On 2/4/2014 1:54 PM, Shadow wrote:
On Tue, 04 Feb 2014 09:17:08 -0500, Peter wrote:

On 2/3/2014 10:28 PM, Shadow wrote:

I retired as a family doctor, years ago. ( 35 years practice,
when I was almost perfect, I had to retire ....). In my country,
family medicine is state-run, a very corrupt state, so we have to
ignore the leaflets they hand out and study in those tediously
thick text-books. And even double check them for biased text. I
don't jump to conclusions. I just thought your choice of "high
cholesterol" when we were discussing disability was not wisely
made. A stroke, heart attack, severe liver or kidney failure,
something like that would be more convincing. FWIW []'s


Shadow, perhaps we have an English language comprehension problem?

Nothing lethal, but English is not my first language. Almost all
medical books are in English, unless you want to fool around with
acupuncture and homeopathy. I don't, so my grasp of English is
probably OK.

As a trained doctor, surely you know that most patients who have
had a stroke or have severe liver or kidney failure are at least
partially disabled.

Yep. What I said.
My original reply questioned the OP's apparent belief that anyone
merely taking prescription meds for a chronic condition met the
definition of disabled.

//"Speaking as a MD, I believe that if someone is taking
prescription medication for a chronic condition, and that condition
is being well controlled (no medication side effects and no
detectable damage to any organ system from the chronic condition),
that person should be considered healthy. (Examples might include
well controlled high blood pressure and well controlled high blood
cholesterol if they were diagnosed and managed soon after onset -
among some other chronic conditions.) "//

I did the inverse of your logic.

"Examples might include well controlled ...remove high blood
pressure..cholesterol if they were diagnosed and managed soon after
onset ."

And if they were not ? I often get patients that have had high
cholesterol for decades with little organic damage. Like I said,
you chose a bad example. Cholesterol levels are a minor factor in
vascular disease. Not what the drug companies want us to believe.
GENETICS, smoking, Obesity, High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, severe
alcoholism, and sedentarism play much bigger roles. I consider stress
a secondary factor as it might cause any of the above, minus
genetics.Did I forget any ? []'s


Our comments are tangential to each others' comments, not directly
addressing them. I didn't mean to imply that high serum cholesterol,
even if uncontrolled, is a debilitating condition. I was indicating
that I disagreed with the OP, who seemed to believe that a person
chronically taking a prescription drug for a chronic condition (note:
I'm saying "condition" and not "disease" or "disability") IS by
definition "unhealthy".

I completely agree with the details of your most recent reply. High
cholesterol is being used both by big Pharma (not surprising), and seems
to be accepted by the FDA (rather surprising) as a valid surrogate
marker for cardiovascular disease and although there strong evidence to
support an association between the two, I'm not convinced that high
cholesterol is the cause. Both my parents ate a diet high in total fat
and saturated fat. Both were extremely sedentary. Both had marginally
controlled hypertension. Both had total serum cholesterol readings in
the high 200s. Neither ever had any signs or symptoms of
cerebrovascular or cardiovascular disease. Both died in their early 90s
of non-cardiovascular causes. I agree that genetics is by far the most
significant factor in an individual's likelihood of developing serious
cardiovascular disease.