Tuesday, December 1, 2009

A Lesson from Nature: A Possible Help for Health Care Cost Reduction



















In a recent article in Nature they authors report in their study:

"The study found that 90% of bacteria in the guts of the outdoor piglets came from the phylum Firmicutes. Most of these were lactobacillaceae, known for their health-promoting effects, and for their ability to limit intestinal pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella. In contrast, the Firmicutes bacteria made up less than 70% and just more than 50% of the gut flora in indoor and isolated bred pigs respectively. The pigs also had much smaller proportions of bacteria from the lactobacillaceae family....

Kelly argues that the similarities between the organisms found in human and pig guts and their comparable size in organs, makes pigs a good model animal to study. In future studies, she hopes to further identify the types of organisms that are associated with health."

So perhaps the Congress could include a "pig like health" clause in their legislation, perhaps people who live in mud huts should get a discount for living a healthier lifestyle. Indeed, this is a clear example of comparative clinical effectiveness, dirty pigs, and humans by inference, live healthier lives.

In fact we can use this study in Comparative Clinical Effectiveness to solve two major problems of the current Administration.

First, housing, since it is healthier to live outdoors in the mud, then there is no need for any housing support, in fact houses make for sick people.

Second, reducing the load on health care and thus improving its ever increasing costs can be achieved also by sending everyone outside in the mud. Two birds with one stone. And it costs nothing!

That is why I love the Brits, this must be now part of the new National Health Services directives, outside in the mud! Great idea.

Oh whatever!