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Comment by camel_gopher | Hacker News Reader

Tl;dr be affluent enough to be able to afford great medical care and have enough free time for preventative actions

Walking and eating sensibly is free. Even a balance oatmeal, rice & beans with infrequent meat servings would defend against heart disease better than expensive medicine, at less than $1 / day.

And not smoking or drinking saves you money!

Yes, our system is most definitely stacked against the poor, but it's important to also remember that we all have free will and that some choices fully within our power are much better than others.

nicotine is likely one of the best appetite-control , cognative-enhancing and anti-anxiety medications ever known to man. A large driver of obesity , anxiety and psychotropic abuse was smoking cessation.

Giving out nicotine gum , would decimate the drugs industry, but likely resolve a lot of our chronic health and depression issues.

tonymet says >nicotine is likely one of the best appetite-control , cognative-enhancing and anti-anxiety medications ever known to man.<

Is this not under-reported? I have known several people for whom smoking appears to be truly necessary. One said he was prescribed smoking to control his "shakes".

I've actually considered taking nicotine for these reasons. But I don't because it appears you build tolerance very quickly.

i know a number of people with moderate ADHD who use it instead of Adderall.

Promoting good habits is good but this is health advice from an unlicensed commenter to say rice and beans is better than taking a statin. Consult your doctor if you’re curious what to do.

It’s safer than taking unlicensed tech advice from an Internet forum

Most people aren't on and don't need statins. Everyone would be well served to eat well and exercise regularly. It's not a replacement.

You right. You don't need statins. Nobody does. But look at the statistics. You might also drop dead tomorrow. It's hard to know. If you think eating and exercising would solve heart disease, you are mis-informed. It's the number one killer. If we all died at 30, the drugs would not need to exist. I'm sure you would like to live as long as you can. Taking statins is cheap and simple for most people.

What are you talking about. People who need statins should take statins; this is informed by a basic metabolic panel, something every doctor does.

Lentils/legumes are cheap. There is probably no better bang for the buck. Yogurt is also cheap.

Agree. All the best foods are cheap. It’s a myth that healthy food is expensive. Most of the produce isle is decorative.

Funny you should use the word "bang". My last experiment with lentils years ago began one evening with 3 excellent bowls of very tasty lentil soup and ended slowly with 2 days' worth of "bangs", quickly followed by ostracism by my house buddies. So bad!

lol, you probably just need time for your gut bacteria to adjust. My family makes lentils for at least one meal almost every day.

I think the point is it is cheap to prevent. The weird tip is doing a different test to the standard one, which costs little for typical HNers (but admit every $ counts for many people esp. with current inflation, poverty, bad governance) but sounds like on par with a dentist doing anything beyond a checkup.

A colleague of mine was a vegan, took care of himself, still died of pancreatic cancer. It is what it is.

90 day supply of Atorvastatin costs $10. Running costs a pair of shoes.

You have to be able to get the prescription. HMOs (Kaiser specifically) will generally not provide any sort of preventative care in this area unless your numbers are very high. You can’t get access to a cardiologist unless you’ve already had an adverse event.

If you can get time off work and have a PPO, you can get the preventative care.

$10 is the cash price. Your doctor diagnoses, not insurance, and you don't need a specialist to get diagnosed regardless of what your insurer wants. Even a nurse practitioner can prescribe you a statin.

You should try www.betterbrain.com/insurance! It covers this set of bloodwork and 92% of covered patients pay $0

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