OK, get ready. BORING government statistics coming. Sorry, but sometimes it is really important to know what is happening to our children.
Statistics from the CDC, from 1999 to 2016, annual U.S. mortality from cirrhosis increased by 65% from 20,661 to 34,174. Let that sink in for a minute. What if we chart the rate of change of various disease. Not the number of patients but how it is changing. Look at this chart for a minute. This shows how fast things are changing and those liver statistics are horrifying.
In another 5 years the death rate from cirrhosis will have doubled at a time when medicine is making progress on most diseases. However, that isn't even the scariest statistic. We all know that cirrhosis is mostly an older person's problem. Would it be a concern if young people started dying from cirrhosis?
During that 17 year period the death rate of the 25-34 year old age group from cirrhosis increased by an average of greater than 10% per year. Our young people are dying from an old person's disease and it is mostly caused by alcohol.
OK, think about that for a minute. If you aren't young, you know that youth have abused alcohol and other substances always. Would you say that the college kids of 15 years ago were so out of control that they killed their livers 30 years too soon?
We have sown the sugar wind and now we will reap the whirlwind. As children this generation has, through their diet, compromised their liver's ability to manage toxins. The result, their transgressions as young adults have the potential to kill them for things that their grandparents would have survived.
I admit, it is a little weird to write this to an audience that is primarily made up of liver disease patients. It really isn't for you. You have family and friends who are at risk. Do them a favor and forward this to them. Our society needs to come to grips with what has become a toxic food system. I know that government statistics suck as an argument, but good grief there are real people dying because their parents fed them an unhealthy diet and many more are on the way.
Here is a link as one place to start.
https://www.fattyliverfoundation.org/compare_diets
I apologize for filling your mail box lately, but some things just get my goat.
