Newsletter #25: American health is getting destroyed (and it is simple to improve)
Welcome back and happy Tuesday!
While the subject line may seem dark, I think it is important for all of us to be knowledgeable about the current state of health in the United States, which unfortunately, is not good. The positive news is that we can turn these trends around rapidly by focusing on the root cause of why we are getting sick, which is metabolic dysfunction triggered by our toxic food system and modern lifestyle habits. I discussed this in detail in my interview with Tucker Carlson (the #2 podcast in America on Spotify), which aired on Friday (and caused quite a stir 🌪️ ).
This interview involved two and a half hours unpacking the most important issue of our time: that Americans are getting sicker across the lifespan with diseases rooted in diet and lifestyle, and both the healthcare system and processed food industry are profiting off it. What’s more, the healthcare system’s focus on hyper-specialization blinds it from addressing the connected root cause biology of these disease trends.
The interview with Tucker has been watched by over 5 million people since Friday, my book Good Energy went back to the #1 on all of Amazon, and there are over 15,000 new members of this newsletter community because of the episode. So if you’re new, WELCOME! We’re here in this community to cut through the noise and move towards incredible health so we can reach our highest purpose and spread light in the world.
If you resonate with the message I shared in my interview with Tucker Carlson, check out my book, my Youtube channel, and my newsletter archives here (my recent newsletters on plastics and pesticides - both hormone disrupting chemicals poisoning our environments and bodies - are must-reads for optimal health!).
In this newsletter, I’m going to summarize one of the key moments of the episode which is where I share the “state of health” in the US:
Just a few of the papers and headlines highlighting the current state of health in the US.
AMERICAN HEALTH IS GETTING DESTROYED
74% of American adults are dealing with overweight or obesity.
30% of teens have prediabetes (this was 11% in 2002).
1 in 36 children are on the autism spectrum (up from 1 in 150 in the year 2000). This number is 1 in 22 in California.
34% of young adults have a mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder.
Incidence of early-onset cancers have increased by 79% in recent years.
Nearly one in two Americans is predicted to get cancer in their lifetimes (41.6% chance). This is the first year America is estimated to have over 2 million new cases of cancer.
Autoimmune diseases are rising rapidly, with some studies showing rates rising 3-12% annually.
Early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s disease have tripled since 2013.
American girls are starting puberty years earlier than they were in prior centuries, and are starting earlier than any other continent in the world.
Infertility is rising rapidly and unsustainably, with sperm counts declining 1% per year and infertility rates rising 1% per year.
The US has the highest infant and maternal mortality rate of all high income countries, despite spending the most.
Life expectancy is seeing a sustained decline in the United States driven by COVID, chronic liver disease, heart disease, and suicide.
77% of young Americans are not able to quality for military service due to health problems or drug use.
If you’d like to share these alarming statistics, please feel free to save and use the images below:
This is just a small sampling of the stats that should make us all stop in our tracks and demand that the chronic disease epidemic in children and adults become the key focus are of our healthcare system, media coverage, and of the upcoming election.
The hopeful news is that this is all fixable, rapidly. The science tells us that ALL of these conditions are driven by or worsened by THE EXACT SAME THING: skyrocketing metabolic dysfunction - which is a core dysfunction in how our cells are fundamentally working - and is caused largely by our toxic ultra-processed food system, the toxins in our environment, and our increasingly sedentary, tech-driven, isolated, indoor lives.
All of this is unpacked in my book, Good Energy, including the solutions.
If this information bothers you and you are feeling overwhelmed, try this: go outside right now, inhale and exhale deeply, take a brief walk for 10 minutes, and think of 1 thing you are grateful for. Those simple steps can get us grounded to stay clear headed, focused, and ready to take on this most existential issue of our time.
With good energy 💓
Dr. Casey
PS: I got engaged this weekend to the love of my life! If you have a piece of marriage advice as my partner and I embark on this journey, please reply and share. A big part of my “why” for pursuing optimal health is in service of building a strong, healthy, spiritually grounded, free-thinking family and be the best partner I can be. What good fortune for humanity that simply eating unprocessed food and living Good Energy principles can enhance our positive emotions and capacity to feel our best. If you’re still seeking partnership in your life, reply and let me know if you want me to write a newsletter on how I overhauled many aspects of my life at age 35 to prioritize creating space to find my partner (it worked!).
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