The good news is Australians are living longer than ever before. The bad news is we are living with increasing disability and decreased quality of life due to chronic disease.

In fact, we could be at the cusp of handing down a lower life expectancy to the next generation if nothing is done to halt the rapidly increasing chronic disease rates.

Half of all Australians have at least one chronic disease. A quarter have two or more. Nine in 10 deaths in Australia have chronic disease as an underlying cause.

Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease, respiratory disease, cancer, mental illness, respiratory disorders and musculoskeletal diseases, among others, have major long-term impacts on individuals, their families and their communities.

It is common sense – prevention is better than the cure, right? So if it is so obvious, why do Australia’s health priorities continue to focus on treating illness rather than preventing it?

Many chronic conditions share common risk factors, such as excess body weight, tobacco smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and insufficient physical activity - all of which can be modified through lifestyle changes.

However, modifying human behaviour is challenging and often unpopular. Prevention is often viewed as "the fun police". It can also be commercially damaging, impacting the revenue of food and drink manufacturers and tobacco companies.

Outcomes of health prevention interventions are often invisible - you are measuring the absence of disease. The presence of a disease is easier to comprehend than its absence. It is very easy to see the tangible benefit of, for example, an appendectomy for appendicitis. It is harder to appreciate the fact that you didn’t get chronic kidney disease because you had a healthy and balanced diet, took regular exercise and didn’t smoke.

At a very basic level, chronic disease prevention does not fit nicely into the three-year election cycle. The nature of chronic disease means that prevention initiatives take time to demonstrate results. There is no immediate "sugar hit", rather a sustained "low GI" benefit.

https://www.theage.com.au/healthcare/yes-we-re-living-longer-but-there-s-a-chron...

Yep - while the Fake News Media and its Media Politicians like JFK blasted Fidel Castro and his Cuba for being Communist.

Castro gave Cuba one of the best 'Health' standards in the World.
Sure he shot 'traitors' to the USA.
But he also protected his people for the better from one of the most 'unhealthiest' Nations on the planet.
Cubans live on average much longer than Americans (Westerners) and have a cheaper Medical Industry.
They don't need 'state of the art' uber-technology that costs millions - because they don't have the 'health problems' that Americans have.
They are not rife with cancers and other 'weird' diseases.

So my hat goes off to Fidel Castro and Cuba.

Also to a lot of other nations who are now steering away from the Western 'technologically - dependent' way of Health and its expensive 'money making' over health schemes.