Why Do We Insist on Dying Early?

Maybe you saw the November 30, 2019 Associated Press article in your local paper entitled: “CDC: Life expectancy in U.S. declining.”

I found it buried on page 15A in the birdcage-bottom-quality newspaper we have here in Denver.  No space for this newsflash in the front portion of our paper.  More of the attention there was dedicated to the announcement of the city council’s pending approval of a “supervised drug-use site” where addicts can come to get clean needles and shoot-up under the watchful eye of a “public servant.”

Go figure.

For the third year in a row, our life expectancy has been trending the wrong direction.  After a century of near-meteoric growth (47 in 1910; 78 in 2015), we’ve found a number of ways to turn it in the other direction.

“We’ve never seen anything like this” says the overseer of the CDC death statistics.  Cancer was the only one of the top ten killers that receded in 2017, albeit only slightly.   Seven of the ten increased.  The biggie, heart disease, has stopped falling; the other biggies, suicide, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s,  continue to climb.

I find it interesting that CDC officials wouldn’t speculate about what’s behind the declining life expectancy – and then, in the next breath, hint that a “sense of hopelessness” may have something to do with it, further suggesting that “financial struggles, widening income gap, and divisive politics” are contributing, concluding that therein lies the hopelessness, which therein leads to increased drug, which therein may explain much of this pull-back.

Drug deaths, while certainly a concern, still haven’t cracked the list of top ten killers in the U.S.

The food industry gets another pass

Burger King and Carl’s Junior never got a pixel of ink in the article!  Nor did Coke or Mountain Dew. The meat industry gets yet another pass from the CDC. 

Now it’s Trump-era politics and class identity instead of sugar, fat and salt that are bending the longevity curve? 

Color me skeptical.

Let’s not hang curve-bending clogged arteries and visceral fat on putrid Potomac politics.

This same CDC seems to have a short-term memory.  In 2017, the organization revealed research that suggests 1 of 3 adults in the U.S. has prediabetes and, of this group, 9 of 10 don’t know they have it.  

I’m no medical expert, but I’m confident saying that divisive politics or financial struggles are not likely to appear on the list of things that causes prediabetes, cancer or heart disease.

Oh, I hear your counter argument:  it’s the worrying related to those types of issues that is bumping up the cortisol and adrenaline thus contributing to these diseases. 

Maybe so.

Permit me to provide a very quick, effective tutorial on preventing worry.

DON’T!!  There you have it – probono.  You’re welcome.

It’s the most egregious use of imagination imaginable – and 95% of our worries never materialize.

Maybe someday we’ll get real.

With all the hysteria and new attention, it’s not likely drug deaths will crack the top-ten list of killers.  All current ten killers are considered preventable, some to greater degrees than others.  We’ve known for decades what we need to do to prevent these killers but we persist in killing ourselves slowly by ignoring the fundamentals of how our cells work.

The universe has established a lifespan benchmark of 122 ½years (reference Ms. Jeanne Calment) and we did a marvelous job of creeping toward that in the 20th century.  But with the low-hanging fruit already picked i.e. infant mortality, elimination/reduction of infectious diseases, washing hands before surgery, etc. , we seem to have become Sisyphean and lost the enthusiasm about continuing to push the longevity boulder up the hill.

We still only achieve about 66% of that full-life potential, even though we know what it takes to realize more of it.  

We’ve become complacent in understanding our biology;  we’ve allowed a deceptive food-industry to take our taste buds captive;  we cling to the 20th century model of labor-to-leisure retirement and become  sedentary and disconnected, thus contributing to a persistent “live short, die long” life curve of gradual and extended frailty.

The solution is a pretty simple plan, really.

  • Stop eating crap – cook at home, leave the meat on the cow and pig.
  • Get off your arse and your heart rate up at least three days a week, preferably five.
  • Go lift a few weights a couple of days a week.
  • Rebuild a “friends list” and do something with it – like connect.
  • Burn/Goodwill the Lazyboy and take the batteries out of the remote.
  • Don’t stop working – find a “third age” sense of purpose.
  • Never stop learning.  Become part of the 5% of our population that reads 95% of the books.
  • Spend a little time learning how your body works at the cellular level – it’ll help motivate you to follow through on the above.

Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach says that people die early for three reasons:

  1. No money
  2. No friends
  3. No purpose

Hard to argue.  A sense of purpose is a principal driver that can help us turn the curve back up.  Plus it will render you immune to Trumpian-politics, CNN/Fox, stock market swings and Facebook narcissism.

What can be bad about that?

14 replies
    • Gary says:

      Gosh, “brilliant” isn’t a word that I recall ever being attached to anything I’ve done, other than marrying my wife. Thanks for your encouraging comment Jodie!!

      Reply
  1. Craig says:

    Thanks! I couldn’t agree more. I’m guessing the members of this group also agree and are doing something about it. Maybe have even found success.

    But unfortunately I find that this is a minority opinion. Everyday I listen to people tell me about their medical problems as a topic of conversation. Often they even use their medical problems as an excuse for their bad eating and excercize habits.

    You know, bad knees, hips, medications make me gain weight and etc. I guessing it just easier to be a victim instead of being responsible.

    So I hope everyone that is a member of this group is not only helping themselves but also encouraging others by asking friends and family to join them excercizing and eating better! You can make it a lot more fun with others.

    Reply
    • Gary says:

      Craig, thanks for the great comment. I observe much of the same thing but I think it’s starting to change as people become more health conscious. I suppose the victim mentality will always be with us. You and I both know that we can talk all we want but people are going to do what they are going to do and, as Gandhi said, you and I will have more impact by “being the change we want to see in others.” I know you exemplify that lifestyle and attitude. Keep up the good work!

      Reply
  2. Candelario Esquilin says:

    Great Stuff
    I just turned 76 and for close to 20 years have been following some of the tenets you expose.It has worked fine for
    me and it is my hope to reach 100 as some of my mentors have done.
    One of my advantages in doing that is l was borned and still live in sunny Puerto Rico where
    believe it or not our diet resembles to a certain extent the Mediterranean diet.It is my hope PUERTO RICO will eventually be recognized as a BLUE ZONE.We have a lot of centenarians.And we are part of the United States.And i like it to be that way.
    I consider myself Puerto Rican/American.
    I served in the US Army for 6 years and was stationed in Fort
    Jackson S.C. and Fort Polk La.
    I hope this feedback helps with
    your massage.

    Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

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  2. […] average we die at an age that is only 2/3 of our current benchmarked full-life biological potential (Google up Jeanne Calment of Paris). Most of that is due to the lifestyle choices we make early in […]

  3. […] if 85 is your goal (P.S. I suggest raising the bar – the human body can last to 112 years, 164 days), be prepared for ailments but adopt a “second half” lifestyle that will help you keep those to […]

  4. […] to 85So, if 85 is your goal (I suggest raising the bar – the human body can last to 112 years, 164 days), be prepared for ailments but adopt a “second half” lifestyle that will help you keep those to […]

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