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Mind games around food
There have been so many medical advances in the past few decades that most of us have not even noticed how much has really changed. A medical doctor graduating medical school in 1970 would have graduated before birth control pills could legally be sold to single womeni. The vaccines for chicken pox, measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles) were not even on the marketii. CAT scan machines were not yet sold iii. Knee and other joint replacements were still in the experimental stage. None of their professors knew about the various forms of learning disabilities, nor the treatments not yet invented. The list goes on and on.
The point is that science has changed medicine, and life, quite rapidly.
During that same time period, and in part due to the same new tools used to make the medical progress, the percentage of our population either overweight or obese doubled.iv Now only one in three Americans is of healthy weight.
As scientific tools have helped us understand better how the body and mind work, the manufacturers of foods have used these same tools to make certain foods sell better by making them more attractive. The same machines that find brain tumors teach advertisers how to present messages that target the centers of emotion in the brain. v,vi Marketing study participants view pictures of various packaging and videos of pilot food commercials while brain scanning is done, and when the right section of the brain lights up, the company knows they have a winner - the customers will buy more.
Additionally, these scientific tools teach food producers which mix of ingredients produce the most positive brain signals saying "more, more, more". There are antenna in the brain that send "feel good" signals when some chemicals hit them. They can be activated by everything from chocolate to cheese to heroin. In the case of foods, after studying the research on the topic, Dr. Oz reported that the four most "addictive" foods are high fructose corn sugar, cheese, chocolate and meatvii.
Most would say that food choices are a matter of individual responsibility - but I begin to wonder if "free choice" actually exists under these circumstances. In the case of manufactured food, vendors can now manipulate both the buying mind and the eating mind to shape our behavior such that we now have devastating impacts on human health.
Where do we draw the line?
If food can be made irresistible, and 2/3 of our population is now unhealthy from eating too much, how do we as adult citizen leaders fight the deliberate introduction of cumulatively unhealthy products into our countries environment? What do we do when a free market economy creates an unhealthy population?
Now that we know that certain food ingredients cause unhealthy eating to occur, and that ingredient is badly harming the health of two thirds of all Americans, and the insurance and tax bills of the rest of us, what do we do?
Because being overweight is the new normal, you cannot assess where you fit on that scale by looking around. You need an objective tool. You can start by finding out how overweight you really are. One really interesting tool calculates the ratio of your height to your waist, and lets you know where you stand (or how much cushion you have when you sit. ) You can find it at http://www.health-calc.com/body-composition/waist-to-height-ratio.
If you want to protect the health of your loved ones, it is pretty easy to do if they are not already addicted. It only requires a change in mindset. You can stop buying foods with fructose and cheese built in to them. Swap more fruits and veggies in your meals. When you serve meat, cut the portions to be about as big as a deck of cards.viii if they have entrenched unhealthy habits, it will be harder, but not impossible, to coach them into habits which will help them live longer.
In our schools, a number of programs have been researched and proven to work. You can find a number of examples of success at www.childtrends.org.
Until recently, the moans about our overweight society blamed the individual eater. It now appears that at least some of the blame can be placed on the manipulation of the food sold to us. Until our political system and culture sort out how to address the issue of some folks making a profit by making other sick, we will have to work really hard to create a healthy society for ourselves and our kids.
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How we can more effectively love on our
hospitalized friends, and save money
Imagine your car broke and towed to the shop. The mechanics listened, poked, and prodded, and explained what your choices were, and the costs. You choose one, and agree to leave the car for repair.
In a day or so, you go get the car, and are assured everything is fine now. After handing over your credit card (Ouch - that much?), you get the keys and drive off.
Several days later the car breaks again - in roughly the same place under the hood. Call the tow truck, and wind up back in the shop again. "Sorry", they say, "these things happen".
"Wasn't exactly the same problem, just close to the one we fixed - can we have your credit card please?" How does that feel?
Now let us mentally get out of your car, and get into an ambulance as you hold the hand of your son or daughter or parent whose health is broken. Your loved one is about to become a member of a new club, made up of the thirty million Americans (one out of every ten citizens) treated by Americas' hospitals every year. i
As the Emergency Medical Technicians bustle about connecting tubes and wires, remember that our current healthcare system costs about $8,600 per American per year - just about twice as much per capita as the other developed nations - and most of those nations get higher scores for healthcare quality. ii,iii
In the world of hospitals, one out of every eight hospital patients have to be towed back
Your child is about to become a member of a new club, made up of the thirty million Americans (one out of every ten citizens) treated by Americas' hospitals every year. v Given the one in ten ratio, it is highly likely that every American knows someone hospitalized, every year. In a very expensive system with room for improvement in quality.
One of the indicators of quality in hospital delivered healthcare is the number of times someone has to be hauled back to the shop ("readmitted", in healthcare speak) for a repair ("readmitted", in healthcare speak)that did not work well, for lack of fixing the original problem, or or to fix something accidentally broken while fixing something elsethe original problem. vi is being fixed.
In the United States, of the 30 million admitted, close to 4 million - one in eight (one in five for the elderly)vii hospital patients wind up a unplanned readmission.viii,ix. For Medicare alone this costs around 17 billion dollars annually. x
Unplanned readmissions are one of the reasons our healthcare system is so expensive. They are also an indicator of quality of the healthcare non-system.
Back in the day, the family doctor took care of you in the hospital. They knew what drugs you were on, your medical history, and your personal circumstance. Those days are gone - because of the invention of hospital based new tools and medicines, hospitals now have full time doctors to care for you , and the doctors in the hospitalyour family doctor often does not know a lot about your hospital care. medical affairs. And when you are sent home, your family doctor often does not know much about what happened in the hospital.The non-system has changed.
Information sharing has broken down in many cases.
Research shows that many of these re-admission can be avoided. The three leading causes are a) hospital issued drug prescriptions that fight with other drugs the patient is already on, b) failure of the family to follow instructions for patient home or lack of a visit by the patient to the family doctor after discharge from the hospital, care and c)or lack of a visit by the patient to the family doctor after discharge from the hospital to keep an eye on the patients overall condition. xi failure of the family to follow instructions for post-discharge care.
While books have been written on this subject, tThe bottom line is that once the patient leaves the hospital, it falls to the family to keep all the various parts of the "system" working together. This includes - including the pharmacy, nursing home, primary care doctor, school nurse, other specialists, the VA, and on and on. This often overwhelms the patient’s family. The patient’s health declines, and the tow truck is called, and off to the hospital they are carted again. And out comes the credit card.
It does not need to be this way.
Cox Medical Center Branson in Missouri put in place an information sharing system designed to notify all members of the patient's family and healthcare treatment team of what was being done to the patient in the hospital, and what needed to be done after discharge. Readmission rates dropped almost one third!xii
Other hospitals started Four hospitals have shown the rest of the country a way to take better care of patients, extend life, and lower costs for patient and taxpayers alike. The most successful strategy, used in combination with others, is what they call Transition Planning. The hospital care team identifies the possible weakness in the patient’s ability to get post discharge supportrisks to the patient, and assigns specially trained people to shore up the system. They make sure the family doctor is fully informed. Prescriptions are cross checked. House calls are made by specially trained caregivers. Studies show that tThese steps alone can eliminate about 1/4th one quarter oof the allreadmissions – saving 1 million hospitalizations each year admissions!xiii
Another promising method is to use a computer screening tool that creates a risk profile of patients being discharged. Those who score high get assigned staff to help them make the transition. We can help control healthcare costs, prolong life, and lower taxes, as these hospitals have done. And in our own life, w. When the one in ten people you know who enter the hospital each year, you can make a big difference by being present to offer support, monitor pharmaceuticals, log temperatures, and generally keep a loving eye on stressed patients and family members. Make a list of all their medications, and enter them into a website that checks for harmful interactions like http://reference.medscape.com/drug-interactionchecker. If their health seems to be getting worse, head off that ambulance run by a timely trip to the family doctor.
Your efforts to help a loved one will also It is possible to make America better, healthier, and strongerhealthier, and healthcare cheaper, by local action.
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Putting A Stop To More Crime
This is a crime story with a surprising ending. The "bad guys" can behave like "good guys", if we give them the right tools. The result is that the cops nab more "bad guys".
Reported crime in America has been steadily dropping for many years. Murders, burglary and car theft dropped by more than half between 1980 and 2009. Even rape went down 22%[i]. This reduction is good news.
The bad news is that the "solved" rate is also falling. What the cops call the "clearance rate" (arrest has been made, case has been turned over for prosecution, or bad guy is dead) has dropped from around 90 percent in the 1960's to below 65% in recent years. Police fail to make arrests in more than one third of all homicides. In recent years, there has been a decline in arrests are made for crimes against property.[ii]
Used to be we had a "neighbor against neighbor" crime pattern, where the background, historic animosity, and network of multi-generational families offered law enforcement access to information and many ways to investigate. Now we have more of a "gang against gang" pattern, where the crimes are often done by strangers onto strangers, and retaliation against those who help the police.
So we need a system that increases the chances a criminal will be caught once a crime is committed. Since may offenders commit multiple crimes, catching them for one reduces the likelihood of their doing more.
One voluntary citizen initiative now in place to help the cops solve more crimes is called Crime Stoppers. Started in 1975, the program has two key ingredients. The first is that it pays a reward. The second is that it keeps the identity of someone who calls Crime Stoppers a secret.
Crime Stoppers posts its phone numbers around town. When someone has information about a crime, they call either a local or national phone number (the national number is 1-800-222-TIPS), report what they know, and are issued a secret identifying number. If the information is accurate, and helps lead to a conviction, the tipsters contact Crime stoppers, identify themselves by the magic secret number, and receive the reward. There are now more than 1200 local Crime Stopper chapters.[iii]
Since its founding, Crime Stoppers tipsters have contributed information which led to over 600,000 arrests, collected a million dollars in reward money, and helped achieve confiscation of drugs valued at more than three million dollars[iv]. In many cases the rewards are not accepted - the tipster tells Crime Stoppers to keep the money to get more bad guys off the street.
In Collier County, Florida, after rumors of expanding drug use in the school began to spread, special efforts were made to let high school students know of the local Crime Stoppers phone number. In a two week period, there were 18 arrests made, half of which came from tips phoned in by students.[v]
Now here is the clever idea about how to make this good system even better.
Some Crime Stoppers groups are working with local jail and prison systems to make it easier and safer for inmates to offer tips.
In Tallahassee Florida, concerned citizens and law enforcement produced 100,000 decks of special playing cards. The cards were printed with regular playing card symbols of hearts, clubs, etc., on one side and details of unsolved crimes on the other, along with the Crime Stoppers contact information. The cards were made available to inmates. Tipsters furnished information solving two murders as a result.[vi]
In Tulsa Oklahoma, the sheriff's office processes 32,000 people a year, with an average daily population of around 1,700. (Many of the 32,000 are in for just a day or so until bail is arraigned). Crime Stoppers tip line phone numbers s are included in the handbook issued to all new inmates, and publicized elsewhere in the jail.[vii] Based on phone records, Tulsa corrections officials know that the Crime Stopper phone number is being called from the phones reserved for inmates use. They also have indications that when a short term inmate hears gossip or bragging about a crime while in jail, they often call the tip in when they return home, or can access a public phone.[viii]
So we have here an existing volunteer program which is working impressively in 1200 locations - and could be made even more effective if its' marketing were expanded aggressively into the locations where the criminals are. We can make our society safer, if we just give the inmates the tools.
[i] Table 306, Crimes and crime rates by type of offense:1980 to 2009, US Census Bureau Statistical Abstract of the US, 2012
[vi] http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/Office-of-Statewide-Intelligence/Menu/Cold-Case-Playing-Cards-Home.aspx
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The Cost of Morality and Mortality
Think about how much you would be willing to pay for a lifejacket of your very own as you and your child board the fishing boat. How much? How much you would be willing to pay for one for yourself when the boat is sinking? For your child as the boat is sinking? I bet you got 3 different numbers. You recognized real value.
There are times when you are willing to pay almost anything to avoid catastrophe - but that is when it is staring you in the face, not when the danger seems remote.
Scientists believe that the upper safe limit of common greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere is 350 parts per million (ppm).i This would result in a 3.6 degree worldwide average temperature rise (hotter in some spots, cooler in others) over decades. Surprisingly, last fall we hit 400 ppm, and emissions continue to grow, not shrink.ii
There is breaking news. The ocean appears to be losing its ability to absorb greenhouse gasses, which means more gas floating into the upper atmosphere, increasing the rate of climate change.iii In addition, polar ice is melting much more rapidly than predicted, releasing a lot of ancient greenhouse gas previously trapped under the ice, also adding to the rate of climate change.iv,v
We are headed into much more dangerous times sooner than had been predicted just a short time ago.
The updated prediction is that so much greenhouse gas is being produced that it will cause temperatures in parts of the earth to rise 10 degrees by 2050.vi,vii We are responsible for this state of affairs. This climate change is driven by the kind of energy we use.
One of the major impacts of making energy from coal, gas, or oil is that this produces greenhouse gas. Conservation and solar energy don’t.
Due to initial prices, people constructing large buildings often chose to build facilities that do not include conservation and solar, so the utility has to use greenhouse gas producing generators to supply the building.
After all, there is no apparent cost to the building owner if the utility dumps the greenhouse gasses into the sky.
I have written about the difference between "price" and "cost". Price is what you pay at the gas pump or electric meter. Cost is the total cost to society – it includes the polluted water and air, and the sick people harmed by the pollution. Cost also includes the greenhouse gasses created during the energy manufacturing process.
The scientists' latest announcements about climate change tell us that the bill for the total cost of energy is coming due - soon. Want to buy that life jacket? For your kid?
Fortunately, you can. From 2001 to 2012, the average retail price of electricity in the U.S. has increased 35 percent, while the average installed price of a large commercial scale solar electric system has dropped nearly 70 percent.viii New legal and business models have emerged. The pricing and financing terms have gotten so competitive that companies like Wal-Mart, Costco, and Fed Ex have made major strategic decisions to get their energy from the sun. For example, Wal-Mart has set a goal of obtaining 100% of its electrical energy from the sun over the next 7 years, and is hard at work doing just that.ix
ii http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/atmospheric-greenhouse-gas-concentrations-2/assessment-1
v http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120831-antarctica-methane-global-warming-science-environment/
vi http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2012/03/climate-change-global-warming-temperature-rise-model-predict/1#.UXBzk8qDmSo
vii http://www.asianscientist.com/in-the-lab/mekong-region-facing-degree-warming-climate-extremes-2013/
ix Wal-Mart New Energy Commitments Factsheet http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2013/04/15/walmart-announces-new-commitments-to-dramatically-increase-energy-efficiency-renewables
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Waste not - make electricity instead
I bet that you do not often think about the role sewage treatment will play in the future of your family.
Starting around the time of the second world war a torrent of new medicines were added to the waste that the sewage treatment plants had to handle. Simply put, if you apply modern medicines to your skin, or put it in your mouth, some portion winds up at the plant.
Add to that the enormous increase in chemicals produced for use in industry, farming, painting homes, and even paving streets, and you can see that the very nature of sewage has changed. In 1940 about 1 billion pounds of synthetic (not found in nature) chemicals were produced. By 1990 that number grew to over 400 billion pounds consisting of over 70,000 different chemicals. This tonnage does not include pesticides that enjoyed similar and perhaps more spectacular growth.
Our future may also be impacted by these chemicals combining with each other in the environment and making new chemicals, a process known as “ecotoxicology.”
In most parts of the country, this chemical-laden sewage is run through treatment systems not designed to handle it. The American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2013 report card on the state of our nation’s 14,000 sewage treatment plants gave us a “D.”
When waste goes through the sewage plant, it basically splits into two sections. One is liquid, and the other is solid (called bio-solids). The treated liquids are dumped back into the river for the city downstream to make into drinking water. The treated bio-solids remain a local problem for the sewage plant operator to dispose of. For many years now, about half of all bio-solids produced nationally have been distributed to farmers for fertilizer under a system of state issued safety permits.
Scientific controversy continues to exist about how safe our current handling of bio-solids really is.
As medical science discovers a wider set of impacts from chemicals in the environment, the Environmental Protection Agency responded to rising safety concerns and in 2009 conducted a study of bio-solids, collecting 84 samples from representative sewage plants around the country. The EPA found 27 potentially harmful metals (like lead) in virtually every sample, three pharmaceuticals in all 84 samples and nine more pharmaceuticals in 80 of the samples. Three steroids were found in all samples. The majority of all samples contained flame retardants suspected of causing health issues.
Further scientific investigation is ongoing.
Taking a conservative approach, since the risk is not well known and bio-solids are not going away any time soon, the challenge is to figure out alternative ways to dispose of them.
One promising step is to take the solid waste from sewage treatment plants and burn it at very igh heat. Of the 1,400 sewage systems in the nation, only about 200 incinerate bio-solids. This is surprising, because burning has been shown to remove a significant amount of the chemicals and reduce the volume to a fraction of its former size.
Of the 200 facilities that have put such high-temperature incinerators in place, the more creative ones are actually using the burning process to generate electricity.
The Metropolitan District of Hartford Connecticut has adopted a plan to upgrade its current bio-solids incineration system so that the previously wasted heat will be used to generate electricity. The plant, coming on line in early 2014, will produce 40 percent of the electricity needed to run the sewage treatment facility.
The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District is in the final stages of a similar project. It will produce 25 percent of the electricity the Southerly Wastewater Treatment Center’s electrical needs.
Closer to home, the Water and Sewer Authority of Cabarrus County (WSACC) offers another example of a forward leaning operation. It owns an incinerator that is operating below 50 percent capacity due to textile plant closings in this region. To more efficiently use the incinerator, WSACC has constructed an “import bio-solids facility” to allow other sewage plants to bring their bio-solids to WSACC for incineration. This is part of a larger project to install a heat recovery steam generator and a steam turbine generator to produce electricity from the excess heat that would have been wasted. WSACC is now taking bio-solids, safely incinerating them, and by March 2014 will be using the heat from that process to make electricity and reduce demand on the power grid.
Think of this — instead of creating endless streams of possibly contaminated solid waste that might wind up fertilizing food-producing fields, the bio-solids are burned to create electricity, which reduces the demand for coal-fired generation (which has its own chemical waste to contend with). So the win-win is reduced potential risk in our food supply, decreased taxpayer cost for waste disposal, more electricity, and the environmental risk to future generations is reduced.
The choice will be made by local leaders and informed citizens like you. Are you going to waste this opportunity?
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