9 Things That They Should Teach in High School

I may have gone to the best high school in the country. Why do I say this? The first president (they use presidents rather than principals) was Ben Franklin's great grandson. Wikipedia says:

Central High School is a public high school in the Logan[3] section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Central, the second-oldest continuously public high school in the United States (if one considers schools that were initially private, it is the twenty-seventh oldest public high school), was founded in 1836 and is a four-year university preparatory magnet school.

Central High School holds the distinction of being the only high school in the United States that has the authority, granted by an Act of Assembly in 1849, to confer academic degrees upon its graduates.[5] This practice is still in effect, and graduates who meet the requirements are granted the Bachelor of Arts degree.

Still it did not teach some very important things. First or number one is that my friend measured out exactly an ounce of silver and went to the jeweler to sell it. The jeweler said it was less than ounce and since my friend thought he trying to rip him off, shot and killed him. I am just kidding!

1. Why does an ounce of silver weigh more than an ounce of iron? There is a joke, which is heavier a pound of feathers or a pound of lead? They both weigh a pound, the same, even if lead is a lot more dense (more weight per volume). Some people were very upset that they did not know that an ounce of silver weighs more than an ounce of iron.

How do you feel? Precious metals are always in the United States (not sometimes) measured in a different system of measurements. Things that are measured that are not precious metals are measured in the avoirdupois system. An ounce is about 28 grams. Precious metals like silver, gold or platinum are measured in the Troy system where an ounce weighs about 31 grams.

Don't you think that is important to teach when all paper money used to be backed by precious metals. On June 4, 2014 there was as article called Oklahoma has Affirmed Gold and Silver as Legal Tender. It says:

On June 4, Oklahoma joined Utah,Texas, and Louisiana in affirming that gold and silver coins are (as they always have been under the Constitution) legal tender in the payment of debts in the state.

2. Fiber is in Plant Foods, Not Animal Foods. This is part of the reason that the CDC, the American Heart Association and the Harvard School of Public Heath say that people should eat more fruit and vegetables. This is a simple enough rule to teach. It is why it is important. PubMed says:

Individuals with high intakes of dietary fiber appear to be at significantly lower risk for developing coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and certain gastrointestinal diseases. Increasing fiber intake lowers blood pressure and serum cholesterol levels. Increased intake of soluble fiber improves glycemia and insulin sensitivity in non-diabetic and diabetic individuals. Fiber supplementation in obese individuals significantly enhances weight loss.

3. Cholesterol is in Animal Foods, not in Plant Foods. Once people know this, you won't have say stupid things like grapes do not have cholesterol, a carrot does not have a liver and a snake does not have hips. They are true, but stupid. Many sites will say that a vegetable or a fruit specifically does have cholesterol. None of them do. Most cholesterol in a human or any animal is created by the liver.

4. Scurvy is caused by lack of vitamin C. Wikipedia says:

Between 1500 and 1800, it has been estimated that scurvy killed at least two million sailors.

5. 90% of Children in North America and Europe had Rickets (terrible bone disease) in late 1800s. LiveScience.com says:

By the late 1800s, about 9 out of 10 children in industrialized Europe and North America had rickets symptoms. The medical community began promoting sunbathing for rickets.

In 1922 they discovered vitamin D and that was the cure for rickets. This is to show that 2 terrible diseases were caused by lack of a vitamin.

6. There is more important history that they should teach. In the late 1800s the most popular treatment used by medical doctors was bleeding or bloodletting. That is crazy. Have you heard of George Washington? He had a very sore throat. They bled 3 pints of blood from him and he died! That is a lot considering that a 150 pound man has only 5.5 pints of blood.

Now drugs are the most popular treatment of medical doctors but many have been recalled. Vioxx was the most popular recent drug in 1999 for pain. But it was recalled for killing people by producing heart attacks. Without it the Dow Jones average would have gone up. That day that it was recalled brought down the Merck stock so far down, that it brought the whole Dow Jones average down.

7. Is the purpose of sunscreen to protect health or sell a product? Before Coppertone sunscreen there was Coppertone sun tan lotion. Its purpose was to cause sun tan to happen instead of sunburn. It was just as popular as sunscreen. It was said to give you a sun tan without giving you a sun burn. In both cases the goal is the same, to get you to buy product.

Why is the sun great for all other animals except for humans? They do not have the money to buy sunscreen products. Some people do not follow a religion. Some do not have a family. But everyone needs money, even the homeless person.

8. What product has the most mark-up? I love numbers. There is an May 28, 2015 article called: The 9 Everyday Products With the Biggest Markups. It says:

6. Prescription Drugs

Prescription drugs can be incredibly expensive, especially if you have sub-par health insurance and get stuck footing most of the bill. According to AHIP Coverage, the price markup on prescription drugs is at a whopping 443%.

That is only less than 4.5 times. Is 443% incredibly expensive. Maybe they mean 443 times that is 44,300%? 443% is only 443 divided by 100. which is 4.43. So let us take some actual numbers and test this out. Let us look at Life Extension magazine that has 30 MDs on their Medical Advisory Board. The September 2014 magazine says 100 tabs of Prozac cost 11 cents for the generic active ingredient. The 2014 consumer price is $171.56. So if we divide 171.56 by 0.11 we get 15,596 times or 1,596,000%.

That is a nice mark-up. Celebrex costs $0.60 for generic active ingredients. The consumer price is $453.10. That is 755.16 times. That is 75,516%. That is closer to 44,300% that I mentioned above. I have 13 other examples. Let us try one more. Xanax costs $0.24 and sells for $355.77. That is 1,482.37 times or 148,237%.

9. So what is number 9? That is not history quite yet or is recent history. Studies show correlation and causation. There is a popular saying. "Correlation does not equal causation." That means that just because (example) more people have more cookbooks means that they eat more at home because they have cookbooks.

Causation makes a change and you can see what the results are. One example is they gave 10,000+ newborn babies 2,400IU of vitamin D daily for a year in 1966 in Finland and it reduced type 1 diabetes by 85% as reported in The Lancet. But the fetuses need vitamin D also so if the pregnant mothers got a supplement also then it may have reduced the type 1 diabetes by 98%. So some say that type 1 diabetes should not exist just like scurvy and rickets should not exist.

There are many other things that can be deduced by intelligent people. Like Andrew Weil M.D. (he went to Central H.S. mentioned above and Harvard U and Harvard medical school) says:

Increasing the amount of vitamin D in the body can prevent or help treat a remarkable number of ailments, from obesity to arthritis, from high blood pressure to back pain, from diabetes to muscle cramps, from upper respiratory tract infections to infectious disease, and from fibromyalgia to cancers of the breast, colon, pancreas, prostate and ovaries.

Then go and see The Vitamin D Deficiency Pandemic. It tells how PubMed Central (like PubMed) is also part of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and tells how there is a vitamin D deficiency pandemic in the United States. Also it tells how JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) says that 23% of Americans have a vitamin D deficiency. Isn't that something they should tell you in high school?