HOW TO LIVE LONGER

HOW TO LIVE LONGER
The role of habits and attitudinal change in the field of disease prevention and health promotion has been acknowledged for centuries and documented (H. Roberts, A. S. Smiths and C. Boyce). At the dawn of the new millennium man is at the threshold of great technological and scientific break-through that portend good in the future except in the field of indulgent habit and lifestyle which may mar the future of man. We need to identify the negative attitudes and lifestyles, discuss their causes and effects and modality for their prevention. In health matters, prevention is always better because it preserves man in its physiological natural state. When illness or disease occurs, we have an aberrant state in which the body can only be repaired or rehabilitated. It is no longer the natural state, hence the necessity for prevention.
In the prevention role, both Education and Information focused on health are crucial because they affect behavior and consequently health status. Health education is the cornerstone of any health prevention policy. It is cost-effective because it predicates results and outcome on reduction of health risks and hazards rather than on injury and deaths.
Outcome of studies on prevention tend to be poorly conceived because they concentrate on indices of the quantum of the health message. A better yardstick is the quantum of health gain like:
(1) Decrease in absenteeism and sickness absence.
(2) Decrease in the number of industrial accidents.
(3) Decrease in episodes of illness consultation and hospital admission.
In a world in which health care possibilities and cost invariably exceed available resources for secondary and tertiary/curative medicine, it is necessary to evolve a coherent framework for establishing priorities that will ensure the greatest good for the largest number. This is the preventive medicine and promotive health as enunciated by the tenets of public health and occupational health practices. In this pursuit, evidence about cost as well as effectiveness must be adduced. To do this, health gains need first to be measured and costed. To ensure health in the 21st century, the following must be put in place:
(I) Environmental sanitation
(II)Balance nutrition
(III)Noise abetment programs
(IV) Exercise promotion
(V) Stopping smoking
(VI) Alcohol ingestion in moderation especially red wine.
(VII) Potable water production, storage and use
(VIII) Increased education to combat ignorance and disease.
(IX) Poverty alleviation and redress of inequality.
I will attempt to do justice to the subject matter starting with nutrition and health.
NUTRITION
A strong body of medical evidence exists to illustrate that nutritional improvements were unequivocally the prime moving and critical factor in accelerating the great Victorian and Edwardian mortality decline in the United Kingdom (Thomas Mckeown).
Similar evidence, historical and contemporary, for other centuries and countries apply. Mckeown positive explanation thesis was “ that analysis of the epidemiological evidence showed that the major responsible factors for mortality decline was a rising standard of living of which the most significant factor was improved diet; follow by improved sanitation”. Hypothesis: “ An increase in the level and quality of the exposed population average nutritional intake, i.e. better and more abundant food, improved the individual and community’s own natural defenses”.
Nutrition-Overeating: Overweight
In as much as our body weight problem has a lot to do with overeating habits and little to do with genes, it may be said to be attitudinal. To loose weight and stay trim, you need a change of attitude. Eat in moderation, mostly fruits and vegetables, little or no fatty meat and carbohydrate will take care of most weight problems. The best advice to attain an ideal weight for height and age is “ stop eating when you are not hungry”. A strict vegetarian diet is not the answer. It lacks calcium, vitamin D and B12 and animal protein. All these play important role in keeping the teeth, gums and bones healthy. If a vegetarian diet is advised, supplement of minerals and vitamins are mandatory.
Weight control measures
A good weight reduction program is long term and would consider:
(I) What kind of shape you are in?
(II) What is your weight?
(III) What are you eating?
(IV) What is making you fat (overeating, lack of exercise)?
To establish this, we adopt the following indices:
OBESITY
Obesity is gross overweight for an individual height and age. Experts believe obesity and associated problems will be the biggest health problems of the 21st century. Global trend and research findings from advanced countries indicate as follows:
HOW TO SLIM WITHOUT FASTING
(i) Eat less
(ii) Eat more often but light
(iii) Eat balanced diets
(iv) Play trick on your stomach
(v) Avoid crash diet program
(vi) Train and discipline yourself
(vii) Exercise regularly to reinforce dieting
(viii) Eat vitamins and minerals to avoid tiredness and stress etc
(ix) Sleep well and relax while dieting
(x) Dinner should be at least 3 hours before bedtime.
EXERCISE
In changing attitudes to healthy ones, there is synergy between nutrition and exercise. Diet change alone cannot lead to sustained weight loss because much more important than the amount of kilogram we carry around, is the share of the body fat.
Fat tissue stores calories, muscle burn them. A sensitive diet coupled with exercise ensures that the body fat amount is reduced while simultaneously building muscle. When you become active, your body suddenly stop storing fat and begins to burn fat. You began to loose weight. This is why dieting without exercise is destined to fail. Exercise needs to be regular, sustained but graduated according to age. Among adults between 30-40 years, jogging, cycling and squash are encouraged. Above 45, cut off squash. Above 50 years, indulge in only walking, golf and swimming. Please don’t jog or play squash except under strict medical supervision. Above 60 and in retirement, walking, golf and swimming are preferred.
An appropriate exercise regimen not less than three times weekly for 30 minutes or more reduced cholesterol, burns fat and increases muscle mass.
SMOKING
In no other disease condition is there an overwhelming, compelling and unequivocal causative relationships than that between smoking, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. So much was the proven evidence that a marriage was contrived between epidemiology and law in order to bring the tobacco manufacturers in the USA to account in an historic one trillion dollars award disbursable over 10 years.
If it is so clear how much damage and death cigarettes can cause, why do people still smoke? The answer is simple, smoking is an addictive habit that can only be broken by positive attitudinal change. Other theories proferred by social psychologist is Freudian; The mouth and lips are erogenous zones. Smoking is perceived to be associated with cool lifestyle, recreation and relaxation and fulfils same function as kissing. Once the habit is started, addiction takes over.
STRESS AND MANAGEMENT
Stress occurs in all professions and at all social levels. It used to be thought a preserve of managers- hence the term Executive Stress, but no longer.
ILO and WHO investigations revealed that: Employed people are more stress prone than the self employed, because the less a person is allowed to make his/her own decisions, the more likely he or she is to feel overburdened.
Stress has positive aspects and can be immensely motivating. It can challenge us to greater efforts. It forces us to confront situation mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. We may not have been good at our profession without a certain amount of stress.
Stress is not our enemy. In truth, most of the time it is our ally. It puts our bodies in the optimum position to react properly to the outside world, and in our private lives. The main problem with stress to you is how we handle and cope with it. To be able to do this, we have to be aware of the following facts on stress:
(i) Stress is becoming more common: 35% of persons suffer from too much pressure at work.
(ii) Stress is getting to the young: 50% of 30 to 45 years old feel overwhelmed at work.
(iii) Stress is becoming more dangerous: In the USA, 60% of all work related accidents are the direct result of overwork
(iv) Stress now affects more women: Currently 40% of women feel overworked either at home or at work. The double role of working mothers increase the burden on women.
(v) Never before have so many people complained about being overwhelmed at homes; at work or about life in general. Hence the global increase in suicide rate.
What is the answer? Certainly not sedatives like valium, mogadon, lexotan etc. These only treat the symptoms, not the cause and later worsen the situation, what is needed is attitudinal change.
THE STRESS MECHANISM
The stress mechanism is the same for EUSTRESS and DISTRESS, since the body does not differentiate between good and bad stress. The autonomous nervous system automatically initiates the reactions.
The catecholamine hormones, noradrenaline and adrenaline are secreted. The work of these two hormones can be felt quickly- the blood pressure rises, the heart beats more intensely and more rapidly, then breathing becomes faster.
Catecholamines do not have a direct feedback system. This means that the adrenal gland and nerve cells continue to secret and distribute more and more hormones, for as long as stress factor lasts. For this reason, continuous stress is so bad to the for the heart.
The most important stress characteristics are:
(1) We are the cause of most stress.
(2) Most things that cause stress are not worth it
(3) Stress is an angel because it motivates and challenge us.
(4) Stress is a devil because it serves as a perfect alibi for our bad habits.
Most people give excuses for smoking, drinking, eating too quickly, too much (too little), not exercising and not having anytime for rest and relaxation because they feel stressed,
MENTAL REPROGRAMMING
Psychoanalysts show that 90% of all situations that cause us severe stress turn out to be trivial and inconsequential later. How can we be patient and relaxed at the moment?
“Never cry over things that cannot cry over you”-Sophia Loren. This is a good food for thought. Stress is the most confused term that is in vogue. It is used as a reference for anything negative or untoward in our life. Hence the common phrase “ I am stressed out.
Anything can cause stress. Argument with your boss, problems with your love life or argument with colleagues. Much of what we call stress is really impatience, haste, worry or anxiety. These are our bodies real enemies. But who really decides whether you will suffer stress or not. You alone do. Most of the time, condition your mental disposition, so that you can cope with or control stress.
This mental attitude is the basis of fighting cold wars and wars of attrition. The same process will be the arena for future global conflict resolution. A major attitudinal change and radical mental reprogramming is necessary. Looking at stress this way makes it relatively easy to deal with, at least initially. Think back on what caused you tension, bothering on agony, in the past few days or weeks. Probably a few trivial things which by now seem silly to have been upset about.
CONTROL OF ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE.
Noise Hazard to Health
Noise now has become the second most serious risk factor to heart. Smoking is the first. The body reacts to unexpected, unpleasant and loud noise with fear and the increased production of cortisol- the stress Exposure to constant noise negatively affect people’s lifestyle. They live with the windows closed, are less liable to concentrate and suffer from headache more frequently. Millions are exposed to noise levels at work that can damage their health. Hearing loss caused by excess exposure to hazardous noise levels constitutes 30% of work related illnesses. These hearing impaired workers receive occupational disability benefits amounting to millions a year. Improved noise protection could spare hundred of thousands of cases of cardiovascular problems. The Berlin audiologist Harmt Berdt maintains that if the current rise of this trend continues, “a third of all youth will need a hearing aid by the time they are 50”.
FUTURE TREND AND OPTIONS
The next decade holds many surprises for man. Where will our food come from in 2030? From the laboratory? From nature? Or combination of both. Believe me this question, will crop up time and again. Not only for the medical practitioners but for the agricultural scientists and meteorologists.
Man assumes that nature is not perfect and because food and vegetables, do not grow all year round, and because new babies are not as intelligent and beautiful as desired, man proceeds to meddle with nature and call it genetic engineering; cloning or whatever. Fruits and vegetables are now totally grown organically out of seasons, or better still are now harvested before they ripen and then synthetically ripened when desire after weeks and months. Man still believes that all the nutrient are intact. Of course, nature is not fooled. Little wonder the great depreciation of nutrients and the resulting malnutrition and emerging disease trends of vitamins and mineral deficiencies. At the close of the 20th century, man has cultivated lifestyle that practically screams for change if he must enjoy quality life and live longer.
What is the overview of man’s lifestyle today and what is in store for the 21st century? Man in Eden lived in nature, only eating natural food before the apple came. Man now has abandoned its root in nature and has embraced the unnatural in the name of civilization. We go out and flood our homes with microwaves, fridges and freezers, television, video, computers etc, in our impatience to change nature.
We delete plants, herbs, fruits and vegetables from our daily diet and replace them with junk and fast foods. We smoke and do not exercise at all. We drink in excess, develop pot bellies, and then complain of incessant headache, high blood pressure and being overweight. But we are eating fewer natural food that provide us with the necessary nutritional value.
Our fruits and vegetable no longer come from our gardens or the farms in our region but from far distance from all over the world, very denatured, so that very little is left of the expected vitamins and minerals. Hence the need for food supplement.
Attitudinal change is important because we do not eat right. We do not drive defensively as if life has duplicate. We work without relaxation and do pollute our environment and meddle with nature.
There is no doubt that change is indicated. But it is not nature but man that must change. The change in attitude must start now to ensure that man survives and enjoys prolonged life