TIME Magazine has an article called “Amish People Stay Healthy in Old Age. Here’s Their Secret.” It starts with some interesting info I’d never seen before: The average American life expectancy is currently just under 79 years. Back in 1900, it was only 47, but for early–20th century Amish it was already greater than 70. I don’t know the source of this, but let’s take…
Amish carriers of a gene mutation live about 10 years longer on average than others in their community without the mutation. They also appear to be “completely protected from the development of diabetes”, according to the study’s lead researcher. This story is going around the internet like gangbusters now. The discovery was made by scientists from Northwestern University: The first genetic mutation that appears to…
Do Amish farm children hold the key to preventing asthma? For some time now, the Amish have been known to have lower rates of asthma. But in a new academic paper released yesterday (New England Journal of Medicine), researchers have discovered a key difference in Amish children, who typically grow up on small family farms reliant on horsepower, and Hutterite children, who live on large…
The Ortman Chiropractic Clinic can be found in the small town of Canistota in southeastern South Dakota. As described in this piece in Mennonite World Review (“For Amish, long trip to chiropractor can be fun”), the clinic is noteworthy for the many Amish and other Anabaptist people it draws: The Ortman Clinic, which celebrated its centennial in 2015, has been attracting Amish patients for 70 years. Today Amish, plus…
Trying to talk about the “Amish approach” to health care is nothing if not complex. For one, with diverse churches and individual differences, you really can’t say there is a single “Amish approach”. But one thing is for sure – many Amish people, admirably, care about their health. That’s the conclusion you have to draw after observing the efforts they put forth to get, and…
Cost, comfort and other factors influence where an Amish family decides to have its babies. We’ve previously looked at Amish-friendly birthing centers and home birth as popular options. But many Amish mothers in fact do what most English families do, and welcome their new bundles of joy in conventional hospitals. This Hillsdale Daily News article was written, in part, to report on the first birth of 2015 at the Hillsdale Community…
A fitness coach with connections to the Amish has put together a list of four things the Amish do – which she says make for a healthier life. Now, sometimes “learn from the Amish” media pieces idealize the Amish – and gloss over nuance. But at the least, I think each of these ideas has a good basis. And “health” of course can have a…
I’m not an asthma sufferer, but I found this pretty fascinating. A recent study by researchers at Franklin and Marshall College suggests that something about the Amish or their lifestyle may be connected to lower rates of asthma. From the Lancaster Online article: Living on farms and coming from large families are considered protective factors against asthma, just as city dwelling is a risk factor,…
Delaware’s lone Amish community is experiencing a whooping cough outbreak, at least the third significant occurrence in the community in the last 30 years. This Delaware Online article reports that eighty percent of the four dozen cases are in children under the age of eleven. The outbreak has so far been restricted to the Amish community, located west of state capital Dover. Whooping cough is…
There have been quite a few stories involving the Amish and health-related issues lately. Let’s start with the story of a new clinic in Indiana. Community Health Clinic Following a visit to Indiana this summer I mentioned the soon-to-be-opened genetic clinic in Topeka, Indiana. A week ago was the official opening of the Community Health Clinic, though it has been seeing patients since September. Operations…