In
Canada, if you have a heart attack, you have a 15 per cent chance of
dying within the next 10 years. That's if your income is $60,000 a
year or better. If your income is $30,000 a year or less, your
chances of dying with in the next decade jumps to 35 per cent.
That's
the gist of a two-page news story in the Globe and Mail last
Thursday.
Even
though all Canadians, rich and poor, have the same access to health
care, demographers can track and predict outcomes from heart attacks,
based on income.
The
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences identified 1,368 Ontarians
who had suffered a heart attack between 1999 and 2003. Then they
examined the 2013 stats and counted how many of them had died.
The
pattern of markedly increased survivability based on income showed
up. When the numbers were screened for education, the same pattern
appeared, but to a lesser extent. In essence, despite universal
health care, the rich are doubly more able to survive heart attacks
than the poor in Canada.
The
study could not pinpoint the actual mechanism income played.
Researchers could only surmise that wealthier people generally make
better lifestyle choices. That includes the desire, ability and
personal support to get therapy (let's just call it exercise) to get
better, after that severe personal warning about the mortality of us
all.
Canadians
should not need reminding that regular exercise is the cheapest and
best medicine to both prevent cardiovascular disease, and to recover
from an attack. That much is medical gospel.
But
an active lifestyle should not have any connection to income.
Exercise is as cheap as a second-hand bike or a good pair of shoes.
That, plus a desire to live.
Heart disease is the Number One killer of Canadians. About 60,000
Canadians suffer heart attacks each year, says the health Agency of
Canada. Some 16,000 die right off, and the rest become the subject of
10-year survivability studies.
Last
week, Canadians were also invited to take part in a national
challenge to increase their own physical activity, in part by
changing the way they get to work and run their daily errands.
Across
the country 21,708 people registered to take part in the annual
National Commuter Challenge. Logging in their daily commutes by bike,
by walking, car pooling or transit, the algorithm on the Challenge
web site determined participants logged over 2 million km of
alternate commuting over the week, thereby reducing their collective carbon
footprint by about 348 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
(I
was one of the local co-ordinators, so I got regular updates on
Challenge progress.)
Red
Deer happened to end the week as the top city in our population
category. The 104 Red Deerians registered in the challenge logged 6,385 km of commuting that did not include a single person in a
single car. We relieved the air of 718 kg of additional carbon
dioxide, reduced fuel consumption by 292 litres — and burned
68,000-plus calories' worth of good, clean (and cheap) exercise.
Mostly, just on the way to and from work.
If
someone were to offer to increase your yearly take-home pay by $500
(or more) tax-free, make your car last years longer before needing
replacement, take about 10 pounds of fat off your frame in the first
year and double your chances of surviving the nation's Number One
deadly disease, would you at least consider it?
Walking
or riding to work regularly can do that. Why should simple survival
be the privilege of the rich?
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