We live in a medical system that tests for and treats disease. But many of us don’t know we are ill until it’s too late. Instead our health care system should promote health and wellness. But how can you tell if you are unhealthy?
There are several simple test that you can do at home or tests that you can look out for next time you visit your G that can give you an indication of how healthy you are.
The first one you can observe just book looking in the mirror and by using a tape measure is central obesity. It’s not normal to be fat as a human and if you look in the mirror and you have a large fat belly this is a warning sign about your health. You can also take a tape measure to your self and measure around your waist and you hips.
First of all, if you are a man and your waist is greater 40 inches or a woman and your waist is more than 35 inches your health is at risk. Next you can workout your waist to hip ratio. Divide your hip score by your waist score. Your waist to hip ratio should be around 0.8 for a women and less than 1 for a man. If you are above these values, and you look fat in the mirror and have a high waist circumference you need to take action right away as your health is at risk.
The next thing you can look at is your blood pressure. Again you can do this at home if you have a BP monitor. Simply take you BP at regular intervals throughout the day to establish your true baseline. Remember, it needs to be a rested score, even running up the stairs will raise your blood pressure.
The value you are looking for is 120 over 80. Anything over 140 over 85 is classified as high blood pressure and you need to act to lower it. Remember, one of the lead causes of high blood pressure is being overweight and obese, so tie your BP score in with your waist to hip measurements.
Doctor can take blood tests for you and it’s fairly routine to measure cholesterol. Typically what are tested for is total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides. Doctor tend to look out for high total cholesterol and high LDL cholesterol for which they prescribe statins.
Statins are the top selling drugs worldwide, but they knock out CoQ10 which causes fatigue, myalgia and shortness of breath. They do reduce LDL, but they do not raise HDL.
Statins should not be prescribed for women at any age or for men over 69. In high-risk men aged 39-69 they should be advised that about 50 people need to be treated with statins for 5 years to prevent 1 cardiac event. There are other effective ways of managing high total cholesterol and high LDL cholesterol.
Perhaps what is just as important to look out for with these blood tests are high triglycerides low HDL cholesterol.
Research has shown that of 136,905 patients admitted to hospital with coronary artery disease (CAD), almost half had low LDL cholesterol, around half had low HDL cholesterol, but only 10% had high HDL. Therefore it would seem that having high HDL is an important marker for CAD.
Doctors often prescribe baby aspirin as a prophylactic to prevent CAD and heart attacks. Aspirin use to prevent heart attacks and stroke is unnecessary. Aspirin lowers the chance of heart attack or stroke by 25%. The combination of not smoking, reaching and maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet, drinking alcohol in moderation and taking exercise lowers the risk by 50-80%. Which is better?
Triglycerides are also important to measure. High triglycerides indicated that you are eating too much refined sugar and carbohydrate, not fat. It is too much refines sugar (and a lack of fibre) that is causing obesity, high LDL cholesterol, high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol and high triglycerides.
Another test that you can ask for to confirm whether you have been eating too much refined sugar is an insulin resistance test. Once again insulin resistance ties in to central obesity, poor cholesterol levels and high blood pressure.
Get yourself checked out and then you can start to do something about it.
What’s the answer??
Nutrition!
