The US ranks #1in spending health care money, yet #47 for life expectancy.
If you could prevent yourself or your loved ones from getting cancer, chronic disease or heart disease, would you act on it? Chances are, you just said, “yes.” But too many people living in the US are still waiting until it’s too late to take action. The cost on their bodies and their wallets is astounding:
75% of all healthcare dollars are spent on preventable chronic conditions 50% of all bankruptcies are due to excessive medical bills.
Spending on healthcare is the single largest component of overall consumer spending…larger than spending on housing or food. Starbucks even spends more on healthcare for it’s employees than on purchasing coffee beans.
So why is it that one in three of our children will be diagnosed with diabetes? How could it be that 25% of all deaths in the US are due to heart disease, which is completely preventable in most cases?
Traditional medicine focuses on treatment after the development of a disease, rather than preventing disease in the first place. A large part of that treatment involves costly prescriptions that can lead to harsh side effects and even death.
Pharmaceutical drugs are big business in the US, and they carry a host of unwanted side effects. Eating an orange a day can lower your chances of developing cancer by 40%, and it comes with zero side effects.
And yet, the US continues to pour money into the development of more drugs. In 2010, the US government gave $2 Billion to researchers and biotech companies. It also gave $1 Billion to a federal drug development center. The previous year, over $30 Billion dollars were spent by consumers purchasing diabetes drugs alone.
And yet, even over the counter drugs have led to startling statistics. Let’s take a look at what is happening to our friends and family members:
6000 Californians die each year of ulcers caused by aspirin (many of which are consumed to support heart health).
16,500 die from NSAIDs
It takes just one week of NSAID use for 19% of people to develop a visible gastric ulcer
At the end of the day, over 2 million people are hospitalized annually from adverse drug reactions. Think you are safe once you land in a hospital? Think again. The third leading cause of death in the US in 2000 was iatrogenic death (death caused by a physician’s activity, manner or therapy.) These deaths are known by the medical community as “bad outcomes.”
A recent breakdown of the causes of “bad outcomes” in hospitals:
TAKEAWAY: As Ben Franklin said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Keeping yourself healthy, out of the hospital, and in a place where you don’t need a host of medications to survive is the key.
Our offer to you: If you’d like to come in, see one of our doctors to discuss getting out of pain naturally, or how Functional Medicine might help your body heal itself, then you can do so by claiming our $19 new patient special. Simply select the location you want to visit, give us a call, and we’ll look forward to meeting you!
