Appalachian 'house call' amplifies national maladies

[theHandpuppet]

Appalachian 'house call' amplifies national maladies
Laura Ungar, USA TODAY 3:58 p.m. EDT August 7, 2014
Appalachian Kentucky is one of the unhealthiest regions in the nation, ranking poorly on numerous health measures. Some experts worry what's happening there could be a harbinger of what is in store for the USA as a whole if disturbing trends, such as rising obesity, don't change.

SANDY HOOK, Ky. — Diabetes is slowly ravaging Alisha Blankenbeckler's body — stealing her eyesight, impairing her kidneys and damaging her nerves so severely she can barely walk across a parking lot without help. And she's only 48.

"I try to stay upbeat no matter how bad I feel," she says, mostly so she can keep caring for a husband with dangerously high blood pressure. "It's difficult, though. Dying is something I think about every day."

The couple's travails are common in this corner of Appalachia, one of the nation's unhealthiest regions, a place plagued by poor health habits and sky-high levels of chronic disease that some experts say may be a harbinger of where the country is headed if we don't rein in epidemics like obesity. This week, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden made a "house call" to find out more about the underlying causes of the region's ills and how to treat them — and in the process gain traction against the rising burden of chronic disease that ails the nation...

... Appalachia, like some blighted urban areas and Native American reservations, mixes several ingredients of poor health: doctor shortages and access-to-care problems; stressful, unhealthy lifestyles; low education levels; and insidious poverty....

MORE at http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/07/appalachia-health-cdc-frieden-disease/13643547/