Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeod
Your comparison with heart attacks is not applicable, Heart attacks occur due to genetic and environmental (lifestyle) factors. House fires are not. Anyone who has a medical exam will be alerted to the risk factors they possess that could lead to a heart attack and thus take precautions (I hope).
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Thanks for your thoughtful post which motivated me to give this subject more thought. And thanks for your concern; I will keep my smoke detectors functioning.
This thread turned out to be a lot more difficult than I ever expected because I kept feeling like I couldn't quite come up with a clear explanation for my decision to compare fires with heart attacks & strokes. So, I'm here today to give it one more shot.
Let's say that your job is to save lives by any means having to do with lifestyle. So, on that basis, you come up with two things to compare:
1) Lifestyle precautions to help prevent death by fire.
2) Lifestyle precautions to help prevent death by heart attack or stroke.
Yes, one is a disease and the other is not. However, what they share in common is the fact that lifestyle precautions can help prevent death.
Also, what they share in common is the fact that one can check national statistics to see which one costs more lives per year:
Number of yearly deaths do to house fires: about 3,000
Number of yearly deaths do to heart attacks and strokes. about 800,000
(And the HHS Secretary has said that most could be prevented with basic health care.)
If you're in the prevention business, which one would you focus more effort on? Which one has the potential to yield the greatest payoff, as far as saving lives?
Note: The HHS Secretary said most heart attacks and strokes could be prevented with basic "health care". I would just add that basic health care begins at home with diet, exercise and stress control. And being that 63% of the population is overweight or obese, it seems that some extra reminders may be in order. Doctors alone can't do it so I believe it's important for the community to create an atmosphere conducive to cardiovascular health. For example, I think a reminder (by TV media) before Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and other food-holidays might be a good idea.
