle unfair marketing charges. Pfizer marketed the drug Neurontin, by, among other things, flying medical doctors to high end resorts and paying other physicians to ghostwrite articles hyping the drug.

Even more worrisome is that Dr. Starfield cautions us that her findings are very conservative because they involve numbers from “in hospital” patients only. Moreover, her figures are “death only” statistics; they don’t include a tally of people who’ve been harmed or disabled, in or out of the hospital, while under medical care.

Protect Yourself-Take Action

The good news is that you can take steps to protect yourself from becoming a health care statistic. First you need to stop thinking of your physician as Yoda-as some all knowing being whose advice you can passively follow. Many physicians are outraged at what’s going on in medical care today, and they are in the front lines to change things. Such physicians welcome patients willing to actively inform themselves. The internet offers good sources to gather information about our medical concerns. A useful one is the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section at http://caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/.

Many hospital deaths typically result from errors of commission, things that should not have been done but were done; or errors of omission, things that should have been done but weren’t done. Hospital workers are typically overworked and so prone to make errors.

Make Sure You Have an Advocate When You Move Into the “Sick Care System”

It’s a good idea to have a friend or family member serve as your advocate while you’re in a hospital, an advocate who stays with you and protects you against errors by asking firm questions and settling for nothing less than good answers. You and your advocate should also work to make sure you get in and out of a hospital as quickly as possible. The best way to avoid hospital based infections, infections that are especially strong and dangerous, is to get out of a hospital quickly.

The fact is that we don’t have a health care system-we have a sick care system. We get tested and treated only after we’re ill. The system does little to help us prevent illnesses before they happen. And very often we get too much very expensive testing and potentially dangerous treatment, including drug treatment.

You should know why you’re being tested and for what, and you should understand the reasons and risks for any treatment prescribed to you.

Here’s Your Best Protection

Your best protection against doctor and hospital errors is to stay healthy. Don’t imagine your doctor will be able to help you at all times, and don’t follow her like a sheep. Be active in safeguarding your health. You probably won’t live long and well unless you do.

Most importantly, you need to learn how to get free from stress.

As the World Health Organization declared, stress is the #1 health problem in the entire developed world. Stress hormones put you at great risk. They drive heart disease, including sudden death and stroke, as well as cancer, diabetes and other serious illnesses. Stress hormones also trigger anxiety and depression. Because your doctor gets most of her information from drug company reps, there’s a good chance you’ll get drugged for stress related problems including anxiety and depression. Most physicians were not trained in the mindbody science needed to understand and relieve stress. Job stress can be especially dangerous.

Research also shows that you’ll stay much healthier if you walk for 20-30 minutes at least 4 times a week. It’s also important to avoid eating too many refined carbohydrate foods loaded with chemicals to enhance taste and extend shelf life. Ditto high saturated fat meats filled with growth hormones, antibiotics and fillers.

One of the most important predictors of health and well-being, and so of minimizing doctor and hospital based risks to our health, is to be happy doing what we truly want and love to do. Make the effort to avoid settling for less.

Vitamin D: What You Need to Know

Many studies show that Vitamin D3 has remarkable abilities to prevent illnesses and promote your health and well-being. As, preeminent medical scientist Dr. Paul Rosch put it in his January 2009 Health and Stress Newsletter:

“There are well over two dozen diseases that have been linked with a lack of Vitamin D or have been shown to improve with appropriate Vitamin D supplementation.”

You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Vitamin D3

Most of us have inadequate vitamin D levels. This is a concern because the best way to deal with health problems is to prevent them. Unfortunately, we have a for profit sick care system, not a health care system. The money is in treating illnesses after they develop, not in preventing them before hand. Of our 2.2 trillion dollar health budget, little more than 2% goes toward prevention. More about this in another article, for now let’s consider your Vitamin D3 needs.

If you’re in the sun regularly, chances are good that your vitamin D3 levels are OK. Just ten minutes in the sun without heavy sunscreen gives you about 10,000 IU’s of vitamin D3. But if you’re not in the sun regularly, you may need to take a Vitamin D supplement to get your blood levels up. Authoritative estimates for adequate supplementation are 5000 IU’s a day for people who have no significant sun exposure.

How to Determine If You Need Vitamin D

The best way to determine your needs for Vitamin D is to get a reliable blood test. Then assess your needs accordingly. And then retest to evaluate whether your plan for supplementation is working or if it needs to be modified. There are different schools of thought on how to supplement with vitamin D3. Let your blood levels inform your decisions-not just other’s opinions.

Of the many tests available, the most accurate is to assess 25 hydroxyvitamin D or 25 (OH) D blood levels. Many medical scientists and other nutritional experts consider the so-called “normal” 20-50 ng/ml level to be too low. They consider 50-65 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter) level to be optimal with levels under 32 being worrisome and levels below 20 indicating an extreme deficiency.

A Look at the Power of Vitamin D3

Studies show that Vitamin D impacts the following areas.

Cancer-the further away from the equator, the greater the cancer rates. Leading Vitamin D expert Dr. William Grant estimates that if D3 levels were higher, 2 million cancer deaths per year could be prevented.

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)-low levels of vitamin D double risk of heart attack and premature death.

Autoimmune Diseases-Rheumatoid arthritis, Type 1 Diabetes and multiple Sclerosis are all more prevalent in people with deficient vitamin D levels.

High Blood Pressure and Stroke-decreased Vitamin D stimulates parathyroid hormone which raises blood pressure and vitamin D inhibits mechanisms that raise blood pressure.

Depression-reduced sunlight exposure and depression go hand in hand and studies show that increased Vitamin D blood levels reduce the incidence of depression in older adults.

Diabetes-A Finnish study showed that children who took vitamin D supplements in childhood had 10 times less incidence of diabetes as adults.

Susceptibility to Infection-Vitamin D produces 200 plus antimicrobial peptides that fight infections.

Here’s What to Look for in a Vitamin D Supplement

Buy high quality vitamin D3 supplements from a reputable manufacturer. Avoid commercial pharmacy brands unless you’re certain of what you are getting. Beware of supplements loaded with D2 (ergocalciferol) rather than D3 (cholecalciferol), the active form. Look for the words “D3 cholecalciferol” on the label.

Stress Facts & Stats, Stress Statistics, Stress is Killing People, Stress Kills

If You Suffer From Ongoing Stress
Understanding the Risks Could Save Your Life

At one time or another we’ve all felt the unpleasant effects of stress:

* Your stomach is constantly in knots.
* Your muscles are sore and tense.
* You feel dog-tired a lot of the time.
* You have that “red in the face” feeling from high blood pressure.
* Most days you feel low and unhappy.
* When you try to think of a solution or a way out, you go blank.

These feelings are typical and quite normal.

Stress is taking a terrible toll on the nation’s health and economy. It is a heavy contributor to heart disease, cancer, respiratory distress, lupus and many other life threatening illnesses.”
Dr. Paul Rosch, Medical Scientist and Stress Expert

But over time, stress can do tremendous damage to your health and general sense of well being.
How Stress is Killing People Just Like You

When your body is under stress, your cells actually change shape and become unhealthy. In turn, the delicate tissues in your body become more susceptible to free radical damage—the process that causes aging. Sickness and disease now have an “easy way in.”
It’s a dangerous cycle that leaves you vulnerable to countless health problems.

Living with constant stress will literally wear your body out. Stress hormones will weaken its ability to fight or prevent serious diseases—including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Not to mention making you more prone to colds, infections and other distressing illnesses.

“Stress hormones can badly upset the biochemical balances in our body. That can impair our immune system and leave us open to invasions of cancer cells and dangerous infections.”
Dr. Bruce McEwen, Former Director Rockefeller University’s Neuroendocrine Laboratory

It’s true. Stress kills.

According to the American Medical Association, stress is a factor in more than 75% of sickness today. And according to the World Health Organization, stress is America’s #1 Health Problem.

And as a nation, we’re not very healthy. In 2001 alone heart disease killed an estimated 700,142 people (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). The American Cancer Society Inc. reports an estimated 1.4 million new cases of cancer in 2005, with 570,280 people dying of cancer that same year.

You can be sure that stress weakened the health protecting defenses of these unfortunate people.
The Emotional Costs of Stress

Stress not only wears your body down physically, it also threatens your mental well being. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the most frequently prescribed class of prescription drug from a physician office visit is antidepressants. But the fact is that stress hormones trigger depression.

These “stress facts” are shocking. But you don’t have to be a statistic when you understand exactly how to stop stress from ruining your health and quality of life.

Click here to receive your FREE copy of “The Little Black Book of Stress Relief Secrets”. You’ll learn about Stress, what it is doing to you and how to get relief.