Why Is The Life Expectancy Of Canadians 3 Years Longer Than The U.S

[yerrag]

The more you are exposed to the healthcare system the worse your overall health gets. Only beneficial exposure you can have is to put you back into one piece after trauma. See, problems of nutrition and lifestyle should be corrected by nutrition and lifestyle. Not masked by taking a drug.

In canada the healtcare system does as little as possible because it is taxpayer funded. In USA it does as much as possible because that's how doctors make money.

I agree. It's a scam, most of it is snake oil when it comes to chronic conditions. The saving grace is that the system get to be the hero as it does a great job with acute cases. The hero allows the scam artist to thrive.

However, being taxpayer-funded is not necessarily a good thing. You can end up paying for it through more taxes. If government is involved, expect people to game the system. Fraud will be common, but it will simply be ignored. If you're not directly paying for it, you will consider it "not my problem" because "it's complicated."

 

[schultz]

Yes, Canada seems less stressed the times I have visited. But maybe that is simply because they consume more SFA to PUFA?

I was researching PUFA intakes by country just the other day (because I have no friends... ) and was surprised to see that Canada was significantly lower than the States for PUFA consumption. The Canola/Soybean point you made earlier makes a lot of sense, after all Canola is an acronym for "Canada oil low acid". I never thought of the oil difference!

I'm originally from Canada. I think it's mainly that there's less poverty in Canada, better social safety nets, lower income disparity, and higher minimum wage. It doesn't require a dramatic leap in logic to realize these factors lead to longer life expectency:

I am Canadian as well, and also lived in the States while I went to school, and you do start noticing these differences. The States seems to have pockets of very wealthy neighbourhoods and pockets of poorer areas with major cultural differences between the two. I was in the Boston area so maybe it's not like that in other parts of the States.

In canada the healtcare system does as little as possible because it is taxpayer funded.

I'm not sure it does as little as possible. It really depends on the doctor or hospital, and even how much the patient or patients family pushes for tests. Some patients will demand a bunch of tests. I used to file/digitize medical records and some people who were chronically hospitalized would get a tremendous amount of tests done. Just a massive amount of x-rays, ct scans, ultrasounds, etc. It's not like the government tells doctors "Do as little as possible".

 

[YourUniverse]

Travelling to the US is always interesting to me, because the people look the same, but behave differently in ways hard for me to precisely put my finger on.

The best way I can describe it is Americans, especially those in bureaucracies I encounter most while travelling (airports, hotels, small businesses) seem more militant, more closed off, more focused on "getting theirs". That's just my opinion, based on my limited experience. It's also a generalization, certainly not representative of every interaction I've ever had with Americans.

I'm not sure why this difference exists. Maybe health care is a factor? In Canada, I don't need to worry about seeing a doctor, getting various medications or procedures (whether those medications or procedures are holistically relevant is a different story...). In the US, I understand doctor visits can virtually bankrupt a family, and can't help but wonder the extent that stress would have on people.

 

[Cirion]

The US has gotta be the most stressed out first world country out there... or maybe that's my bias since I live here and I seemingly experience it on a daily basis.

- Bad diets
- Lack of real people connection - most people are addicted to phones and facebook etc. I am the only person I know that is not addicted to my phone. I often go a whole day and maybe check my phone only once or twice.
- Poor lifestyle choices (drugs, alcohol, other addictions)
- Excessive work stress, workaholic mentality (people work way too much, often 2 or even 3 jobs)
- Bad money management (probably why most have to work 2-3 jobs). You might say this is only a poor problem but that's wrong, actually middle class and rich seem to suffer quite a lot here. A friend of a friend makes $500,000 a year and literally lives paycheck to paycheck and is stressed 24/7 because his income depends on commission and if he has a bad year he would have to foreclose on his multi million $ house. Money can add LOTS of stress if you are poor at managing it. Americans seem addicted to both spending and making money.
- Excessive exposure to EMF, blue light (this is probably any first world country though)
- An "always on" mentality - the average American doesn't know how to disconnect, or turn off stress. They love to be always "busy" with something which leads to...
- Chronic lack of sleep, no stress management in general
- I am literally the only person I know among my friends that knows how to just have 1-2 "do nothing" days a week. Everyone else is "always connected" to the world.
- Getting married & having kids in an already stressed lifestyle which fuels even more stress (even less sleep due to kids and such). The average married couple in the US is extremely stressed, this probably helps explain the large divorce %. I believe we can blame high serotonin for the divorce rates, of course this is just my opinion. (If you haven't guessed, I have no interest to have kids until I can manage all the stressors I already have... It's not worth it. Kids can be cool no doubt but I need to get better above all other priorities at the moment).

--- just to name a few...