High Anxiety: Stress in the US
Since leaving England in the mid-1970’s I’ve often wondered what my life would’ve been like if that University in Medford, MA had not come up with the last minute offer of a full scholarship. I turned down a place at Bath University to come over and do postgraduate studies in the States.
But what if? What if I had not received that offer? I imagine my counter-factual English alter-ego in a Cotswold village penning learned articles and supping cider. Driving on the left side of the road. Raising children who speak with English accents. Enjoying afternoon teas in the faculty lounge and cricket on the television.
But I never really considered if my health and wellbeing would have been different. If anything, a routine of pints in the pub and chips with everything might not have sustained me as well as my current abstemious love of green tea and year-round California salads.
How wrong I am.
A study that appeared in May in the Journal of the American Medical Association was the basis for a fascinating article (subscription required) in Friday’s edition of the Financial Times.
The study presents damning evidence that Americans in the 55-64 age group are sicker than English people. Although the study echoes previous research in showing that, in both countries, rates of disease increase as socio-economic status declines, the national differences were so great that those at the top of the income and education scale in the US suffered diabetes and heart disease at a similar rate to those at the bottom of the scale in England. Stated plainly: the Harvard-educated elite were as unhealthy as the chip-butty munching navvies in the backstreets of Salford.
This despite the well-known statistic that Americans pay double the British for healthcare.
One of the study’s authors notes “We have to go beyond first-order explanations such as obesity, smoking and drinking to something more profound.”
A competitive culture must play a part, write FT columnists Christopher Bowe and Clive Cookson, highlighting the intense competition, economic insecurity and high levels of stress that run through American society. This, more than lifestyle factors – particularly the fact that Americans are fatter on average than the English and take less exercise – is statistically significant. The FT notes that stress is a BAD THING:
The body reacts to stress by increasing blood pressure and heart rate to transfer energy to muscles, and by enhancing immune defences, cognition and sensory functions. At the same time, it defers longer-term processes not needed for immediate survival, such as growth, tissue repair and reproduction. Chronic stress can cause disease… If energy is constantly mobilised and not stored, it can bring an increased risk of insulin-resistant diabetes. Persistent hypertension can damage blood vessels and, if combined with metabolic stress responses, lead to clogged arteries.
Maybe tending the roses around the doorway of my Cotswold cottages would have been a better option in the long run. Sigh.
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Yes I think that there are some intriguing health issues just around the corner. BBC World service programme ‘The communications Revolution’ suggests that when we arrange to have a certain implant in our arm, we will be able to communicate through thought processes alone. There is a Professor at Reading University, England that is already experimenting with the need to avoid speech with other human beings altogether. In fact the social anthropoligist assigned to study the good professor and his wife 24/7 reports that technology today is gradually working towards eliminating the need for people altogether. That way, blood pressure tablets will presumably be consigned to history.
By Tim Kidson on 09.05.06 4:14 am
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