Polar Bear Medical Blog

Well if you are like most people and you do not particularly enjoy being sick then continue reading. However, if you do enjoy being sick, then I would suggest some immediate psychiatric help. Anyway, for the normal person there are ways to better your chances at fighting off the flu.

1.The first step is to optimize your vitamin D levels. Vitamin D will help you fight off almost all infections and a lack of vitamin D is often the real cause behind the seasonality of the flu. Maintaining a good level of vitamin D all year will help you stay flu free.
2.Avoid sugar and processed foods. Although sugar is sweet and tasty, it doesn’t help very much with defending your body against the flu. It’s like that creepy guy your mom told you to stay away from because he drives around in an ice-cream truck that has no ice-cream in it. Though it is very hard not to have sugary foods, sugar actually decreases the function of your immune system almost as your drinking it. Obviously your immune system is important for fighting off the flu so try not to have too much.
3.Get enough rest. When your body is tired it is harder to fight the flu, it’s as simple as that.
4.Have effective tools to address stress. Stress is well, stressful. Stress is not good for your body and can lead to some serious medical problems. Also if you are too stressed out you are more susceptible to the flu and less capable of being able to fight it.
5.Exercise. When you exercise the circulation throughout the body increases. Therefore, the different parts of your immune system are also better circulated and that means there is a greater chance that you immune system can find and destroy an illness before it really spreads.
6.Wash your hands. Because there is bacteria basically everywhere, washing your hands quite frequently will help you prevent illness. And although most people think antibacterial soap is a good alternative to soap, it actually does much more harm than good. Don’t settle for antibacterial soap, get the real thing and make sure you wash for long enough.

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Lately, President Obama has been making a strong push towards health care reform, a shake up of the current system If you will. Some do not fully understand why, but looking at the statistics Obama may be on to something here.

Although the United States is one of the most wealthy, and arguably the most powerful nation in the world, our medical services are highly overpaid. According to the American Human Development Index (AHDI), of the 30 most wealthy nations in the world, the United States ranks 24th in life expectancy. If this is not bad enough Americans actually spend more on health care than any other nation. However, even with the extra money Americans put into the health care system, the United States has fallen into last place, among the more wealthy and developed nations, in preventing avoidable deaths through use of timely and effective medical care (AHDI).

Regardless of whether the health care reform is successful or not, the main idea behind it is quite noble. On a broadcast to American citizen’s, President Obama described what he intends to do about the health care system, “We will pass reform that lowers cost, promotes choice and provides coverage that every American can count on. And we will do it this year.”

The goal would be to provide access to AFFORDABLE health care. Why did I capitalize, bold, and change ‘affordable’ to italic? Simply for the reason that currently, health care is robbing many Americans. More than half of all personal bankruptcies that occur in the United States are related to the inability to pay for illness or injury(AHDI).

Obviously something needs to be done to help American citizens, mostly the middle and lower classes, that have a difficult time paying for medical care. Every person deserves to have adequate medical treatment without having to worry about the financial issues.

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