Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Pink Floyd and Other Tastes

I would like to say that I learned of Richard Wright's death yesterday (September 15, 2008) with great sorrow. Mr. Wright was a founding member of Pink Floyd a rock group that influenced my musical taste in the '70's, I was a young man then. This brings to mind a subject not often discussed (too sad) but important at any rate. Mortality, we have lost a great many musical and show business icons this year: Issac Hayes; Bo Diddly; Bernie Mac, just to name a few. I'm getting to the point, I tend to ramble these days.

It has been noted that money cannot buy health, love or happiness, or can it? There is a study that suggests otherwise. (check MSN.com today) Nancy E Adler PhD (University of California San Francisco) has looked into this problem and her conclusions are shocking to say the least. It seems that people in the lower income groups have health problems far more than their higher paid counter parts. They also tend to die prematurely, more so than the affluent! This is not because they have more money, it is usually because the poor tend to have bad diets, poor exercise habits, smoke more, abuse alcohol and drugs and they live in areas decidedly bad for their health. Take for instance the urban working mother with 2 jobs, she may outlive her husband but she won't outlive her suburban counterpart. She doesn't have time to exercise, is more likely to feed her kids from the local fast food establishment due to lack of meal prep time, and is more likely to suffer from bad health in general. There is a connection between status and health that scientists don't completely understand. Dr. Adler changed her focus to socio-economic status after seeing a British study with the shorthand title Whitehall I. She is now the chairwoman of MacArthur Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health.

It seems that Whitehall is a street in London where many government agencies have offices. In 1967 the study began by surveying 18,000 male workers, civil servants. They were divided into 4 groups with Administrators (policy setters) at the top, executives next, clerical workers followed, and at the bottom were office messengers. These men all had the same access to benefit packages provided by the British government, as well as the same amount of job security. However 25 years later, in the early 1990's, they found that the men at the top were far more healthy than the men at the bottom. Not only were they healthier, they tended to live longer as the men at the bottom were 3 times more likely to have died or would die an early death. They could not explain this even when they took bad habits into consideration. (The upper level had just as many bad habits as the lower)

It is not known for sure if you can free yourself from this grim fact of life, but you may surely try to do so. The studies indicate that beyond 125k per year there is little health advantage to be gained by increasing wealth beyond this point. What can you do about it if you don't make the grade by your income level. Live as though you do have an income equal to 125k. They listed seven ways to improve your health prospects and I'll repeat them here. Before I do, the one theme that seemed to be in the background was make your world green. Protect your environment and the environment that we all share. Air and water pollution due to our dependence on fossil fuels are killing us, along with our diets and bad habits. That is the full truth, however the following are seven ways to add 15 years to your life.

Number 1
Become famous, or at least recognized in your field. According to Dr Adler your social status is as important as economic status. Those who were successful in their endeavours and who also had adequate incomes tended to live longer. Her advice was to find your niche and if you are successful, stay with it, you'll be healthier.

Number 2
Hang out with thin people or at least people who are not over weight. Obesity levels are not equal with regard to social status. The highest rates of obesity are found among people of lower economic and educational status. This is not hard to understand among the poor, they have notoriously bad diets. However there is one surprising factor, if your friends are obese chances are you will be as well. This statistic goes up if you are a man almost double. If you have a very close friend that is obese, then the chances of you becoming obese climbs to 171 percent.

Number 3
Live in peaceful surroundings, this should not matter but according to researchers it does. Living in the city increases the chance of premature death by over 60 percent. This is where environmental conditions are the culprit more than any place else. Respiratory disease is higher because the water and air are polluted. Higher incidences of lead paint in homes. Dr Adler found that low income families had 6 times as much lead in their blood as did their higher income counterparts. The fear of crime increased depression and anxiety disorders. Cities tend to be noisy, and this leads to stress, social isolation, depression and heart disease. How do we counter this? Should we all move to the suburbs? No, we should lobby our elected officials to get moving on repairing our environment and our planet. Cease the use of fossil fuels, build homes without lead paint, legislate the use of electric vehicles and all of the benefits of using alternative energy will pay off. It will even create jobs to build a new future, we must do this!

Number 4
Quit smoking and this is a no brainer. Over 400,000 people die each year from smoking, and they are from the lower income groups. This is probably because more under educated people smoke because they are surrounded by smokers. Only 10-15 percent of male college graduates smoke today.

Number 5
Find a job that you are satisfied with and you don't feel angry and frustrated over. We no longer work on jobs where you would get coal miner's lung or have a large piece of steel drop on our heads. We still think that these are the only kinds of jobs that are hazardous to our health. Nowadays we have to think in terms of how much stress and frustration our jobs cause us to have. Dr Adler has found that jobs in which people have little control, feel they are being treated badly, are threatened by pay cuts or job loss are likely to develop stress that in turn causes many diseases. If you feel that you don't fit wherever you work, quit or lose your life in the process.

Number 6
Call the people you really like and for whom you have a high regard. They can be relatives, friends, co-workers, fellow church members, you get the picture. Isolation can be a stress inducer and those of us who don't have a lot of income tend to become isolated. That is not something that has to be true. Remember, you are pretending that you have an adequate income (125k/year) in order to get the same benefit. Reach out and become a social person, it won't hurt and you'll increase your chances of enjoying good health.

Number 7
Last, but certainly not least is to get more education. This is the most important aspect of a healthy life, your level of education. A study done in Sweden suggests that every step up the educational ladder increases your life span. The most amazing thing about this study was when they compared PhD holders to professionals only one step down the ladder. (i.e. engineers, attorneys) The PhD's did not make any more money, yet their mortality rate was 33 percent lower. Well, that does it for me, go back to school, you'll live longer.

Once again it is not certain as to whether these suggestions are valid, however studies seem to indicate that they are. Eight years ago studies indicated that if your income is 36,000 dollars/year or less you had a 64 percent larger chance of premature death. There you have it!

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