ME/NA ~ Changing of Lifestyles

[sarahaziz 0]

Like most of everyone here I'll soon be reunited with my babe in a couple of weeks!! Can't wait

So here's something I was thinking about, I read around a bit and ME/NA death rates seriously start at around 40 years old (My grandparents also died 40's-60's) .I'm guessing because of medical care they don't go to doctors usually for "checkups" only when sick. The diets could be a problem also. So much meat!! Everyday beef/goat and also eating French bread (or other kinds) everyday with 2 meals!!

My spouse seems to only eat really small meals 2 times a day sometimes only eating 1 meal. Has anyone changed their spouses diet trying to prolong good health? What have you done or substituted without hurting his taste?

[morocco4ever 63]

My opinion of the higher death rate is more towards the lack of decent health care there. Lets face it, our food here just isn't fresh like it is there. So many preservatives and #######. Then lets go into the fast food...never mind, lets not!

Meat, yes you may have a point on this one, but I am tossed. I personally am not a big meat eater, I would rather eat veggies, but I can see that sometimes my health isn't as strong due to my lack of interest in meat. Balance of course being the key.

My husband and I had an interesting conversation just the other day about cancer. In the past week I have discovered 3 people that have and are now dying from cancer. My husbands opinion is that this is due to the food in the US, and he states that the US has the highest rate of cancer, and that places such as Morocco have a low rate. I can't prove or disprove this since I haven't researched it, but it could be possible.

My argument is that the health care is so poor that how would you know that there isn't rampant cancer there? Some dies? Hmmm...do they really know why they die or do they have some strange myth that they fabricate?

[brnidokiegurl 0]

The ones i know of that have died there were due to heart attack and diabetes

[Imua 0]

Like most of everyone here I'll soon be reunited with my babe in a couple of weeks!! Can't wait

So here's something I was thinking about, I read around a bit and ME/NA death rates seriously start at around 40 years old (My grandparents also died 40's-60's) .I'm guessing because of medical care they don't go to doctors usually for "checkups" only when sick. The diets could be a problem also. So much meat!! Everyday beef/goat and also eating French bread (or other kinds) everyday with 2 meals!!

My spouse seems to only eat really small meals 2 times a day sometimes only eating 1 meal. Has anyone changed their spouses diet trying to prolong good health? What have you done or substituted without hurting his taste?

Is diabetes very common in MENA? I dunno if the high meat consumption is the whole story - the life span in Nepal is likewise very short (about 55-60) but a significant percentage of the population is vegetarian. The base diet is very healthy(dal, rice and vegetables) but if you drink a lot of chai and eat sweets maybe that is a problem. Diabetes is very common in S. Asia(my FIL was recently diagnosed with it) - there was a series of articles in the NY Times discussing diabetes in S. Asians both in the US and in S. Asia.

Maybe communicable diseases and unclean food/water are factors in MENA too? On another forum I frequent there was a doctor living in Ecuador who posted about practicing there - people are routinely treated for parasites without even testing for them because they are so prevalent. I contracted a case of Giardia last year in Nepal - I think from eating cut fruit from a street vendor. Giardia weakens you but you can go on functioning, still your body is being depleted of nutrients. Many people in developing countries have chronic Giardia infection and since they can go on working sinply take it for granted, cannot afford treatment.

[Jenn! 918]

I've always heard there's a strong correlation between dental health and overall health.

[*JG* 2]

I'm going to pipe in on this because my husband was a meat and rice kind of guy from a third world country. I am familiar with what you are talking about.

First of all, my husband has had regular medical and dental check-ups the last 2 years. He had never seen a dentist before coming to the US (he cussed me the first couple of times!) and only saw a doctor when really sick.

My husband has sickle cell and has been on regular medications the last 2 years.

I have attempted to lower the salt content when he cooks.

We have stuck to the same basic meats and fish he used to eat. They are fine.

I have attempted to add more fruits and vegetables to his diet. He would be happy with meat and rice at every meal.

I tried to switch from white rice to brown rice; but that didn't go over well at all.

I have gotten him to drink milk.

[Imua 0]

I've always heard there's a strong correlation between dental health and overall health.

Yes, specifically heart health I heard, supposedly if you floss daily it can prevent heart attacks. I wish I didn't forget so often.

[Tunisia216 2]

I definitely see what you are all saying, but I do tend to agree with what was said about the food being much healthier there. When I stayed with him for over a month I left more than 20 LBS in Tunisia - It was a combination of the less processed foods and more walking. They just do not use cars for everything and it really made me re evaluate my life here - How I'm going to go less than half a mile down the road and I will use the car when I could just walk, etc. So I really felt like the people that I was around in Tunisia were more healthy - and also less over weight than people here. (Sure there are over weight people there too, I mean same as the US, all kinds of people, shapes, and sizes)

But the other thing is the medical care. Tunisia has GREAT medical care, I don't think it's the lack of technology as much as it's the mentality. I know that before the medical exam he had for the interview my husband did not go to the doctor for years and years. In his family they tend to not see the doctor unless something is falling off and they can't tape it back on - So that really means you're not getting the kind of preventative medicine that we do here..

People in the US are having more check ups and exams and catching things earlier, so that is going to lower the rate of mortality in many cases. I hope that what I am saying makes sense - Again it's not an "all or nothing" because there is a little bit of everything in each country. I'm sure there are people in Tunisia who do have check ups and such, but it's not as common as here.

Also one thing that surprised me is the way that medications are handled there. Here if you are ill, you are going to the doctor first and then he's going to write you an RX for the pharmacy. That's not the case in Tunisia and other MENA countries I have been in. If you are sick, you're going to walk into the pharmacy, tell them what is bothering you and walk out with medication. It cuts the doctor out in most cases. Their logic is why pay the doctor when you can just get the medicine from the pharmacist - but what's missing in that is you could have a much bigger problem and you never saw a doctor to have it checked out.

One example is on one of my visits I got an inner ear infection. Fever and chills, pain in my ear, etc. I wanted to go to the doctor and Jihed looked at me like I was insane and said I can just take you to the pharmacy and get whatever kind of medicine you want - antibiotic, etc. I said what? I need to see the doctor first - He said why? I said so he can look in my ear, see if it's an infection, how bad it is and tell me what kind of medication is best to use. He was just baffled at that and said Ashley why pay 30 dinar to the doctor and have to pay the pharmacy, that doesn't make any sense... I think that a lot of problems are not detected early on. I know that a few of my husband's friends have been very ill and one actually died at less than 30 years old of a massive heart attack, even though from the outside he looked like a very healthy and not over weight person. Had he gone to the doctor for mild symptoms in the weeks prior to the heart attack, maybe they would have noticed a problem and got him the right kind of medical attention.

[Imua 0]

I'm going to pipe in on this because my husband was a meat and rice kind of guy from a third world country. I am familiar with what you are talking about.

First of all, my husband has had regular medical and dental check-ups the last 2 years. He had never seen a dentist before coming to the US (he cussed me the first couple of times!) and only saw a doctor when really sick.

My husband has sickle cell and has been on regular medications the last 2 years.

I have attempted to lower the salt content when he cooks.

We have stuck to the same basic meats and fish he used to eat. They are fine.

I have attempted to add more fruits and vegetables to his diet. He would be happy with meat and rice at every meal.

I tried to switch from white rice to brown rice; but that didn't go over well at all.

I have gotten him to drink milk.

Too bad he is not a Rasta eating I-tal diet...

[*JG* 2]

I'm going to pipe in on this because my husband was a meat and rice kind of guy from a third world country. I am familiar with what you are talking about.

First of all, my husband has had regular medical and dental check-ups the last 2 years. He had never seen a dentist before coming to the US (he cussed me the first couple of times!) and only saw a doctor when really sick.

My husband has sickle cell and has been on regular medications the last 2 years.

I have attempted to lower the salt content when he cooks.

We have stuck to the same basic meats and fish he used to eat. They are fine.

I have attempted to add more fruits and vegetables to his diet. He would be happy with meat and rice at every meal.

I tried to switch from white rice to brown rice; but that didn't go over well at all.

I have gotten him to drink milk.

Too bad he is not a Rasta eating I-tal diet...

I thank God for that. I don't think I could stand the restrictions. We got all the kids (nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters) beat one day cause his mom found out we had given them Spam. She is Rasta.....who knew there was actually pork in Spam?????????

[sarahaziz 0]

I agree with all the woman here so far , so strongly. I've taken a natural health class outside of college and they said meat IS related to diabetes. Also all those sugar cubes in the coffee

[Nasturtium 500]

I haven't heard of any country in MENA having an average age of death starting in the 40s-- most are in the upper 60s/low 70s for men and women both. If you're looking at a demographics chart, they ALL look like that for every country-- a spike around birth for infant mortality, a decline which pools in the 20s and sometimes 30s, then a steady increaase across older 30s and 40s, until some point in the 50s, then a spike in the 60s up until past a century. This is regular human demographics across the world.

Jenn-- that is true to a certain extent. Diet can affect your dental health and so can disease. There is a correlation not between dental health in general, but enamel hypoplasias and overall health. Back when it was still OK to experiment on the "others" (whomever that would be from our nation's POV), they did an experiment on dental health and Egyptian children. In the control group, they monitored their permanent tooth formation, erruption, and composition. In the experimental group, they gave them a protien bar-- just one per day. In the control group they maintained the regular dental health with slightly delayed erruption and enamel hypoplasias. In the experimental group they found that the children had normal erruption and a complete lack of hypoplasias. Obviously, the Egyptian diet was protein deficient in that particular group of children.

Sarah-- it is likely a large combination of reasons, including environment, diet, and disease.

[SaadBell 0]

Husband is in Kuwait and they see doctors and dentist regularly like in the states. In Egypt were my husband was born, not so well with doctors, and yea they need to see dentists. I think my husband sees the dentist more than I do, and there is nothing wrong with his teeth. ####### is that

[sarahaziz 0]

I buy organic natural shampoos which dont contain sodium lauryal sulfate (sp?) and a couple of other i can't think at the top of my head, it causes cancer and hair loss.

MENA men have alot of hair loss and I don't know if that's connected to cancer or other illnesses? I'd recommend them using natural shampoo. I have one uncle who only scrubs his hair with water it's so gross but he has a full head of hair at 50 years old lol

We try to stick with organic foods (organic sugar, flour, fruits, vegetables salads, cheese, meat) as much as we can but eating outside is something we can't avoid

[Imua 0]

I'm going to pipe in on this because my husband was a meat and rice kind of guy from a third world country. I am familiar with what you are talking about.

First of all, my husband has had regular medical and dental check-ups the last 2 years. He had never seen a dentist before coming to the US (he cussed me the first couple of times!) and only saw a doctor when really sick.

My husband has sickle cell and has been on regular medications the last 2 years.

I have attempted to lower the salt content when he cooks.

We have stuck to the same basic meats and fish he used to eat. They are fine.

I have attempted to add more fruits and vegetables to his diet. He would be happy with meat and rice at every meal.

I tried to switch from white rice to brown rice; but that didn't go over well at all.

I have gotten him to drink milk.

Too bad he is not a Rasta eating I-tal diet...

I thank God for that. I don't think I could stand the restrictions. We got all the kids (nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters) beat one day cause his mom found out we had given them Spam. She is Rasta.....who knew there was actually pork in Spam?????????

I find this surprising - then I am a label reader, bought a Korean cup-a-noodles marked 'Vegetal' and was shocked it actually had beef marrow in it.... Since then I read labels carefully.

My former roommate who did not keep serious Kosher but didn't eat pork had been eating salami from the grocery store for years without knowing what animal it comes from - she was shocked when I informed her...

Likewise a Muslim co-worker of mine did not know how much alcohol there is in Nyquil.

Edited May 7, 2008 by Pattu Rani