Marc Joseph Nutrition - Blog

“We just fall apart,” Felix Silverstone, former senior geriatrician at New York’s Parker Jewish Institute, declares in an interesting New Yorker article on aging that’s definitely worth a read.

Aging is something we’ll all have to deal with sooner or later, whether with helping our parents or ourselves, and the article raises many of the key issues worth considering.

Why We Age

First up is the contentious question of why we age:

[S]cientists do not believe that our life spans are actually programmed into us. After all, for most of our hundred-thousand-year existence—all but the past couple of hundred years—the average life span of human beings has been thirty years or less … Today, the average life span in developed countries is almost eighty years …

… Inheritance has surprisingly little influence on longevity. James Vaupel, of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, in Rostock, Germany, notes that only six per cent of how long you’ll live, compared with the average, is explained by your parents’ longevity; by contrast, up to ninety per cent of how tall you are, compared with the average, is explained by your parents’ height. Even genetically identical twins vary widely in life span: the typical gap is more than fifteen years.

The “wear and tear” model appears much more likely to determine longevity:

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$50 trillion. That’s the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) estimated present value of the financial promises the federal government has made over the next 75 years. Medicare obligations represent more than $32 trillion of that amount, and have increased more than three-fold since 2000.

Now the scary part: We don’t have anywhere near the expected revenues to pay for those promises.

Why should you care?

Well, if you’re currently receiving or will soon qualify for Medicare, there will likely need to be significant reductions in the benefits offered to keep the program from going bankrupt.

And if you’re younger, there are several big reasons why you should care:

1. Your parents’ Medicare benefits will likely be reduced, and that, in turn, may directly affect their out-of-pocket costs and potential dependency on you to help pay for them.
2. Your taxes will likely be raised to keep Medicare solvent.
3. The level of Medicare benefits available today most certainly will not be available to future generations.

What You Need to Know

The GAO, the U.S. government’s accountant and investigative agency, is currently led by David Walker, comptroller general. Over the last year, Walker, his colleagues, and representatives from both conservative and progressive think-tanks have been touring the country as part of a Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, in an effort to alert this country’s citizens to the impending crisis.

This past Sunday, Walker took his compelling message to CBS News’ 60 Minutes:

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The negative effects of worsening dietary patterns and associated degenerative diseases are not just being felt in high-income countries.

Increasingly, as this article notes, lower- and middle-income countries are also seeing rapid increases in overweight and obese populations. Several possible reasons are mentioned, including:

• Dietary shifts toward greater animal and hydrogenated fat intake, and lower fiber intake
• Reduced energy expenditure through work and leisure
• Decreasing food prices (e.g., beef)
• Urbanization
• The spread of the fast food and soft drink industries

Clearly, these changes present significant challenges to not only the health of the people directly affected, but also to the economies of the affected countries and the world as a whole as the rates of degenerative disease increase as a result.

This article discusses the recent buyout of HCA, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the U.S., by several private-equity firms.

Clearly, the folks who bought the company see a big future in sick people requiring hospital care. As the chairman of a leading health care consulting firm says in the article:

“Everyone in the industry is waiting for the Baby Boomers…The presumption is that we’re all going to be in the hospital soon…

Probably not a bad bet.”

The article goes on to note that, in typical leveraged buyout form, the acquirers of HCA will likely sell off underperforming hospitals in an attempt to maximize the value of their investment. This, of course, may lead to a reduction in hospital beds, which further stresses the system and requires a reduction in the average length of a patient stay.

Good for the bottom line. Maybe not so good for you.

A preventive nutrition program to avoid chronic conditions and the need for costly hospital care is clearly a better option.

A recent survey of Fortune 500 companies found that many companies are reducing retiree health plan coverage and nearly 1 in 7 plan on eliminating retiree coverage entirely.

Even more telling is the study finding that, “About 40 percent of employers said they believed the best way to solve their retiree health cost problem is to exit it altogether…”

The article also mentions a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study that notes only one-third of employers in 2005 offered health retiree benefits versus two-thirds in 1988.

Clearly, the responsibility for health care is being shifted from employers to individuals. This trend means it is more important than ever for individuals to take steps to help prevent the onset of costly chronic diseases.

A sound nutrition program and avoiding environmental toxins are essential parts of such a plan. Action plan overviews for many of the most common conditions associated with aging are linked off the Marc Joseph Nutrition homepage.