U.S. Life Expectancy Decline
For the first rime since the early 1920's, the U.S. life expectancy has experienced it's largest 2 year decline. In 2021, there was a 0.9 year drop in life expectancy and in 2020, a 1.8 year drop. Currently, the life expectancy at birth is 76.1 years, which is the lowest level since 1996. So with all of the money, technological advances, medications, and overall resources placed in our healthcare system, why is our life expectancy not increasing?
This is obviously a big question, but impart a contributing factor along with increasing rates of drug overdose, and COVID is the poor metabolic health that many Americans unfortunately have.
Our current medical system spends less time on preventative measures and trying to optimize health. Instead, much of the U.S. medical care focuses on diagnosis and treatment of disease when it has already become advanced or established.
Doctors and providers today, particularly in large, corporate heath systems, don't spend the necessary time to encourage patient to make long-term lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise, and optimization of nutrients. Instead, the focus is on prescribing a medication to treat a disease state once it has become advanced. We are fortunate to live in a country that has advanced medical treatment options for acute problems, but if we are looking to improve health span and life expectancy, our treatment goals need to be focused more on lifestyle changes and medical care that prevents disease before it takes place.
The goal of Ultra Wellness Medical is to provide prevention based primary care treatment, try and detect factors that lead to chronic medical issues at an earlier state, and work to decrease the burden that chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and vascular disease can cause.