Keeping Up The Fight

I admire Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his consistent and persistent fight to improve the health of the public in New York City. Of course, he will make missteps, frontrunners always do. And it is good when those missteps are publicized. That too is part of the process to attract public attention. Public and community health for the purpose of primary prevention is a slow and laborious process. It needs more leaders like Mayor Bloomberg. There are more and more people who want to be healthy and realize too late that medical care does not achieve good health. To give medical care credit, it never promised good health, just good care for sickness, disease and disability. I wonder what Mr. Bloomberg will do after he leaves the mayor's office. He is a person of great potential to keep up the fight. I, for one, would join him.  

Thank Goodness Hope Springs Eternal

There are people out there who are trying to improve health. They are doing it without a lot of fanfare and without spending a lot of money. This is a stark contrast to the medical care system. A quiet revolution is underway developing public and community health to strengthen and expand primary prevention in our society. It will take time and a lot of effort but the greater potential for good health and happiness is on the side public and community health with primary prevention. It was Albert Schweitzer who said that happiness is good health and a bad memory. 

Juicing Vegetables and Fruit

The concept to drink vegetable and fruit juice to detox or cleanse the body is a bit flaky. However, people eating the typical American diet do not get enough necessary nutrients. The recommendation to eat at least five or more servings of vegetables and fruit daily has been around twenty years at least but people don't do it. Fresh juice made from vegetables and fruit without the addition of preservatives, sugar or salt is a good way to increase nutrition without unnecessary calories. Everyone should be encouraged to do that. 

Public Health

As expected Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on super sized sugary drinks has come in for some criticism. It would be surprising had that not been the case. Mayor Bloomberg is nothing if not persistent. But he also has been consistent and improving the public health is one of his concerns. God bless him.

Whether or not the pundits or the public are willing to admit it, there is reliable knowledge about diet and lifestyle that indicates pathways to good or poor health. Yes, people can chose for themselves but the choices impact their health and cost everyone money. Is this not a public concern and is not Mayor Bloomberg doing his job?

Medical care is not the solution for poor public health and poor public health should not be for a lack of trying.   

Find and Fix

The annual physical exam has never been productive from a health point of view. It contributed to the medical practice economic model and it gave people a sense of security. When the "recognize and respond" phase of medical care reached a point of diminishing returns there was need to develop a new philosophy. The "find and fix" phase of medical care based upon early detection and secondary prevention has yielded some health benefits but it is early and the learning curve is steep. The future promises the possibility of more cost effective programs. Meanwhile, community and public health based upon primary prevention for populations offers promise for cost effective improvement in health and deserves more attention. This will be disruptive to the medical care model but 30% of medical care may produce no health benefit and at least half of the health problems requiring medical care can be prevented. It appears reasonable to reduce the quantitative expansion of medical care and emphasize more focused qualitative medical care. This represents a change in mind-set and it will result in a transformation for society. There may be no time that society needed it more.