If I told you I smoked daily, am an alcoholic, overweight, and have high blood pressure, what would you think?
That I need to change my lifestyle. Quickly. Right?
Yes, you’d be right. Great advice.
There’s enough science out there to suggest this is the case. Individually they carry risks, compounded? The risks increase dramatically.
We know this, we listen, we pay attention.
They all increase our risk for all-cause mortality.
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Smoking by about 50%
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High blood pressure 20%
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Overweight 50-60%
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Alcohol 40-60%
These are massive numbers. Paying attention to these isn’t optional.
The flip side is where a stronger emotional response is warranted, yet missing.
I’ll give you an example:
“I don’t exercise“
Compare reading that to what I opened with about smoking drinking etc….
You feel the difference?
It’s a shrug of the shoulders type thing
“oh well, plenty of people don’t exercise.”
Here’s some surprising stats though.
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Being weak, relative to being strong increases all-cause mortality risk by about 200-250%!
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Low vo2 max (think aerobic capacity) vs the top percentage? 400-500% increased all-cause mortality risk!
There’s money to be made in the treatment of disease, but we’re in the game of prevention.
Recently I challenged a GP I visited.
You measure blood pressure, blood sugar, blood triglycerides etc. because they carry risks right?
Why not include a simple hand dynamometer test to your check up? Cheap, simple to test and valuable.
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They were unaware of the correlation between strength as a powerful maker of health
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Two they did not exercise themselves
Needless to say, I don’t think my 2 cents carried any weight (pardon the pun)
It’s not until osteopenia or osteoporosis shows up that docs start recommending weight training.
You don’t hear this from your annual checkup do you
“Hey Jane, you’re weak. Get to the gym.”
(for arguments sake let’s pretend this particular doctor has no bedside manner)
Hopefully now it’s easy to see for parents juggling kids, chaos, and everything in between, being strong isn’t optional.
It’s your most powerful form of prevention.