Currently viewing the category: "chronic disease"

Proof in the Pudding

By On · Add Comment · In chronic disease, health insurance, healthy lifestyle habits, prevention

Well, looks like I’ve been right all along. The best health insurance policy is the one you provide for yourself. I’ve known it, and now you do too. Here’s the proof:

According to a large study conducted at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, living a healthy lifestyle can significantly reduce the incidence of chronic disease. Adopting four habits–not smoking, exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet, and maintaining a healthy weight–reduced the probability of developing cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. While practicing all four behaviors provided the greatest benefit, adopting them one by one had significant protective effects too.

The study followed more than 23,000 middle-aged Germans for eight years. The participants were aged 35-65 years old. They found that the people who practiced all four habits had a 1/2% per year per person risk of developing chronic disease. Think about it–4% chance of developing chronic disease during the eight years of the study; extrapolate that to 20 years and the risk is only ten percent! For those people that did none of the habits, however, the risk went to 3% per person per year. That’s a full 24% during the study period and a whopping 60% in twenty years. Does anybody else see the enormity of this?

Here are some more facts:

  • A BMI lower than 30 was a particularly strong protective factor against development of diabetes
  • Physical activity protected more strongly against diabetes and heart attack than against cancer
  • Following good dietary principles provided a similar degree of protection against diabetes, stroke, and cancer
  • The largest reduction in risk was associated with having a BMI lower than 30, followed by never smoking, at least 3.5 hours of physical activity and then adhering to good dietary principles

None of this is a surprise to me or my regular readers. It’s the major premise of my book, The Six Keys to Optimal Health, and it’s what I focus on most here in this blog. Despite the focus on health insurance as a means toward better health, the reality is that nothing in the current health care model is going to improve health as a whole. This recent study provides the proof. Now the difficult part will be to convince lawmakers, and more importantly, people that focusing on personal health habits is the only true path to health reform.

Hundred Years Old Might Be The Norm

By On · Add Comment · In age, chronic disease, Dr. Laurel Yates, exercise, health, healthy habits, life expectancy, lifestyle habits, one hundred years old, risk factors

Living to be one hundred may not be so unique in the near future. In fact, even chronic disease sufferers might have a shot. So says a new study out of the University of Rochester, proclaiming that diabetics and people with heart disease can also reach the centenarian mark.

The study, to be published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, interviewed over 500 women and 200 men who had reached 100 years old. Almost two thirds of the participants said they had avoided significant age-related ailments; however, the others had all had at least one significant age-related disease before the age of 39, but ended up functioning pretty well anyway, nearly as well as their disease-free peers.

Another larger study, conducted at Harvard, showed that men in their 70s who did not smoke, were not obese, were active, and free of diabetes or high blood pressure had a good chance of living well into their 90s with excellent physical and mental capacities. According to lead author, Dr. Laurel Yates of Havard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, “It’s not just luck, it’s not just genetics…It’s lifestyle” that seems to make a big difference.

Yes! Yes! That’s it! Lifestyle habits determine how you function. Lifestyle habits are integral to the way you feel. Lifestyle habits preserve life. Go figure. I love when these studies come out, because they verify everything I’m trying to get across to you. It doesn’t mean you have to become Jack Lalanne; but practicing even two of the The Six Keys To Optimal Health can have extraordinary benefits. In the Harvard study, they found that each risk factor decreased the chances of survival incrementally. So you must see that the opposite also applies: Every risk factor you eliminate, every healthy habit you adopt, will increase your level of health–and your life expectancy–incrementally as well.

But best of all is what the studies’ authors point out: It’s never to late to start. Adopting healthy lifestyle habits (and eliminating risk factors), even in to one’s 70s, can have positive, life-enhancing effects. Get it? Never too late! So I’ll let Dr. Yates finish it off with something I might have said myself, “Get your shoes on, get out there, and do some exercise,” she said. “These are some things you can do” to increase the chances of a long life. Amen, Sister.

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