I have heard of such things.
Feeling bad. Negatives. Would this not block the flow of energies
through our bodies? Creating areas of stagnation? It is one thing to
have these areas assisted by massage (or whatever) but if the underlying
reason for illness is not addressed, the illness will continue or
return. There have been incidents of total cancer remission without
intervention. But, once one has cancer (or other major illness) another
circle in one's life is closing the ring. So feeling bad may initiate a
disease but now having the disease makes one feel worse (perhaps in
another way) and the feedback loop is complete to retain the disease.
D.
On 29/09/2012 10:29 AM, Ray Harrell wrote:
So feeling bad gives you cancer. Rather than Cancer makes you feel
bad. Hmmm.
Interesting.
REH
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Keith Hudson
*Sent:* Saturday, September 29, 2012 1:05 PM
*To:* RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
*Subject:* Re: [Futurework] Diminishing life expectancy of the poor
At 15:04 29/09/2012, you wrote:
From today's AlterNet Newsletter. I find the last paragraph
interesting -- the idea that ill health and diminishing life
expectancy are at least partly the result of the poor feeling they are
sinking into an increasingly hopeless situation. Might life
expectancy be related to how good and useful you feel?
Yes, I'd have thought so.
Keith
Ed
Shocker Stat: Life Expectancy Decreases by 4 Years Among Poor Whites
in U.S.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-less-educated-whites-in-us-is-shrinking.html?pagewanted=all>
on an alarming new study: researchers have documented that the least
educated white Americans are experiencing sharp declines in life
expectancy. Between 1990 and 2008, white women without a high school
diploma lost a full five years of their lives, while their male
counterparts lost three years. Experts say that declines in life
expectancy in developed countries are exceedingly rare
<http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/15/nation/la-na-womens-health-20110615>,
and that in the U.S., decreases on this scale "have not been seen in
the U.S. since the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918." Even during
the Great Depression, which wrought economic devastation and severe
psychic trauma for millions of Americans, average life expectancy was
on the increase
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090928172530.htm>.
What are the reasons for the disturbing drop in life expectancy among
poor white folks, and in particular for the unusually large magnitude
of the decline? According to the Times, researchers are baffled: one
expert said, "There's this enormous issue of why . . . It's very
puzzling and we don't have a great explanation." Undoubtedly, the
increasing numbers of low-income Americans without health insurance is
a major contributor factor. Researchers also say that lifestyle
factors such as smoking, which has increased among low-income white
women, play a role; poor folks tend to engage in more risky health
behaviors than their more affluent counterparts.
I will offer an alternative hypothesis, one which is not explicitly
identified in the Times article: inequality. In the U.S., the period
between 1990 and 2008, which is a period that saw such steep declines
in life expectancy for the least well-off white people, is also a
period during which economic inequality soared
<http://inequality.org/income-inequality/>. Moreover, there is a
compelling body of research that suggests that inequality itself --
quite apart from low incomes, or lack of health insurance -- is
associated with more negative health outcomes for those at the bottom
of the heap. One of the most famous series of studies of the social
determinants of health, Britain's Whitehall Studies
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehall_Study>, had as their subjects
British civil servants, all of whom health insurance and (presumably)
decent enough jobs. Intriguingly, these studies
found a strong association between grade levels of civil servant
employment and mortality rates from a range of causes. Men in the
lowest grade (messengers, doorkeepers, etc.) had a mortality rate
three times higher than that of men in the highest grade (administrators).
The Whitehall studies found that while workers in the lower grades
were more likely to be at risk for coronary heart disease due to
factors such as higher rates of smoking, higher blood pressure, etc.,
even after controlling for those confounding factors, these workers
still experienced significantly higher mortality rates. So what was
behind such disparate health incomes among high-status and low-status
workers? Researchers pointed the finger at inequality, hypothesizing
that various psychosocial factors associated with inequality --- such
as the higher levels of stress at work and at home experienced by the
lower tier workers, as well as their lower levels of self-esteem ---
were behind the dramatic differences in mortality rates.
I believe that inequality-related stressors are likely to be the
determining factors in declining American life expectancies, as well.
I'm surprised, in fact, that the Times article did not specifically
identify inequality as a causal factor, because the health risks
associated with economic inequality are well-established in the
scientific literature. For decades, the United States has been making
a series of political choices that has distributed wealth and power
upwards and left working Americans not only poorer and sicker, but
also feeling far more burdened and distressed, and experiencing far
less security and control over their lives. The consequences of these
choices have been devastating, and absent a dramatic reversal in our
political course, they are likely to get even worse. Where inequality
is concerned, Republicans have their foot on the accelerator, while
the best the Democrats seem to be able to do is to (temporarily) put
their foot on the brake.
We are on a trajectory all right, and it's not a good one.
The Washington Monthly / By Kathleen Geier
<http://www.alternet.org/authors/kathleen-geier> | Sourced from
Washington Monthly
<http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_09/shocker_stat_of_the_day_life_e040058.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20washingtonmonthly/rss%20%28Political%20Animal%20at%20Washington%20Monthly%29>
Posted at September 22, 2012, 8:27am
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/>
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