Social improvements
As we saw earlier, the sober truth is that the poor are much less healthy than the more advantaged socioeconomic groups and do not benefit nearly so much from medical advances. A book like this is no place to go into this in any great detail but suffice it to say that the resources that would be needed to make an impact on the health of poor families are so great that they could not come solely out of the ‘health’ kitty.
Modification of lifestyle
If no one smoked, death from all cancers would fall by a third; almost all long-term lung diseases would disappear; several diseases of the arteries would be eliminated; about one quarter of heart attacks would be prevented and there would be a small reduction in perinatal mortality. Some of these benefits can be obtained by switching to low-tar cigarettes. Preventive measures include better health education, further restrictions on tobacco advertising, the restriction of smoking in public places, and increased taxation of tobacco. All of these have been proved to work both alone and in combination.
Any diet that helps people slim, increases dietary-fibre intake and reduces calorie and fat intake will reduce the risk of cancer of the endometrium and gall bladder, may reduce the risk of breast and colon cancer, and may reduce the risk of cancer generally in a number of ways. There is little doubt from several studies that being overweight makes it more likely that you will get a cancer. The avoidance of obesity also reduces the risk of high blood pressure and diabetes, and can reduce the risk of having a heart attack. It reduces the likelihood of suffering from a hiatus hernia, other hernias, degenerative arthritis of the knees and many foot problems. Most people say that when they lose weight the quality of their lives improves dramatically because they feel better, look better and enjoy life more.
Alcohol produces effects not only on the drinker but on those whom he or she influences while drunk. Alcohol consumption is rising and although a little alcohol has been claimed to protect against heart disease most people who drink find it difficult to draw the line and end up having too much.
Too little physical activity results in obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and too much insulin. The benefits of regular, controlled physical activity are now beyond doubt. Perhaps the most valuable is the effect it has on weight loss. People who take regular exercise find it easier to lose weight and to keep it off. This occurs because the body’s metabolic rate continues to remain high even after the person stops taking the exercise. There are also suggestions that the sense of well-being that exercise produces means that people who would otherwise have eaten because they felt ‘low’ now have no urge to do so.
3 Protection against injury
Death rates on the roads are now below the levels of the 1930s despite the vast increase in traffic, but car accidents are still far too common. Worldwide the traffic death toll is calculated to be 250,000. Given that there are about forty times as many injuries as actual deaths it is easy t see how big a problem road-traffic accidents are.
But injuries don’t just take place on the roads. Accidental injury, which includes homicide and suicide, is the fourth commonest cause of death in the US and is the commonest cause of death under the age of 35 in the UK. In the US more people are killed as a result of accidental injury under the age of 40 than by all other causes put together. About one in three of the population of the US each year has a non-fatal injury bad enough to cause them to lose a day or more of normal activities and a fifth of these injuries put the person in bed for at least a day. In the developing countries also, injury is a very common cause of death.
*17/72/5*
