Welcome to Straight Talk on Health. I’m your host Dr. Chet Zelasko. Straight Talk on Health is a joint production with WGVU in Grand Rapids MI. I examine the practical application of health information. Nutrition. Exercise. Diet. Supplementation. I look at the science behind them, and let you know whether it’s something to consider or not. You can check out other things that I do on my website Drchet.com and sign up for my free emails.
Recently I read an interesting study published as a Research Letter in JAMA that examined the mortality rates in the United States between 1980 through 2023, including the time before, during, and after the COVID epidemic. Researchers took it one step further: they obtained mortality data from other high-income countries to compare the mortality rates between the countries while accounting for the differences in population size. The countries included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
This comparison illustrated that beginning about 1985, the U.S. had more deaths per 100 people than the average of all the other countries. In 2005, the difference increased even more to the point that the U.S. had more deaths per 100 people than every other country. Over the course of the years of observation, that came to an extra 14.5 million Americans who died than similar HI countries.
While this was an observational study and cannot provide cause and effect, it leaves us with the question: why? The US certainly spends more on healthcare per capita than any other high-income country on that list, coming in at just over $12,000 per person, while the average of other high-income countries comes in at half that—and yet somehow they live longer. The researchers cited drug overdose, shooting deaths, and cardiometabolic disease as the most likely contributing factors.
The researchers from the study had their thoughts on why the US may experience excess deaths. They also suggested that our healthcare system isn’t serving the American people as well as they might. That may be part of the answer. Let me give you my thoughts, before the seed oil gurus and vaccination opponents get started.
Healthcare Systems Every other country in the comparison had some form of universal healthcare or a combination of public and private healthcare plans. Think Medicare with addition plans for purchase. While we’ve all heard stories of about hip replacements taking a year to get scheduled in countries with national health care. What they do provide is care to everyone without considering payment first. I’m not suggesting I have any answers to the healthcare dilemma in the US, especially as it relates to the medical-healthcare complex but it is a part of the problem.
Vaccinations - I decided to look at the vaccination rates during the COVID epidemic because the US mortality rate really skyrocketed during those couple of years, far above what happened in other HIC countries. When compared to the vaccination rates in other countries, we were near the bottom of the list. I know and hear every day about vaccinations being a serious health issue. No one can say that any preventive treatment will work for everyone nor guarantee they will completely eliminate any disease. But the data are the data and countries that had better vaccination rates contributed to the lower mortality rates in other countries.
Now, we have a bigger problem. The current Secretary of Health and Human Services does not believe in vaccinations. Vaccine experts have been fired or have quit their positions because of the lack of adherence to actual science. On top of that, a leading vaccine opponent has been put in charge of finding the link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The person in charge of the study should be neutral or a team of proponents and opponents should run the study so that no data is left unreported. If that doesn’t happen, I’m predicting right now that whatever document is produced will state that vaccines cause autism. Even though studies with over a million children clearly demonstrate that vaccines including the MMR don’t cause autism, that data will be ignored. The health of our children and our elderly will be at risk as a result.
In my opinion, the third reason that the researchers speculated about—cardiometabolic disease, is really the key to solving the excess deaths in comparison to other HIC. Listen to the number of deaths by type in 2022. Keep in mind we all have to die of something but time prevents me from breaking this numbers down by age groups.
Heart disease: 702,880 – definitely lifestyle related
Cancer: 608,371—lifestyle as well as environmental
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 227,039
COVID-19: 186,552 this reflects the tail end of the epidemic although 40K+ die every year from COVID
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 165,393 lifestyle
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 147,382 Lack of vaccinations
Alzheimer’s disease: 120,122 age
Diabetes: 101,209 lifestyle
We could dramatically reduce mortality if we took better care of our bodies. That’s where we fail. We eat too much and we move too little. If we could change those, I’m convinced the death rates would start to tumble.
I’ll keep it simple. Eat less. Eat better. Move more. Today. So, what are you prepared to do today? That’s it for this episode. If you like this podcast, please hit the like button and tell your friends and colleagues about it. Until next time, this is Dr. Chet Zelasko saying health is a choice. Choose wisely today and every day.
Reference: JAMA Health Forum. 2025;6(5):doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.1118
