The last healthy people are the ones who haven't been tested yet.

 

Sama Hoole

@SamaHoole

A man who passed his medical in 1996 with flying colours has four diseases today, and not one number in his body has changed. Blood pressure 135/85. Cholesterol 210. Fasting blood sugar 105. BMI of 26. In 1996 that was a clean bill of health and a handshake. Today the same man, with the same blood, is hypertensive, has high cholesterol, is prediabetic and overweight. Four diagnoses, and he never caught a thing. 1997: the line for diabetes drops from 140 to 126. 1.7 million new diabetics by morning. 1997: high blood pressure drops from 160/100 to 140/90. 13 million new patients. 1998: high cholesterol drops from 240 to 200. 42 million new patients. 1998: overweight drops from a BMI of 27 to 25. 29 million people go to bed normal and wake up with a weight problem. 2003: prediabetes is widened from 110 to 100. It now covers 98 million Americans, more than 1 adult in 3, for a condition the World Health Organization declines to call by that name. 2017: blood pressure again, down to 130/80. Another 31 million. Nearly half the adults in America are hypertensive. When the cholesterol targets were tightened again in 2004, eight of the nine men who wrote them had been paid by companies that make statins. No germ. No outbreak. No change in a single artery. Just a room, a vote, and a tablet waiting on the far side of every line. In every other branch of medicine you have to get ill to become a patient. In this one they bring the disease to you. The last healthy people are the ones who haven't been tested yet.