Here are a few sobering facts you should know about America’s health trends. According to the CDC or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention more than one third of adult Americans are obese (34.9%) and the estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the US was $147 billion in 2008. Obesity related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers are the leading causes of preventable death.
What about heart disease our number one killer of Americans? Here are the facts. 600,000 Americans die each year of heart disease, that is 1 in every 4 deaths! Every year 720,000 Americans have a heart attack and over 500,000 it is their first one. Coronary heart disease costs us $108.9 billion each year.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US and this year, 1,600 people a day are expected to die from some form of cancer or about 585,720 Americans. The cost is over $200 billion annually.
Why should be concerned about these numbers? Because unless we take drastic measures to change how we live, what we eat and practice health conscious habits we will be in a hole so deep we will not be able to crawl out as individuals, as a community and a nation. There is still time but we must be willing to step up individually and make those changes by eating healthy whole foods, removing added sugar from our diet, kicking processed and junk foods to the curb and exercising most days of the week.
Are you worried that there might be something wrong now? Take a once a year opportunity to get your baseline labs drawn, take them to your doctor and develop your strategy not to become a statistic.
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