Your stats are quite interesting, ehBeth. I thought that unlike the USA, Canada was a "white" country. It happens that she has sufficient Asian minority. Well, IMHO, this is in favor of Canada. Asian people, especially the East Asian ones, are very much success-oriented and industrious, and they contribute much to science, culture and economy of the hosting countries.
hi, ebeth: the dentist told me that to reduce the risk of getting gingivitis it is VITAL to THOROUGHLY floss; he said if the gums are bleeding after flossing, that's o.k. - the gums will HARDEN UP! happy flossing! hamburger
(hamburger's such a cutie!
)
hi, steissd: my 2 cents worth follows re. "white" country. a while ago i borrowed a statistics report(united nations?) from the local library on the racial makeup of the countries of the world -i'm retired and when i have nothing better to do, i'll read just about anything. according to that report - a few hundred pages - canada is the racially most diversified country in the world. even in our fairly small city of about 120,000 inhabitants you can probably find people from almost every country of the world; it's an old (by canadian standards - first european explorers visited here in 1673)university and military town which ,of course, contributes to racial diversity. nice to meet you through this discussion group, steissd.......... . you might ask ebeth about the racial makekeup of toronto....when we are visiting toronto and take the streetcar to go downtown, we sometimes feel like we are in hongkong....that should give you an idea....
ehBeth. I zeroed in on the item about smoking since I have smoked for some years. One observation. Smoking is not a cause and effect situation. If it were so, everyone who smoked would get lung cancer. It would be fairer to say that there is a high probability that those who smoke have a greater risk of contracting lung cancer.
ehBeth, this is not a rationalization. The government usually gets its foot in the door by appealing to the public in a harmless way.
Thanks for the link, honey. You be good. Will read more later.
O.K. - using hot cinnamon toothpick and finding the cinnamon dental floss. I already brush with 2 different toothpastes so i think i may have things covered in that arena.
Letty - how about: those exposed to smoke have a greater risk of contracting lung disease (lung cancer is just the thin edge of the wedge on lung disease). I watched a program this afternoon about the increased risk of dogs living with cigarette smokers for lung cancer and pulmonary disease. If it's not good for us, i guess it makes sense it's not good for them either.
I voted for family planning, but really all of those things are important, either to me personally or to my family.
Immunizations - these have probably saved all of us.
Motor vehicle safety - my mother was in an auto accident (a Corvair, subject of Unsafe at any Speed in the late 60's - the car had no safety belts. Of course she was injured. That wouldn't have happened today - the accident, perhaps. But the injury, probably not, or not as bad.
Workplace safety - these have saved all of us, not just in terms of life and death but also in terms of permanent disability, from everything from carpal tunnel syndrome to back injuries.
Control of infectious diseases - my folks grew up not going to swimming pools, terrified of polio. That's changed a bit, eh?
Declines in deaths from heart disease and stroke - the heart disease which killed my grandfather at age 56 can now be prevented with bypass surgery.
Safer and healthier foods - we don't worry about nutritionally-related maladies, like scurvy and rickets any more.
Healthier mothers and babies - of course this has saved all of us.
Family planning - families are made more by choice than by chance.
Fluoridation of drinking water - unlike my grandparents, we all still have all of our teeth, even my folks, who are now both older than all of their parents (but one) were at the time of their deaths - and all of my grandparents (except for the grandfather who died young) had full sets of dentures.
Tobacco as a health hazard - got my father-in-law to quit pipe-smoking, thank God.
Hard to choose one, I pretty much just closed my eyes and picked one.
Jes - i looked at a lot of those and thought, thank goodness i was born in the second half of the 20th century - if i wasn't, i'm not sure i'd have made it that far. (ok, so that's a convoluted trail, but it's what i mean)
hi, letty, jespah and ebeth: here is another 2 cents worth! some time ago i watched one of the "nature of things" programs by dr. david suzuki on cbc. he said that research has provided preliminary evidence that different people are affected in different ways by tobacco use - some will stay perfectly healthy. he said that scientists had not been able yet to establish a cause/effect. (of course, there is still the question of secondary smoke - i suppose one could find a way of preventing the smoke from "escaping" from the smoker's mouth and nose - wouldn't that be something! should be more enjoyable for the both the smoker and non-smoker). my dad was a moderate smoker all his life and lived well into his eighties without getting canceer or lungdisease. personally, i got violently sick when i tried my first smoke at the ripe, old age of 19(wanted to be manly and lit a cigar - arrrgh).never tried it again; instead adopted other vices.
I don't thibnk Beth needs another opinion about the correlation between tooth disease and heart disease, but I concur. After my it became apparent that heart disease was in my family I started paying attention..... The plaque build up on the teeth is similar to the plaque build up on the arteries. And, if gunk on your teeth disloges into your blood stream, it can end up doing damage.
As for smoking and early death - my dad's dad smoked lightly for all of his life and never developed any type of lung disease. He had high blood pressure (very tied to smoking), had heart attacks, and finally died of a stroke well into his 80s. I think that the genetic code tells what may be in store for you, but it doesn't seem to pre-dispose you to the diseases that it lists as options.
I have to wonder if CDC even considered clean water supplies and sanitary plumbing as health achievements.
Perhaps from an early time period, roger? The 10 they identified were specific to 1901 - 1999 (at least to the mind of the list creator/s).
I'm glad i'd already done my dental routine this a.m. before reading hamburger and littlek's additions. At this rate I'll be calling in to work, 'i can't come in, i've got another hour of brushing and flossing to do'.
Hamburger, you were lucky that you tried to start smoking with a cigar: it is not the best stuff for the beginners, and very few can bear it. If you started with a cigarette, it coulkd be quite probable that you would be a smoker up to date.
hi, steissd: yes, i believe you are quite right. i still wonder to this day how i avoided picking up the nasty habit. when i started working in an office in 1948, the air was sometimes so full of smoke that you could hardly see across the office! of course, salaries were pretty low and some of my collegeus would roll cigarettes using herbal tea, tabocco grown in the backyard(i remember my dad had his little plot of tobacco plants inthe garden), just about anything that would stink - and it did! as someone said to me recently when i talked about "the good old days" - "they sure were old but certainly not good". well, i did manage to aquire a few other vices that i kind of enjoy, so not everything is lost. thanks, steissd for your reply.......i should post a short bio soon; just haven't gotten arond to it yet.....
Most important:
1. Penicillin discovered by Fleming
2. Streptomycin discovered by Waksman
3. Polio vaccine: Salk
4. Elimination of small pox
5. Quinine for malaria
6. Mammography for breast cancer detection
7. Pap test for cervical cancer
8. Amniocentesis for abnormal development
9. HIV medications
10.Fluorination of water resources
