In a few days I turn 60 years old. I feel 40. I’m a believer that 60 is the new 40, or, at least, it can be.
Among the Republican presidential candidates, only Mitt Romney looks younger than his 60 years. Apparently he can afford to look younger. Everyone else in the Republican lineup looks like Dwight Eisenhower. Seriously. Giuliani, McCain, Thompson. For them, 70 must be the new 68.
The problem with being 60 and looking and feeling 40 is that only a few of us have that privilege. Most Americans are overweight, under nourished, under exercised, over stressed, over taxed, pre-diabetic, and read too much Reader’s Digest.
One look at the commercials on CBS Evening News will tell you something about the health of Americans these days. Pharmaceutical companies own the Nightly News. What money they have left goes into advertisements in Reader’s Digest.
One of the more recent RD issues is so loaded with ads for solutions to health problems that it was difficult to find any articles to read. The full page Cheerios ad highlighted the cereal’s ability to reduce cholesterol. Two pages over was another ad for knowmenopause.com, symptoms, treatments, and other goody-two-shoes medical advice. From whom? Drug company Wyeth.
I wouldn’t mention Wyeth but Terry (campaign manager Terry McAuliffe) tells me they haven’t been generous with campaign contributions.
A few pages over is a four page Reader’s Digest advertisement for people with COPD. COPD? I guess you know who you are. No one else in the world does. Are these real diseases? Not far from the ad about Spiriva, which allegedly helps sufferers of COPD, is an ad from drug giant Bayer hawking their blood glucose testing devices.
Let’s see if I understand this scenario. Big business stuffs sugar into everything and everybody for 50 years, and big business sells devices to test blood sugar and control diabetes to the over 50 crowd. That sounds like a conspiracy to me.
60 may be the new 40 for some of us who can afford decent health care, but from what I can tell diabetes is the new rhino virus.
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