Healthy for Life

Great health and longevity does not require perfection

I define great health and longevity as independently in good health and with few limitations to 90+ years.  Possible?  Yes.  Under your own control?  Yes   Difficult?  No.  Can you do what is necessary?  Absolutely.  Should you do what is necessary?  Absolutely.  Can you do what is necessary?  Absolutely.  The alternative is more limitations and a shorter life. Read on to learn how. 

Causes of 90% of heart attacks

Just a quick reminder that 90% of all heart attacks are caused by smoking, dyslipidemia (high total, high LDL, low HDL, and high triglyceide levels), hypertension, obesity, diabetes, poor diet, and lack of exercise.

"Moderate Exercise: No pain, big gains"

The title is in quotes because it is so accurate.  I took it from the excellent Harvard Men's Health Watch, which I strongly endorse.  Click here to start to subscribe. 

Th May, 2007 issue has a great couple of lines:

1.  10% of all premature deaths and 25% of chronic illnesses in America are caused by inactivity.  Wow.

2.  "The average American adult spends 170 minutes a day watching television and movies and 101 minutes a day driving, but only 19 minutes exercising. 

Then they have a great table from HB Simon's book "The No Sweat Exercise Plan" (New York: McGraw Hill, 2006).  This table lists 22 separate studies that all show the huge health benefit of moderate exercise.  Basically, walking 1.5 to 2 miles a day or moderate leisure time activity will lower your risk of death by 25% to 35%. 

Time to log-off and go for a brisk walk.  Be good to your heart.  Dr. Bob    

Cancer death rates declining

Cancer death rates, expressed as deaths per 100,000 population, have turned the corner and started to decline.  These are real improvements and not just a statistical fluke of earlier diagnosis.  The article is here. 

A huge increase in diabetes documented

This week’s Lancet contains an extremely important and well written article on the steeply increasing incidence (new cases per year) and prevalence (total cases at one time) of diabetes a population study of Ontario Canada between 1995 and 2005.  The key findings are:

Exercise more

Newsweek magazine (March 26, 2007) has a great series promoting the benefits of exercise.  Everyone should read the material and then go for a brisk walk. 

A few great tidbits (in case you do not have time to read it all)

A salute to Framingham

Our understanding of the causes of atherosclerosis and heart disease is astonishingly recent.  Somehow we assume that we always knew that high cholesterol caused heart disease.  Not so.   Just consider that President Franklin Roosevelt died of untreated hypertension in the range of 240/140 largely because we did not yet know that it was a treatable disease. 

We owe much of our understanding of the causes and risk factors for heart disease to the Framingham Heart Study.  Look at some of the important firsts they made:

1948  Framingham study starts

1957  High blood pressure and cholesterol shown to increase risk of heart disease

1961  The term "risk factor" is introduced

1962  Cigarette smoking found to cause heart disease

1974  Diabetes and its association with heart disease described

1977  Total, LDL, and HDL cholesterols linked to heart disease (although the "normal" levels were shockingly high by today's standard definitions

1988  the benefit of a high level of HDL is described

1993  Mild isolated systolic hypertension shown to increase risk of heart disease

1998  New models to predict risk of heart disease developed.

Sixty years of heart leadership.  We are all healthier because of the great work of Framingham.  Thank you. 

Exercise, exercise, exercise

Exercise, even walking briskly for 30 minutes most days of the week, may be the single best health prescription in America.  Do you want to lower your risk of a heart attack by 30%?  I thought so.  Then take a brisk 30 minute walk today--even three 10-minute walks will do to start.   

What is enough exercise and what does 'brisk walking" and mean?   

Obesity is the new tobacco

As surely as the 70-year rise and fall of cigarette smoking correlated with the rise and fall of heart disease and lung cancer, the recent obesity epidemic will correlate with a rise in type-2 diabetes and vascular (heart and peripheral vessel) disease.   

A BMI of 35 increases your annual risk of dying the same as smoking a pack of cigarettes per day. 

My real focus is the truly obese, those with a BMI over 35, because I believe that is where the real additional mortality approximates the real additional mortality of smoking. 

I'll fill in these charts later and then overlap them (when I have a spare couple of hours):

A graph showing the rise in tobacco 1900 to 2000.

A graph showing the causes of death 1900 to 2000.

A power point showing the rise in obesity 1980 to 2006.  Click on this and then click forward through the other slides.  You will be impressed.  Mind you, this is all based on phone surveys asking for height and weight--just how many people do think are going to over state their weight?   

A slide showing the time line between obesity and type-2 diabetes and then on vascular disease.   

Eat your omega-3s

We all know the line: eating fish twice a week is healthful because they contain and we need omega-3 fats.   But what fish, what about mercury, what about fish capsules and what about flax seed?