Open Future New Zealand

Your Personal Health

Your good intentions alone don't help.  The cost of making mistakes, is real.  If you choose to live in a dream world that ignores the facts you don't like, it will cost you friendships, it may cost you money, your health and even your life.  For instance in personal health and lifestyle (See below.), the difference between making good choices and poor choices can be as much a 35 years of functional capability at age 70.  I know seventy year old's who have not been able to run for 20 years, who have trouble getting up and down off the floor, who have joint pain, are over-weight, who have type II diabetes, and for whom strokes, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease are a near term reality.  They can see death on the horizon. 

Contrast them with people who are 85 or more, who have normal weight, who still exercise daily, who can still run, who climb stairs easily, who don't suffer from constant join pain.  For them each day offers the opportunity to spend time with grand-children, to cultivate arts and crafts, to enjoy the benefits of a long life. 

For much more on health issues please visit Open Future Health, our companion website.

Some Things to Think About and Research

Personal Health and Lifestyle

Official Government Messages

This is a standard health message, with medical profession and government support.

Much of our ill health is CAUSED by the things we BUY. That includes the food we choose to eat.

The "how to live a healthy life" message everyone "knows" is controlled by people who have religious, cultural, political or economic power in your country.  The message is commonly controlled by a widely acclaimed institution, and there are principles and ideals to which that institution is committed, which are supposed to be unchanging. Then as health knowledge changes those institutions are trapped promoting and old outdated message.  In contrast those who can increase sales and profits with a "health message" are able to flood the media with propaganda that pretends to be "health information". Then we wonder why people have confused and often wrong ideas about how to be healthy.

There's an official mainstream view for almost everything.  Certainly in the West, there is a right and wrong way, seldom disputed.  Everybody knows without thinking.  There's a ready answer to most problems.  The answer supported by tradition, the prestige of an institution, or the eminence of a leader.  A "safe answer" that is difficult to ignore. 

But the world is changing, old, well established rules for action, can become a trap.  Are our principles and ideals still relevant?  If not, there will be a long battle to change them.  It's critical not to adopt a position that makes it impossible even to name the elephant in the room.  You can't address a problem, if people are so alarmed by the prospect of change that it can't be discussed.  How do we identify, name and engage in the debate about the things we fear the most?  Limiting the population of your city, or country or the human population of the world is an issue like that.  There will be an inevitable fall in wealth and prosperity, as the Earth forces us to repay the environmental deficit of the last 300 years.  If we can't face it, as some stage natures own forces, will present us with a very unwelcome reality. 

There is a hint of this with the reaction to the Covid-19 virus.  The virus was new.  The science about the use of face masks was confusing.  No country except perhaps Taiwan, had adequate contract tracing capacity.  Most government's felt compelled to encourage business as usual.  This is loyalty to their supporters.  They were also advised by infection specialists to enforce a stay at home lockdown.  Confusion reigned.  Political leaders often found reasons to inject disinformation into the situation.  The result is that many thousands died who could have lived.  There is a cost to choosing to believe something that isn't true, or not facing up to reality.  Sometimes the cost is the loss of your life or someone else's life. 

It's true that some of the advice from official sources was wrong.  In the beginning almost nothing was known about Covid-19 except that it was killing a large number of elderly people who already had medical issues, particularly metabolic diseases, type II diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, cardio vascular disease or lung problems.  We should ask "Why so many people with these common health disorders exist in our community?" That's a far more serious problem than Covid-19, that everyone seems to treat as "normal." But as health authorities struggled to understand Covid-19 mistakes were made, like insisting the surfaces be continually cleaned. Spraying disinfectant in the street and on railway carriages and "Deep cleaning shops."

The Standard Diet

Until the 1970's dietary advice was very light.  "Eat a healthy mixed diet."  There were vegetarian advocates, for more than 100 years, but that was a difficult and unhealthy option.  Vitamin B12 wasn't widely available yet.  So there were no healthy vegetarians prior to the 1970's, and even then the only really effective vitamin B12 had an animal base. 

In the 1970's, in America, among leading businessmen and politicians there was an alarming rise in the number of men dying of heart attacks.  Senator George McGovern set up an advisory committee to recommend a heart healthy diet for Americans.  The Committee sought scientific and medical advice, but science was poor, the advice given was mostly opinion (Almost all of it wrong as it turns out.). There were other pressures too. The cost of food was a concern, the recommended diet had to be affordable.  Many senators had lost weight on a vegetarian diet, there was pressure to recommend that.  But there was strong opposition from egg producers, the dairy industry and the meat industry that made the vegetarian option politically impossible.

When the American Standard Diet was finally released it was quickly replicated by governments around the world.  Despite the fact that it's a political compromise, and not science based, it's been very difficult to get any significant changes during 5 year reviews, over 40 years. 

Yet there is clear evidence that the Standard American Diet, leads to no improvement in health, in any of the ways expected.  The largest randomly controlled, very expensive, dietary study ever done, "The Woman's Health Initiative", found there was no advantage in weight control, cardio-vascular disease, strokes, breast cancer or colon cancer from eating the recommended diet.  Rather it's been exploited by the food industry to produce highly palatable foods that are making people fat and metabolically deregulated. 

Each of us has to decide what to eat.  Which dietary "knowledge" makes sense to you.  You have to choose.  What you have eaten over 20 or 30 years, can make a significant difference to your life.  Sadly what passes for quality dietary knowledge is often mere propaganda. 

Vegetarian and Vegan Diets

In the past it was not possible to be healthy as a strict vegetarian.  People would suffer from pernicious anemia, unless they ate dairy food and eggs.  In 1926 it was discovered that eating half a pound of liver every day would cure pernicious anemia.  In 1934 to George Whipple, isolated Vitamin B12, but it was not available as a supplement until after WWII, and that was animal based.  Robert Woodward in 1965, devised a way to synthesize Vitamin B12.  Vegan diets are even more deficient in essential nutrition.  Four minerals are often lacking, iodine, iron, calcium and zinc.  Vitamins B12, D, and the long chain omega-3 fat DHA, are needed to keep healthy. 

In recent times animal agriculture has been targeted as undesirable because of both animal welfare concerns, and greenhouse gas emissions.  There are understandable ethical reasons for trying to be a vegetarian or a vegan adult.  (Please don't inflict this personal option on your children. They deserve the best chance to begin life healthy and strong.) 

If you choose to be vegetarian or vegan, can you keep yourself healthy?  That's a real question, and most people find that, in the long run, it's an impossible task. 

How to Lose Weight? - Calories In v Calories Out

Usually shortened CICO but detractors say "Psycho".

There is another similar book, "Strong Medicine" by Dr. Blake F Donaldson,  which is out of print, but available in this digital version.  Both these books identify diets that seemed very strange at the time of publication, but which today make some sense.

A good source of weight loss advice is Diet Doctor.

The standard health message is a little more complicated than CICO.  Stop smoking.  Try to keep your weight constant.  Exercise more.  Eat lots of fruit and vegetables, and whole-grain breads.  Eat a little meat and fish, and some dairy products.  Avoid excess alcohol and sugar.

If you eat the standard mixed diet and buy your food from a supermarket, you put yourself at risk of developing all the common diseases typical of your community in the long term.  You have to do massive amounts of exercise to prevent weight gain by exercise alone.  Running marathons helps, and even that fails if your diet is wrong.  You need to maintain strength, flexibility and the ability to walk uphill and to run.  Don't neglect exercise.  The older you get the more critical that is. 

Type II Diabetes

Type I diabetes, is an autoimmune problem. Insulin is required, but the secret to long life with type I diabetes is to minimise the amount of insulin used.  As with type II diabetes, excess insulin causes long term damage to the vascular system. 

Type II diabetes is a lifestyle disease, related to obesity, cardio-vascular disease,, Alzheimer's and peripheral neuropathy.  There are two general approaches; the medical option, or the lifestyle option.  It's surprising to me that in New Zealand the medical option is still seen as the best method. 

I also notice two responses from people with type II diabetes, first fear, and thinking that the doctors advice is to be followed to the letter.  Second, denial, it's just a little bit of diabetes and it doesn't really matter.  I've seen several friends die far too early, because "I've just got a little bit of diabetes," nothing to worry about.  They don't see how serious this is.  Made worse I expect by doctors who; "Manage my disease, and say I'm doing OK."

In New Zealand and most developed societies, too many children, and most adults are on the railroad that leads to future diabetes.  The signs that you are on the wrong track are usually visible early in your adult life.  Is your weight slowly increasing?  Are you losing strength, flexibility and speed?  Look to your diet, in particular seek advice about using a continuous glucose monitor. 

You don't need to be "normal" and die 15 years too soon.  The years for 60 to 75 don't need to filled with aching joints and declining ability to do everyday tasks.  Better choices are available. 

A restricted diet was commonly recommended in Europe and the USA in 1900, for type II diabetes patients.  Before the 1930's insulin wasn't available. 

If you were a medical professional in the 1930's, changing a patients diet doesn't seem to be very "professional."  Surely there needs to be a medical treatment.  After the 1930's there was such a medicine, insulin.  Insulin doesn't cure anyone, but it is a medical protocol, and it does help control blood glucose levels, without changing one's diet.  Glucose control using medications and/or insulin is the Standard Protocol even today. 

Today we know better why that diet works so well, and that people with the right advice can quite quickly reverse their disease, with diet alone.  So why are so many people told that their only option is medication? 

Global Pandemic's

We've been warned for at least 20 years that an infectious disease has the ability to spread globally very rapidly, because of air travel, cruise ships, and trains, or tourism and international sporting events.  What did we do to prepare for a pandemic?  Very little, and the cost has been high. 

The likely source of a new disease is an interaction between people and a wild animal population.  Examples include monkeys, bats, and birds.  Live markets in Asia have been the source of some outbreaks.  Yes, there is an outside chance the human error in a laboratory was the source.  Even if that was the case, finding someone to blame doesn't save any lives.  There is a whole section about this that I wrote during the pandemic here.

In the beginning the health authorities were confused by Covid-19, even very good health systems like that in Italy, failed to cope with the first wave of the disease.  And in the beginning, all treatments were merely to reduce symptoms.  Many different treatments were helpful, but there was no agreed procedure.  There was no "cure."  Eventually your own immune system learned to deactivate the virus.  Some of the "official advice" was less than helpful with hindsight. 

There was excitement when various people reported some success using ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, antiviral favipiravir, doxycycline, zinc, or vitamins, but trials showed that none of these produced reliable treatment protocols. By June 2021 even in places like India, these methods were discontinued.

It's also true, apparently, that some people were harmed by the vaccine.  When governments "followed the science" that indicated lockdown's were required, and they worked, there was a reluctance to lift the lockdown, that then lasted too long.  (Best/Worst example was China.)  When the science said that all health workers, or police, of cleaners in rest home "MUST" be vaccinated, or lose their employment, that caused serious problems for many people.  We will argue the right and wrong of that for a long time, but to accuse the health authorities or the government of malpractice is unfair.  They were trapped either way, and they chose the option that seemed to best protect human life. 

Our best protection against epidemic disease is community preparedness. Firstly keep yourself healthy, free of metabolic disease.  That is possible today, if you are prepared to change your lifestyle a little.  That's unwelcome news, and people choose to believe that they are healthy, even when that's clearly not the case.  A stated elsewhere in this site, we are masters of denial and self deception.  At least 70% of all those over 60 are metabolically disabled.  They have been getting that way for 30 years, and it's so "normal" that to most people it's invisible.  We know how to stop that, but its both socially and politically impossible to do.  Everyone wants to believe that they are eating a healthy diet and that they are healthy, and strongly resent being told that they are kidding themselves. 

If there is an outbreak of disease, in the community, be prepared to wear masks, to live in restricted social bubbles, and get vaccinated if required.  Cooperate with test and trace protocols.  We need to protect each other. 

But ask yourself, is your blood pressure low, is your blood sugar normal, is your weight today the same as you weighed at age 25, can you walk up two flights of stairs easily, can you sprint 100 metres, have you stopped smoking or vaping, do you usually avoid alcohol, are your triglycerides low and your HDL cholesterol high, is your liver function and your kidney function healthy?.  In other words, are you metabolically healthy?  That's your best personal protection? 

For much more on health issues please visit Open Future Health, our companion website.