Life Can Change

Happy Easter weekend to everyone out there! May we take this moment to realize what a blessing life is. Thank God for being so merciful to us, and for giving each of us life.

Have you ever wondered why a good amount of the population these days are getting sick? When I mean sick, I don't mean the flu or the general cold. I mean cancer. Organ failure. Kidney disease. Hypertension. Diabetes. Hyperthyroidism. Diabetic neuropathy. Diabetic retinopathy. Liver failure.

It's an interesting topic, one of which the answer won't be so straight forward.

It was a question asked by an older couple to me, and one who was suffering from a few combinations of the above. Why is it, that with all the technological advancements in this day and age, people just seem to be getting more and more sick? The diabetic clinics are filling up fast. So are the hemodialysis programs. Same with cancer clinics. What is going on? Why all these advancements in medicine and technology, and yet people are getting sick starting at an early age?

At this point, there really isn't one answer. But I believe there are a combination of answers. And this is what the couple and I talked about.

A brief overview in terms of life and the medical issues that happened:

The couple had met years ago and married. One was Canadian, and one was European. I won't go into detail how they met, but the debate was whether the wife would move, or the husband would move, in order to be with each other. Eventually the European husband moved to Canada to be with the wife.

They had plans to start traveling the world (they were at a retirement age) once they settled here, and were going to spend the rest of their life together. However, things took an unfortunate turn when the husband got sick about a year ago. There was already a previous history of hypertension for years, along with diabetes. His kidneys started to fail, and he developed diabetic retinopathy, eventually leading to blindness.

Instead of traveling and seeing the world together, they are now both trying to understand the disease process and why it took a nasty turn, resulting in blindness.

This is when the conversation got interesting.

We had brought up several topics together: genetically modified foods, processed foods, lack of exercise, lack of activity, technological dependence, and isolation.

The huge one these days is processed foods. What are processed foods? They are foods that are high in sugar, sodium, or fats/trans fat and have been pre-packaged and sealed in order to preserve it longer (using chemical preservatives). For example: bacon, granola bars, instant noodles, soda drinks, fruit snacks, dry fruits, margarine, cheese, frozen dinners, to name a few. They are available in every corner store, in gas stations, at supermarkets. They are pretty much available everywhere, which is the scary part. They are, what I call "ready to eat" foods. Why are these such bad foods? Well, as I said above, they are (sky) high in sugar, salt and trans fat. Those 3 are the main culprits in having a bad diet, resulting in various medical issues from diabetes to hypertension to hyperlipidemia.

There has been warnings before on processed meats like bacon, salami, ham and hot dogs and reducing these amounts, as they could lead to (colorectal) cancer. There is still on-going research into this area though. Do I believe that processed foods can harm one's body and lead to various health problems? Absolutely. We are seeing it everyday in this population. When it comes to getting a patient history on their diet, that's when everything will click, and then we start to see why they have become so sick.

It is always important to eat foods in moderation, and to reduce the amount of processed foods in our daily diet. Reducing the amount of sugar, salt and trans fat and replacing it with healthier choices (fresh fruits, vegetables, whole wheat) will help in the long run. You know that saying "homecooked meals are the best"? Well, yeah because everything you prepare, you can control how much salt or sugar or oil needs to be added to your own food. When you are at a restaurant, you can't control the amount of oil or salt that is added to your dish. Hence why eating outside all the time is definitely not a good thing for your body.

Lack of exercise and lack of activity. Back when I was in grade school and high school, we had gym class everyday at different periods. It was one of my favourite classes growing up. I was involved in cross country running, and track & field competitions. It was pretty much my exercise everyday, and I felt good about it health wise. Nowadays, I don't know if they do have gym classes everyday, but looking at North Americans (especially America), you can tell physical activity is no where near the top of the list. Why is that? I also think it's because of technology (which I will talk more about below).

The general guideline for exercise is 30 minutes of physical activity per day. If you want to lose a lot of weight and be fit, then obviously it will have to be more. That will need motivation, concentration, and time. Judging by how busy our lives our these days, 30 minutes seems like a lot to most people. And that's the other thing. Our lives are just so busy (whether it's with school, work, spouse, kids, parents/grandparents, babysitters etc) that we tend to overlook the 30 minutes because we're just so damn tired. After an entire day of working and running around, cooking and cleaning, a lot of us would just want to sleep. Not work out for 30 minutes.

But this is the weird thing. In the Baby Boomers era, an average family would have 5-7 kids. Yet the parents still worked, and still managed to feed that many kids. They were generally healthy, and yet they were still ok! These days we struggle with 1 or 2 kids, and we get burnt out. Heck, even single people still struggle! Why is that?

Part of it has to do with society and also the ridiculous amounts we have to pay for housing these days. The average home in Toronto has already hit $1 million. How is a young professional suppose to afford that after graduation? With the housing prices going up, and our salaries remaining the same, it is no wonder so many young people these days work over time, in order to pay for the essentials. They burn out, but still try to work. And that's when their bodies start failing. Combined with poor diet, and lack of proper exercise, it is no wonder this population is going downhill. All because of increased taxes, housing, utilities. The essentials.

But wait, what about technology? Yes, technology is a great thing. I mean they found ways to identify people's DNA at crime scenes, so it has come a long way. Computers and internet have come a long way too. Telephones went from cords to cordless to cell phones to bluetooth. Advancements in medicine has come a long way. Cures for diseases are here (or for some of them). So why is it a bad thing?

When we come to rely on technology too much, and in this case I mean cell phones and laptops, heck internet, we become more and more isolated from our families and friends. Doesn't make sense? Ok let me break it down.

When we are so focused on our cell phones (look at all the young people these days, including me), we are all glued to this bright screen of radiation. I'm pretty sure most of us aren't looking at pictures we took from our cell phones, but rather browsing the internet. We are glued to social media. Facebook. Instagram. Whatsapp. Yes, we have friends (and even strangers) connected to us, so technically we aren't "lonely". But think about it. We are all glued to our phones at dinner in front of our parents. At parties. At school. At work. On the bus or subway. Heck, even in the car. There are people around us, yet we are still on our damn phones. Did we all forget how to talk to each other like normal human beings? We have become so isolated from the real world, that we have been sucked into this virtual world, and think we are still in the real world because our friends are there. But they aren't physically there. We don't like showing our phones to our parents, or even boyfriends or girlfriends because of "privacy reasons". Yet we are still so glued to it that we forgot how to interact in the real world. That to me is isolation. Any type of isolation in the long run is not good for the human mind or the body.

This is also why I chose to not have data on my cell phone. People think I'm lame for not having data, or think I'm so "old school". But I have two reasons why I don't have data. 1) I get to save more money each month compared to my friends who have data and 2) I do not want to be connected to the virtual world 24/7. In a way, it's my way of having self-control over technology. This gives me a very good excuse to talk to people, to see friends and actually talk to them in person, and also spend time with family. I give my full attention to people at dinner, because I have no reason to check my phone for any social media updates (unless I am on-call for work). Before I go out, I check Googlemaps to make sure I know where the heck I'm going. I don't rely on GPS too much because sometimes it takes me to the wrong location, so I use what I have best: my brain. I memorize the map. And I still get to my destination without difficulty.

If we let technology take over our minds and our daily routine, it is no wonder we "don't have time" for physical activity, or for proper diet. If we can take the same amount of time that we spend on social media/internet on a daily basis, we can apply that same amount of time on physical activity and proper diet daily. I can guarantee you that you will be amazed at how much time we all waste on the internet.

When we all combine all the issues above to our daily routine, we can see how there could be huge problems for us in the long run if we don't change some of our habits. One day may not seem that bad, but when it becomes a daily habit, the body suffers. You may not notice it right away, just like the couple I mentioned above. But once the problems all hit, it will hit very hard. And it will be too late to reverse all the medical problems. Once you go blind, or once you lose a limb, you will not get it back.

We can all help ourselves by contributing to our own health, and avoiding the unhealthy habits and diets.