Covid-19 Update: The Severity of This Pandemic is Built Upon Co-Morbidities
Hello everyone:
Premature deaths in the United States from drugs, alcohol and obesity-related causes became a public health crisis that set the stage for COVID-19 challenges, a new report finds. Yet there is scant attention paid to the fact that the vast majority of severe Covid illnesses and deaths are related to these well-known co-morbidities. A co-morbidity is the simultaneous presence of one or more chronic diseases. We all know that those that are the most vulnerable have these chronic health conditions, such as obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, drug problems, alcohol issues, and that these public-health crises existed before the pandemic and continue to be a major driver.
Not only that, these same conditions are also resulting in a slow erosion of life-expectancy in the U.S. And it is this background of chronic illness and disease that is itself a pandemic in our country. We are fighting two pandemics: chronic illness and Covid-19 superimposed on top of that.
Here are some selected quotes from the article link below:
“This is a public health crisis that isn’t getting better, and in some ways is getting worse,” Kathleen Mullan Harris, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chair of the committee, said during a March 2 webinar to discuss the report.
People with underlying health conditions — often the very conditions driving the trend of premature deaths — have been especially vulnerable during the pandemic.
Many cardiometabolic deaths resulted from obesity-related conditions, Harris said. Young adults, especially in the South and in rural areas, showed the largest increases in obesity-related deaths. The research suggests that those individuals typically had unhealthy diets and lacked safe, open spaces for exercise throughout their lives, Harris said.”
Bottom Line:
Unfortunately, while these issues are being acknowledged, there is no significant public health initiative aimed at decreasing co-morbidities and increasing life-expectancy. What can we do? The short answer is that each one of us must simply take responsibility for our own health and wellbeing along with participating in standard health care offerings. The vast majority of co-morbidities are modifiable, with the exception of age. So, we have a great deal of leverage to upgrade our health status and lower our risks and co-morbidity severity. I have read that at least 80% of these chronic health conditions can be modified in a positive way by dietary and exercise upgrades. In other words, food choices and exercise deficits are the main drivers of many chronic co-morbid conditions. If you have been reading this blog, you know that I have gone over this topic of food choices and movement as the foundations of wellness. If you need to, please go through our blog library for more information on this vital subject. I have seen many people vastly improve their health by applying themselves to health building principles…if you need to do this, start now and reap wonderful rewards by creating a much more confident and safe future for yourself. If you stop and think about it, how else would you get healthier? There is no other way…foundational aspects of health must be optimized including food, movement, stress reduction, sleep and love.
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