Posted on 01/22/2007 8:43:03 AM PST by FreeManDC
This last year I lost three friends to heart disease.
Randy was jogging at a nearby park when he was stricken with a fatal heart attack. Randy was 52 years old, married with two sons.
Bill was diagnosed with a debilitating heart condition five years ago. Doctors ordered him to quit his job to reduce the strain – his wife had never expected to become the primary breadwinner. He died last summer at age 66.
And Paul was playing on his adult soccer team. Suddenly he fell on the field, clutching his chest. I met his widow at the funeral – she looked 35 years old.
Let’s not forget Dr. Lee Jong-Wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization. Last May he checked into the hospital with a throbbing headache. There he was diagnosed with a blood clot, a condition often caused by blood insufficiency. Two days later, at the age of 61, he lay dead.
“There was no warning, no nothing. It was a complete shock,” explained WHO spokesman Iain Simpson.
I’ve looked at government reports and discovered that these men are not unusual. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, men’s risk of dying from heart disease is 50% higher than for women. And more than any other disease, heart disease is the reason why men die five years sooner than women.
Why the sex difference? Because men more often have high blood pressure and smoke cigarettes. And experts believe men are subtly discouraged from seeking help when heart disease lurks in its early stages.
Of course, women also die of heart disease. But those women tend to be in their 60s and 70s, so their numbers are statistically higher than men.
In recent years, First Lady Laura Bush has gotten involved in the national effort to combat heart disease. That’s laudable.
So last February 3, the First Lady described heart disease as, “the number one killer among women in the United States.”[www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060203-10.html] But no word about heart disease in men.
That seems odd, but maybe she only talked about men the year before, so she was trying to be fair.
But in 2005, her focus was on women. [www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050201-15.html]
Same for 2004. [www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040202-2.html]
In 2003, Laura Bush implored, “This Valentine’s Day, the American Heart Association wants you to reach out to every woman you know — every mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt and friend.” [www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030131-43.html] But no mention of fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, or uncles.
Four years in a row, heart disease among men was swept under the rug.
Randy, Bill, and Paul all left widows behind. These ladies have probably never heard of Dr. Lois Verbrugge, a University of Michigan social demographer. A few years ago Verbrugge did a study on the living situation of elderly women. She found that single elderly women are four times more likely to end up in a nursing home, compared to their married counterparts.
So keeping Jack hale and hearty turns out to be good news for Jill, as well.
Maybe the First Lady was doing this at the advice of the Republican political strategists who want to lay claim to the female vote. But they are making a serious mistake, because a base-narrowing strategy is the surest path to electoral disaster.
National Heart Month will be coming up in a few days, and no doubt the First Lady will be alerting Americans to the scourge of heart disease. So this year, Mrs. Bush, why not tell the whole truth?
These are the facts that every American needs to know:
1. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women 2. Men die from heart disease at a much younger age than women, which deprives children of the guiding hand of a father figure, and later places wives at far greater risk of institutionalization. 3. Heart disease is often preventable through a combination of not smoking, low-fat diets, and exercise.
I’m sure the First Lady would like to hear from you – why not give her a call at 202-456-1111? Or drop her an e-mail: comments@whitehouse.gov .
Tell the First Lady about Randy, Bill, and Paul. Remind her about their wives. Or maybe someone who was special to you.
Not only has the First Lady kept all this knowledge from us, she has affirmatively lied by correctly stating that heart disease is the number one killer of women. /s
What a stoopid maroon this author is.
Oh, puh-leeze.
A self-serving maroon.
As pointed out in many threads, it's because they want to.
"The big truth is that Fat Guys die first. Over weight people doing strenuous things is an invitation to meet the undertaker. Get real and get rid of the fat first."
The bigger truth is that very long working hours, meals caught on the fly, and lack of sleep and stress all conspire to make men fat. And losing weight for most of these men requires MORE stress, and losing more sleep to get in the workout.
Most men are caught beneath the wheel. And you will find that the more wealthy men are the ones in better shape, toned and tanned. Why? Because they are able to set more of their own schedules and devote the money to what is needed to stay fit, toned and tanned.
The further down the socio-economic ladder a man is, the more that he is a slave of economic factors out of his control, and the more he has to grind and trade his life for an amount of money that will support his family day to day. He can never get ahead. And the stress of that contributes to the vicious circle.
Getting real for those men means buying life insurance. Shedding the fat and working out is damned hard for a man who gets 6 hours of sleep a night, and is always under the gun. And in the end, it doesn't have much of a reward either.
In the end, men are made to work themselves to death.
The male body starts to fall apart in middle age no matter what one does to it. The wealthy and top five-percenters can control their own time and invest in the vanity of appearance. Most men can't. For them, the most rational choice isn't to try and be beautiful and healthy, it is to accept that this world sucks and they are soldiers in the trenches, doomed to die, and buy big life insurance policies to replace them when they do.
"I just cancelled my life insurance. Let my wife's next husband go to work for a living."
Do you have children?
Reinstate the life insurance policy and make them the sole beneficiary.
You are going to die.
And they are going to need support when you do.
You exist to support them.
If you are gone, they will not have the support and end up either (a) impoverished and living in the projects, where they will fall into the culture of teenage sex and drugs or
(b) being raised by your wife's next husband, who won't give a damn about them.
They need YOUR support.
The way you give them that when you're dead is life insurance.
Both of my parents died of heart disease, my mother at 66 and my father at 73.
And here I thought this was about The First Rapist
My Dr. advised the same for me, said stress was killing me. I looked him in the eye and said "if you think I'm stressed out now what do you think I'd be like trying to pay the mortgage, all my monthly bills and debts...not to mention your bills, and put food on the table...without a paycheck?" He dropped the subject.
What the hell, these days people in the media aren't happy unless they are blaming a Bush for something and it really doesn't matter what...
Men with early death due to heart disease is well known...it is a given.
The FLOTUS is being used in her role as first lady, for a 'lady like' bully pulpit...to help remind women that they can get heart disease too.
There was no need to crucify her on this issue...the article was uncalled for.
the writer would have served humanity better going after the AIDS facists who although their particular disease is fully preventable, insist that they need a cure so they can continue their bad behavior.
Roberts is a moron. He once stated in an article that feminists intentionally entrapped men into sex so they could sell thier (mens) bodily fluids !!! I kid you not !!!
*************
Bizarrely, if you google him, the author is described as a conservative on various sites.
B)Some people get offended about EVERYthing.
Stupid, biased article.
Also, men who simply keel over with a massive heart attack or a stroke are often those men who never bothered to get annual medical checkups. There is this misguided notion that if you are athletic, feel well, and eat healthy foods that you are going to live a long and healthy life. Clearly this is not the case for everyone. Some diseases don't manifest themselves with symptoms until it is too late, but the signs of the disease are there if you look for them. The only way to know your real health is to get annual checkups with stress tests, blood tests, ekgs, etc.
I get these whenever I watch the liberal MSM. Exposure to liberals can be hazardous to your health.
Yep, my opinion of Men's News Daily just went down a notch.
As long as it doesn't involve another pink ribbon, I'm good.
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