Think, Eat, Be Healthy

Book Review: “Why Our Health Matters” by Andrew Weil, M.D.

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“Why Our Health Matters”, subtitled “A Vision of Medicine That Can Transform Our Future”, by Andrew Weil, M.D. is about the current health care system in the United States. This book was published in 2009 by Hudson Street Press. All of the problems and ideas for fixing them put forth by Dr. Weil are still very relevant today because almost nothing about our health care system has changed in the years since publication. Things have actually gotten worse.

Two of the major problems with the current health care system pointed out in the book are for-profit health insurance companies getting rich while causing medical expenses to increase and pharmaceutical companies getting rich while causing medical expenses to increase. This really being a transfer of wealth from the middle class and poor to the involved companies. Also fostered is the expectation of the masses for a new pill or new technology that will solve any medical problem, whether real or perceived. And expense doesn’t matter because “the insurance will pay for it”, except for all those millions without insurance.

Another major problem brought to our attention by Dr. Weil is the lack of training in disease prevention and proper nutrition provided to our doctors by medical school curriculum. Also, the constant barrage of paid advertising and propaganda by large pharmaceutical and medical device and equipment companies eventually causes most medical doctors to also buy into the “magic pill” and “new technology” myths.

The fixes proposed by Dr. Weil are for doctors to re-focus medical care towards properly nutritious diets that support optimum health and towards disease prevention rather than treatment of symptoms. Both solutions are much cheaper and much lower-tech than the standard health care today. Both solutions also require a much more time-intensive and hands-on kind of medicine than usually practiced in the U.S. Ten-to-fifteen minute office visits to diagnose a health problem and write a prescription or a referral to a specialist as now mandated by most insurance companies is not conducive to in-depth dietary and preventative counseling and proper follow-up.

What it really comes down to is that our health care problem is a political problem and the companies responsible for making things the way they are have an awful lot of money to throw at our politicians to make sure things don’t change too much or too quickly. This is a very interesting book by a very smart author offering some common-sense solutions. But will anyone listen and do something? Well worth the time to read from cover to cover.