Why
“LONGEVITY LOGIC–Empowered Health Defense”
From the New
York Times to Sixty Minutes, news organizations have increasingly publicized
how tooth loss and oral disease have been linked to nutrition, obesity,
diabetes, and general health as a whole. Periodontal disease has been linked to
cancer and is now also well recognized as directly connected to cardiac and
other life-threatening vascular diseases. Emphasizing these fundamental
interrelationships between oral health and our nation’s more serious illnesses,
Longevity
Logic–Empowered Health Defense (2017) provides with important insights on
oral health, it serves as a guide in prioritizing oral healthcare and more
astutely evaluating suggested dental treatment plans, associated materials,
advised time durations, and anticipated fees.
We are now also
the heaviest population in the history of the planet: more
than sixty-five percent of adult Americans (2 in 3, 20-74 year-olds) are
overweight. Thirty-six percent, or 78 million Americans, are clinically
obese. The resulting
healthcare costs continue to rise. Obesity, with its associated diseases,
has also become a leading cause of death in the United States. Effectual means of dealing with obesity,
heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and other serious diseases of the body
are ineluctably entwined with good oral health.
Through the
Internet, the dental and medical professions continue their efforts to educate
and present current viewpoints. Many print publications have also previously
attempted to raise the public’s oral health consciousness and further an
understanding of dental care. Assuredly, the marketplace certainly remains
awash with obesity-management diet books, and websites to provide innumerable,
often competing perspectives.
Review of the
literature, nevertheless, confirms a dearth of current publications or Internet
sites for the lay public, with a succinct oral health-to-general health focus
and including concrete proposals on dental care and its delivery. Due to the
confirmed general-health consequences of poor oral health and our escalating
healthcare costs, nowhere is candid, accurate disease and treatment information
more valuable than in the field of dentistry.
In an era of
self-empowerment, today's patients have realized that the quality and economics
of their personal health depends on a more aggressive knowledge about
healthcare delivery systems and a more well-informed
level of communication with their healthcare providers. Baby boomers,
Generations X, Y, and Z, all show a strong desire to become more prudent, when
it comes to their personal health and nutrition. Research surveys, presented at
the Academy of General Dentistry and the American Medical Association, confirm
an increasing demand from today’s healthcare consumers for more concise
information about their general health and their oral health in particular.
Current research, associating oral health to general health, is revealing how
their oral health impacts their optimum general health and longevity.
Many of today's
healthcare specialties require rigorous expertise in order to realize even the
most meager level of patient understanding. Likewise in dentistry, many of the finer points may also
call for a high level of technical training and experience. Fortunately, a
thorough understanding of clearly presented, simple concepts will go a long way
in elevating a patient's “dental-IQ-coefficient” with the enormous benefit of
enhancing essential patient-dentist communication. Achievement of a working
knowledge of these important issues may afford readers and their families with
valuable rewards: the reduction of oral disease and of overall dental-care
expenditure.
American health
care innovation has helped reduce human suffering and heralded unprecedented
human longevity. However, the personal and societal cost of health care in
America continues spiraling out of reach, seemingly with no end in sight. In
2017, the average health care spending for a family of four continues to far
exceed the entire annual earnings of a minimum-wage worker. Nationally,
“universal” healthcare is the issue of the day. The Affordable Care Act,
Children's Health Initiatives, Medicare and Medicaid legislation publicized
some of the complexities within efforts to improve our nation’s care-quality,
broaden healthcare delivery, control cost, and help reduce existing health and
healthcare disparities.
Important
initiatives have clearly illustrated many of the nation’s problematic
healthcare issues and have presented useful applications for practically
addressing our current health and healthcare delivery crisis. Prior to the
recent institution of the Affordable Care Act, those without health insurance
in the United States reached between 45-47 million and those under-insured
pushed that number even higher. Despite oral health’s established
interrelations to our nation’s general health, no major component of either
Medicare or the Affordable Care Act incorporates dentistry and oral healthcare
for their participants
.
Acknowledging
the socioeconomic intricacies of healthcare delivery, Longevity Logic – Empowered Health Defense advances
distinct perspectives regarding our twenty-first century care systems.
Additional frameworks for attending to our nation’s serious, future care
difficulties, will assist readers in unraveling the challenges of more effective and direct patient involvement.
This book provides a general
historical overview of health and health care. It presents countless dental
insights and valuable suggestions to help readers evaluate their own oral
health issues and personal oral health needs. Well-known concepts of
“prevention” are more candidly explored. Amalgam fillings, fluoride-use and
various innovative treatment controversies are also given highly informative
perspectives. Questions about choosing a dentist, dental insurance,
managed-care choices, our inclusive universal-healthcare, and many quality of
life concerns are also confronted.
For patients
individually and society as a whole, our care and wellbeing, now and in the
future, are presently at stake. In an increasingly technological world, Longevity Logic –
Empowered Health Defense can be a vital asset in our efforts to succeed in
the realization of more cost-effective, excellence in oral care
and the enjoyment of longer and healthier lives.
BOOK
FORMAT
The book
includes seventeen concise chapters informing the reader of a wide range of
general and explicit areas of dentistry and their current health-interrelated
medicine. A review of this book’s TABLE OF CONTENTS and extensive
INDEX will confirm an in depth scope of
specific treatment procedures that are examined. A limited number of
illustrations and several charts are included.
Chapters one through
six educate about some basic scientific theory and presents problematic general
health concerns. Chapters seven and eight present a more specific
treatment-by-treatment analysis. The complete text provided, gives its readers
a chance to take immediate practical steps to improve their oral health or
later revisit particular concerns as they may individually arise in future
treatments.
Chapters nine
through fifteen return to the more generalized approach, with candid
explorations and public health orientation. Included are topics on bacterial
resistance, human longevity, and some persistent fears about dental treatment.
In a similarly deconstructed format, chapters fourteen and fifteen conclude
with pragmatic, “Finding A Good Dentist” and “On Organized Dentistry.” Chapter sixteen’s useful expose:
“Confronting the Obesity Crisis” is self-explanatory.
The final
chapter of the book focuses on oral health and general health in a
socioeconomic context. The no-nonsense look at current societal managed-care
and governmental-responsibility issues of chapter sixteen, “Defend Your Life”
concludes with “Patient & Dentist Alert!” and “More Health Defense.” These
important chapters not only illuminate the current problems, but also offer
several valuable and practical suggestions for readers. Oral healthcare
delivery on an individual and national scale is framed in the context of its
potential for better overall health and quality of life.
A series of
common sense nutritional and dietary recommendations will be found in the
book’s brief “Appendix 1.” Several
graphs and charts serve to illustrate the current and future state of
affairs. Finally, there is an
extensive and well-organized, fourteen-page, index to enable localization of
any specific topic.
In its entirety,
Longevity
Logic – Empowered Health Defense will enable readers, as patients, to draw
many important, personal and beneficial conclusions about their health and
healthcare. This book is balanced by a sincere and non-judgmental style, giving
its readers a strong sense of inclusiveness, self-confidence and educational
fulfillment.
Longevitylogic.com links to eight Longevity Logic “book excerpts.” A “REVIEWS” link presents impressions about Longevity Logic –
Empowered Health Defense from several prominent physicians, including the
Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Columbia University’s Cardiac Research Foundation.
THE
AUTHOR
Dr. Chacona advocates a more comprehensive recognition of the oral health general health connections and better healthcare delivery through better patient education. He maintained a full-service, general dental practice on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for over 25yrs and remains an advocate of cost-effective excellence in oral health. Dr. Chacona has authored articles in various dental magazines, most notably Dentistry Today, the most widely read dental periodical, with circulation in excess of 150,000 dentists. Recognition of ‘functional’ dentistry, patient comfort and patient fear-management, with an innovative patient video entertainment system, he was also featured in several consumer magazines and appeared worldwide on CNN television (see links to CNN “Special Report” on “Overcoming Dental Phobia”).
