According to this article, kidney disease in America is actually the cause for more deaths (90,000) than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined annually. Obviously, great strides have been made in cancer research but to almost abandon funding and research for kidney disease and prevention presents a huge public health issue. Kidney disease is very preventable and with the correct diet and treatment can be very manageable. Limiting the soft drink, red meat and fast food consumption could have a very large effect on the number of deaths resulting each year from kidney disease. If people can take such proactive measures to do research for cancer and make an effort to limit the contributing factors to the disease, then why can't they focus on doing the same for kidney diseases? Because this is such a preventable disease it just makes sense to stop it before it's too late as opposed to waiting until you already have it. By that time, type 1 or 2 diabetes could have set in leaving you to pay for treatment that most of the time exceeds the average Medicare pay out by nearly 5 times for patients 65 and older.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/kidney-disease-an-underestimated-killer/?_r=0
I was surprised that kidney disease was a greater cause of death than breast and prostate cancer. It is definitely true that cancer research attracts more grant money than kidney disease in the research spectrum, but perhaps this is precisely because kidney disease is preventable. There is probably a correlation between obesity and kidney disease, as both are related to eating and drinking right. I think that instead of spending grant money on research for kidney disease, we should make more of an effort to publicize the fact that it can be prevented with simple lifestyle changes.
ReplyDeleteI spend a lot of time thinking about freedom. The freedom to vote, the freedom to own a home, and the freedom to consume. Your article (which I enjoyed throughly) forces me to think about the freedom to consume in a different way, however. While technically many Americans have the economic power to stop selecting items which could increase their chance for preventable disease, some do not. By this I mean that while one grocery shopper may have enough money to purchase fruits over chips, another shopper may not have the same means despite having a demand for healthier options. Therefore, because the lower income consumer cannot afford the healthier options they desire, they "select" the less healthy option. I feel that educational programs are a great way to start fighting against this phenomenon, but knowing what to consume only gets you half way to fulfilling the criteria for primary prevention. Therefore, in attempts to prevent myself from writing in circles, I was wondering what you (or anyone) would suggest to make "preventable" diseases truly preventable for everyone within society. If the answer is nothing, are these diseases truly preventable?
ReplyDeleteI think your response Sean sheds light on the important role these social determinants of health play into our health seeking and health decision making. Presenting healthy choices is not enough to result in healthy action. When you ask what can be done to make these preventable disease truly preventable when education is not enough, I think we have to think about systems level changes regarding the social determinants including income and culture. If we can educate people on healthy choices but they are still limited in some way by income or cultural beliefs/preferences, we have to think of ways to address these disparities. I don't have a good answer for this but I like the argument you present and I share your frustration.
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