Here’s something you’ve probably heard before: Poor health choices have consequences. It’s easy to hear that statement without really considering what it means for you. But if you haven’t given this idea some thought, now is the time to start.
You might think you have heard it all—don’t eat foods high in sugar and laced with fat. Don’t drink, don’t smoke. Be active—but have you really understood what health benefits you could reap if you do follow these requests? Maybe you have, maybe not, but let me give you an idea of what can happen when you don’t listen and take action towards better health.
If my grandfather was still alive he would have been 70, but this past February marked the five-year anniversary of his death. My grandfather died at age 65, ten years earlier than the average U.S. male’s life expectancy age.
What caused this early death? My grandfather had several risk factors working against him. He liked to indulge in smoking cigarettes; he began smoking at age 19 and continued for several decades after. Around age 37 until age 43 my grandfather began work as a truck driver, eating foods very high in sugar and fat while getting little physical activity. During this time he and my grandmother opened a bar, and they both endured secondhand smoke for three years until the time in which their bar closed. Smoking, eating unhealthy foods, having low physical activity—it is these very behaviors, along with excessive drinking, that are the top four modifiable risk factors that can lead to chronic disease. When I refer to chronic disease I mean an illness that lasts a long time, does not go away on its own, is rarely cured, and can usually end in a disability. The top six most common chronic diseases are heart disease, congestive heart failure, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, diabetes, and cancer. My grandfather would eventually suffer from three of the top six chronic diseases, along with many more, becoming a part of the 56% of Wisconsin residents that live with a chronic disease1.
The spiral of illnesses began before I was born. At age 47, my grandfather went to the hospital and was confirmed to have heart disease, his first chronic disease. He would have to undergo five heart bypasses in one surgery. Prior to this surgery, it was discovered that my grandfather’s blood sugar was at the extremely high level of 600. This led to the diagnoses of another chronic disease, diabetes. He was then told that the reason the arteries in his heart had become hard was due to the combination of the risk factor of smoking along with the undiagnosed diabetes, which he inherited because of his poor eating habits and lack of exercise.
There is something that I find so interesting in this first diagnosis—the risk factors allowed him to spiral into getting one chronic disease, but once he had diabetes, this chronic disease also contributed to giving him other chronic diseases. And this would not be the first time diabetes and other illnesses affected other parts of his health.
After the surgery, the hospital bills had already begun to add up. And while my grandparents were actually uninsured, many people don’t realize how much chronic diseases really cost us in terms of health insurance. Chronic diseases have a direct link to costs in the healthcare system. In fact, over 80 percent of the $2 trillion spent on health care goes towards treating chronic illness. For the state of Wisconsin alone, Medicaid pays $1.15 billion per year to treat heart disease, congestive heart failure, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, diabetes, and cancer1.
Despite the bills, life went on. A year after my grandfather’s heart surgery, I was born. And so, from the very moment I took my first breath, my grandfather was dying. By the time I was three, my grandfather had neuropathy in his feet, a disease that causes loss of sensation. It was caused by poor circulation due to his diabetes. Four years later my grandfather had a heart attack. No surgery was done. Two years later it was determined he had to have heart surgery, a quadruple bypass.
In 1999, the year of his quadruple bypass surgery, my grandfather was diagnosed with another chronic illness, kidney disease. This illness was due to the damaging of the kidneys by dye used during catherization to check how damaged his arteries were before heart surgery. By 2000, my grandfather had end stage renal failure, also known as complete kidney failure. He was put on dialysis for the rest of his life. This same year he developed prostate cancer and also had to have cataract surgery on his eyes, which were affected by his diabetes. From 2002-2004 my grandfather’s neuropathy gave him the inability to feel ulcers on his feet, which led to infection, gangrene and the eventual amputation of his left foot and lower right leg, at which time he was confined to a wheelchair. These infections also affected his hands, and he had several fingers amputated on his right hand, leaving him unable to write.
By 2006, my grandfather had another heart attack, which would be his last. He was taken to Milwaukee by flight for life and could not have surgery because he was very weak. It was this hospital visit, after so many visits that had come before it, which was his last. Chronic disease caused my grandfather’s death, and is responsible for two out of every 3 deaths annually in Wisconsin1. And like many people whose lives end from chronic illness, my grandfather’s death became another statistic.
How much is your health worth? As I said earlier, my grandfather died ten years short of the average life expectancy. While every person is different, and it’s difficult to look in retrospect at an ended life, I wonder sometimes what my grandfather would have experienced if he would have lived those extra ten years. He would have been 70 now and seen me graduate high school 3 years ago and college next spring. He probably even would have lived to see me get married, among many other things. But because of poor lifestyle choices my grandfather not only missed out on his life, but the lives of those he loved. And his loved ones missed out on extra years of the love and support he gave all of us.
So understand that poor health decisions do cost you, not only monetarily, as about 4 percent of Wisconsin’s state operating costs go towards treating chronic disease1, but they also cost you precious time with the ones you love. And the loss of your life doesn’t just affect you, but also your family, friends, coworkers, and so on. You may think health only deals at the individual level, but by creating communities that encourage healthy choices in Wisconsin, we can save the lives of people like my grandpa whose life ended far too early, saving the state useful dollars instead of losing them to high health care costs and lost productivity. So the next time you are about to partake in unhealthy behavior, ask yourself, is it really worth the cost?
1 Wisconsin Department of Health Services, “The Epidemic of Chronic Disease in Wisconsin: Why it Matters to the Economy and What You Can Do to Help,” (2011): 1-12.
Remember, cutting out or curbing risk factors can decrease your chance obtaining a chronic disease. See the following resources for help reducing risk factors.
If you are looking to be more active:
http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/index.html
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fitness/HQ01217_D
If you are looking to eat healthier:
http://www.healthfinder.gov/prevention/category.aspx?catId=1
If you desire to quit smoking or help someone else quit:
http://www.cancer.org/Healthy/StayAwayfromTobacco/index?ssSourceSiteId=null
If you want to curb your alcohol use or help someone else:
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