Elderly should be regarded with love, respect and compassion, not as labels for disease, says aging expert
Saturday, April 23, 2016 by: Julie Wilson staff writer
Tags: aging gracefully, octogenarians, longevity
(NaturalNews) Nortin M. Hadler, M.D., is an expert on growing old and living well in a society notorious for over-treating and over-prescribing. In his book, Worried Sick, the aging expert encourages readers to speak up when dealing with healthcare providers, and to ask plenty of questions about whether or not a proposed treatment will yield any meaningful benefits.
Learning to distinguish good medical advice from persuasive medical marketing can help people make better decisions about personal healthcare, says Hadler, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Microbiology/Immunology at the University of North Carolina. The following is an excerpt from the book:
Daily, we are offered the image of the baby-boom generation going on forever, making impossible demands on successive generations to provide pensions, health care, and community. That, too, is fatuous.
However, more of us are living longer than did our parents. Clearly, the likelihood that we will enjoy life as an octogenarian has increased over the course of the twentieth century. Far less clear is whether the likelihood of becoming a nonagenarian has increased similarly.
Living well as an octogenarian
It has certainly not done so at anything like the same rate as the likelihood of being an octogenarian. The effect is so striking that it has caused many of us to wonder if there is not a fixed longevity for our species, set around eighty-five years of age.Some have likened this to a warranty: you are off warranty at eighty-five, beyond is a bonus, and well beyond is a statistical oddity. This projected demographic is consistent with current population trends.
With one caveat, these hard facts seem unlikely to change. It is possible that molecular biology can alter the fixed longevity of our species. But don't hold your breath. None of us will live to see that and maybe no one ever will.
Eighty-five appears to be the programmed life expectancy for our species. I grant that the science is imperfect. But eighty-five is a linchpin of my personal philosophy of life. I, for one, do not care how many diseases I harbor on my eighty-fifth birthday, though I prefer not to know that they are creeping up on me. I, for one, do not care which of these diseases carries me off as long as the leaving is gentle and the legacy meaningful.
Perhaps the best we can reasonably hope for is eighty-five years of life free of morbidities that overwhelm our wherewithal to cope, then to die in our sleep on our eighty-fifth birthday.
Unfortunately, not all of us will arrive at our eighty-fifth birthday with tranquility or, having done so, have a peaceful passing. Fortunate, indeed, are the octogenarians of today who have the wits and faculties to contend with life's demands. But time soon whittles away even their higher level of functional capacity.
Friendship, community and love are defensible as prescriptions
Month by month they face days when they do not perform as usual and even feel the need to take to bed. Inexorably, activities of daily living, activities they always took for granted, become an insurmountable challenge.They will come to take their place among the frail elderly. They will lean on canes by the graveside of their friends. They do not merit a disease label, such as "Alzheimer's"; they merit awe, compassion, and community.
The hope is faint that contemporary medical science will shepherd more of the high-functioning octogenarians into the very meager ranks of the high-functioning nonagenarians. It is, however, possible to provide comfort and support for these octogenarians through the transition toward decrepitude and in their final passage.
Friendship, community, and love are defensible as prescriptions, clinical interventions, and targets for public policy and expenditure. To advocate otherwise, including measures purporting to increase the lifespan beyond eighty-five, is to harbor delusions of immortality. Heroic efforts on behalf of the highly functioning octogenarians will accomplish little of substance.
We can, perhaps, alter the proximate cause of death, that is, the diagnosis on the death certificate, but I am aware of no data to support the premise that we can alter the date of death. This is not to advocate therapeutic nihilism.
It is the invoking of the age-old ethic of medicine to contend with the reality of our aging and our mortality. When the high-functioning octogenarian declines, it is because her or his time is nearing.
When death supervenes, it is because it is her or his time. That is the real proximate cause of death. It does not matter how many diseases are vying for coupe de grace. It only matters that the journey was as gratifying as possible.
Sources:
Hadler, Nortin M. (2008) Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (University of North Carolina Press)
Science.NaturalNews.com
Follow real-time breaking news headlines on
Aging gracefully at FETCH.news
Aging gracefully at FETCH.news
Receive Our Free Email Newsletter
Get independent news alerts on natural cures, food lab tests, cannabis medicine, science, robotics, drones, privacy and more.
Take Action: Support Natural News by linking to this article from your website
Permalink to this article:
Embed article link: (copy HTML code below):
Reprinting this article:
Non-commercial use OK, cite NaturalNews.com with clickable link.
Follow Natural News on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Pinterest
Most Viewed Articles
Today
Week
Month
Year
- Top 10 INSIDIOUS PLOTS cooked up by the Democrats over the past 4 years
- Diddy scandal heats up: Hollywood stars engage in BIDDING WAR for “freak-off” blackmail tapes
- DRONE PSYOP SOLVED: Chinese drones from light show in September used by Biden Regime to control American thoughts and create anti-religious alien-invasion "narrative"
- New research debunks cardiac safety SMEAR CAMPAIGN waged against Hydroxychloroquine combination therapy
- Salmonella outbreak linked to cucumbers spreads to 23 states
- Salt products recalled due to contamination with foreign materials which could cause “temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences”
- Yale study finds spike proteins from COVID jabs persist for TWO YEARS: Are mRNA vaccines rewriting human DNA?
- FDA's failure to act leaves Americans at risk from recalled drugs
- Surveillance rewires how we perceive others, affects the subconscious in primal ways
- Drones and radiation spikes: Are NYC skies hiding a nuclear threat?
- Putin's "unstoppable" Oreshnik missile: A dangerous gamble or empty threat?
- A brief intro to DMSO by ADV
- Elon Musk seeks to turn SpaceX’s Starbase into a Texas city
- BBC staffers accuse media outlet’s executives of instituting bias in Gaza coverage, claiming favorable treatment of Israel
- NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ right-hand woman Ingrid Lewis-Martin resigns
- Instead of adding PINK RIBBONS to products for "Cancer Awareness" month, companies should actually remove the ingredients that CAUSE cancer
- A lack of integrity in Academia: Harvard professor found GUILTY of fraudulent research to promote CRT theory
- Two containers with completed ballots fall out of truck in Florida
- Instead of adding PINK RIBBONS to products for "Cancer Awareness" month, companies should actually remove the ingredients that CAUSE cancer
- Careless Whisper: AI-powered transcription tool being used by hospitals found to invent chunks of text no one ever said
- Trump says EVERYONE on the January 6th "Committee" could face jail time for lies and deception that has hundreds of innocent protesters suffering and dying in DC gulags
- Michael Yon warns of a ZIONIST TAKEOVER in Trump’s second administration
- Casual restaurant chain TGI Fridays files for BANKRUPTCY
- Jews rejecting CHRIST: Israel wants family of Christian soldier who died in Gaza to remove the “CROSS” from his headstone
- Chinese submarines can now track AND SINK U.S. Navy aircraft carriers
- BBC staffers accuse media outlet’s executives of instituting bias in Gaza coverage, claiming favorable treatment of Israel
- Kari Lake reportedly under consideration to be the next U.S. ambassador to Mexico
- A sovereign United States must oppose the World Health Organization and combat human exploitation in healthcare
- Four Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza airstrike, death toll of journalists reaches 182
- HYSSOP: What research reveals about the health benefits of this ancient holy herb
- CEO's murder sparks security scramble in greed-driven healthcare industry
- Fermented green tea is a novel functional food that can help reduce obesity and regulate triglyceride levels
- Humiliation campaign: Israel arrests Palestinians in West Bank, writes number on their foreheads
- Trump picks rabid, pro-censorship Zionist Kristi Noem to head Homeland Security - will she arrest Americans who criticize Netanyahu?
- Rudy Giuliani appears to call for MURDERING two-year-old Palestinian children, claiming they might represent a future risk to Israel and America
- Critics denounce Canada’s addition of 300 “assault-type” firearms to the list of prohibited weapons
- Michael Yon warns of a ZIONIST TAKEOVER in Trump’s second administration
- BBC staffers accuse media outlet’s executives of instituting bias in Gaza coverage, claiming favorable treatment of Israel
- Casual restaurant chain TGI Fridays files for BANKRUPTCY
- Texas AG Ken Paxton files lawsuit against El Paso pediatrician for illegally prescribing gender transition drugs and therapies to minors
- HYSSOP: What research reveals about the health benefits of this ancient holy herb
- Humiliation campaign: Israel arrests Palestinians in West Bank, writes number on their foreheads
- West not taking seriously enough the threat of a nuclear attack by Moscow, warns former Russian president
- Instead of adding PINK RIBBONS to products for "Cancer Awareness" month, companies should actually remove the ingredients that CAUSE cancer
- Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert says Netanyahu is the real enemy - not Iran or Hezbollah
- Bombshell US House investigative report confirms that almost everything the alternative media said about COVID origins, lockdowns, masks, vaccines and government overreach was TRUE
- Judge rules against AstraZeneca for breaching COVID “vaccine” contract with trial participant injured by experimental jab
- Democrats say Trump planning to throw them in concentration camps - this after calling for Republicans to be “reeducated” in gulags
- Pentagon: U.S. ready to support South Korea with NUCLEAR WEAPONS
- Social media censorship in the EU about to go into overdrive with upcoming new rules against “disinformation”
- Bill Barr: All cases against Trump must be dropped IMMEDIATELY
- Steve Bannon issues 90-second WARNING to deep state at Trump victory party
- Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon outline potential strategy for Trump's return to office
- Biden-Harris administration spent over $900 million to promote COVID-19 vaccines
- Red Cross issues warning to stop blood plasma donations from vaccinated people
- Heavily CENSORED Pfizer documents show that COVID began a five-year mass DEPOPULATION agenda that will reach completion by 2025
- DATA: England’s vaccinated population had close to one million deaths in 23 months; unvaccinated population had less than 61,000 deaths over the same period
- Scientists confirm: GENIUS brain function can be spontaneously unleashed in humans without any apparent cause
- Arizona residents drive entire Maricopa County Board of Supervisors out of meeting after serving them for TREASON
- Today I asked our AI language model “Neo” about which phytonutrients or phytochemicals can block the spike protein related to SARS-CoV-2 … Here is what it answered…
- Fully vaccinated about to see “tsunami” of illness and death, warns virologist
- BREAKING: 2025 NDAA authorizes mandatory military draft of WOMEN across America… as Pentagon pursues global NUCLEAR war with both Russia and China at the same time
- Former Bill Gates vaccine scientist predicts sharp population decline: “up to 30-40% in highly vaccinated countries”
- We are building the infrastructure of human freedom… Brighteon.AI is the next launch that will put life-altering LLM technology into your hands for free
- NASA admits that climate change occurs because of changes in Earth’s solar orbit, and NOT because of SUVs and fossil fuels
- ENGINEERED FAMINE: Oregon starts SHUTTING DOWN small farms “to protect the people”
- 5G REMOTE KILL VECTOR: Science paper reveals cell phone signals can activate the release of biological PAYLOADS from graphene oxide injected into the body
- These 13 countries just signed an agreement to engineer a global FAMINE by destroying food supply
- Ozempic and Wegovy weight loss drugs are injectable LIZARD VENOM PEPTIDES that may unleash a devastating wave of organ failure… side effects align with symptoms of SNAKE BITES
- Spin-off DISEASE: Fully vaccinated for COVID manifesting new disease called VEXAS syndrome
- Getting vaccinated for covid four or more times results in near-complete collapse of the immune system, bombshell study finds
- BILLIONS still expected to die in coming years from COVID “vaccines,” says analyst
Natural News Wire (Sponsored Content)
Science.News
Science News & Studies
Science News & Studies
Medicine.News
Medicine News and Information
Medicine News and Information
Food.News
Food News & Studies
Food News & Studies
Health.News
Health News & Studies
Health News & Studies
Herbs.News
Herbs News & Information
Herbs News & Information
Pollution.News
Pollution News & Studies
Pollution News & Studies
Cancer.News
Cancer News & Studies
Cancer News & Studies
Climate.News
Climate News & Studies
Climate News & Studies
Survival.News
Survival News & Information
Survival News & Information
Gear.News
Gear News & Information
Gear News & Information
Glitch.News
News covering technology, stocks, hackers, and more
News covering technology, stocks, hackers, and more
100% Real, Uncensored Health News
Find out everything you need to know about clean and healthy living when you sign up for our free email newsletter. Receive health tips, natural remedies, exclusive in-depth reports on superfoods, toxins, and more – what the mainstream media doesn't want you to know!
"Big Tech and mainstream media are constantly trying to silence the independent voices that dare to bring you the truth about toxic food ingredients, dangerous medications and the failed, fraudulent science of the profit-driven medical establishment.
Email is one of the best ways to make sure you stay informed, without the censorship of the tech giants (Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.). Stay informed and you'll even likely learn information that may help save your own life."
–The Health Ranger, Mike Adams