A System Designed for Sickness

As practitioners at Amari Health, we see the human cost of America's healthcare crisis every day. But this isn't just about individual patients – it's about a system that's fundamentally broken at every level. What we're witnessing isn't healthcare; it's sickness management on an industrial scale.

The Scale of the Crisis

Let's start with the raw numbers:

• 80% of American adults are overweight or obese

• Over 50% of Americans have pre-diabetes

• 25% of women are on antidepressants

• The average 65-year-old takes seven different prescriptions

• 33% of young adults have pre-diabetes

• 25% of teens have fatty liver disease

This isn't normal. A generation ago, diabetes doctors might never see a child with type 2 diabetes in their entire career. Now it's commonplace. We're watching the rapid collapse of metabolic health across an entire population.

The Dirty Fish Tank

The fundamental problem is simple: we're trying to drug the fish instead of cleaning the tank. Consider our current approach to chronic disease:

The Food System

• The USDA guideline committee is 95% funded by food companies

• More agricultural subsidies go to tobacco than vegetables

• 90% of subsidies support highly processed food production

• $10 billion in federal money goes to soda companies through food stamps annually

• Food stamps can be used to buy soda, making the government a direct funder of metabolic disease

The Medical System

• Doctors treat symptoms in isolation rather than looking for root causes

• The average patient sees multiple specialists who never communicate with each other

• Physicians receive direct consulting fees from drug companies

• Medical associations that set treatment standards are heavily funded by pharmaceutical companies

• The system profits from managing chronic conditions rather than curing them

The Research Problem

• Pharmaceutical companies are the largest funders of medical research

• Universities have become essentially R&D labs for drug companies

• 8,000 NIH research grants went to professors with direct conflicts of interest

• Most obesity researchers receive funding from companies like Novo Nordisk

The Ozempic Example

The current push for Ozempic perfectly illustrates everything wrong with the system:

1. The False Solution

• Costs $20,000 per year

• Requires lifetime use

• Doesn't address why people are gaining weight

• Being promoted as first-line treatment for 80% of adults

2. The Corruption

• American Academy of Pediatrics recommends it for teens based on just 68 weeks of data

• Novo Nordisk has given $30 million in direct payments to obesity doctors

• Civil rights organizations are being paid to promote it as a health equity issue

• Major media coverage is shaped by pharmaceutical advertising dollars

3. The Business Model

• Wall Street projections assume increasing obesity rates

• Medical centers are building new obesity units based on projected growth

• The business model depends on more people getting sick, not getting better

The COVID Connection

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed these systemic failures. Research showed that metabolically healthy people rarely died from COVID. Yet instead of addressing why Americans were so vulnerable:

• The media ignored metabolic health

• The focus stayed on pharmaceutical solutions

• No major public health initiatives addressed underlying health conditions

• The system doubled down on managing symptoms rather than building health

The Financial Disaster

The cost is staggering:

• Healthcare is both the largest and fastest-growing industry in America

• Diabetes-related spending exceeds the defense budget

• Healthcare costs will reach 40% of the federal budget within 15 years

• We're spending more to get worse results

What Needs to Change

1. Immediate Policy Changes

• Ban pharmaceutical advertising on television news

• Eliminate conflicts of interest in medical research

• Reform food stamp programs to exclude soda and processed foods

• Restructure agricultural subsidies to support healthy food production

2. System Reforms

• Create incentives for preventive care

• Require communication between specialists

• Ban direct payments from drug companies to doctors

• Reform medical education to focus on root causes

3. Cultural Shifts

• Recognize chronic disease as a system failure, not personal failure

• Question the normalization of multiple prescriptions

• Challenge the acceptance of childhood chronic disease

• Demand transparency in medical research and guidelines

The Path Forward

The current system isn't failing – it's succeeding at its actual goal: managing sickness for profit. Until we acknowledge this fundamental truth, no amount of reform will create real change.

As natural health practitioners, we see the human cost of this system every day. But we also see what's possible when you actually support the body's natural healing capacity instead of just suppressing symptoms.

This isn't about alternative versus conventional medicine. It's about recognizing that our current approach is creating sicker people at an unsustainable cost. Until we address these systemic issues, we'll keep seeing worse health outcomes despite spending more money.

Remember: If a fish tank is dirty, you clean the tank. You don't drug the fish.

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From our perspective as natural health practitioners at Amari Health, witnessing both the human cost of our current system and the possibility of a better approach.