Living long: the disease-free lifestyle


        LIVING LONG: THE DISEASE-FREE LIFESTYLE

Diseases don't just happen. Something has to go wrong. Most of the time that something has to do with how you treat your body, that is, what you do with it and what you put into it.
In other words, fate is a minor factor in disease. You are a major one. If your behavior is in harmony with the way your biochemistry wants to work, you're living a disease-free lifestyle.
So let's get right to it: The major elements of a disease-free lifestyle are a healthy diet, regular physical activity, appropriate body weight, no smoking, controlled stress, and timely medical checkups.
Sense a little deja vu? None of those six things is what the Pentagon folks would call classified information. We've all heard them since childhood, with overtones of discipline. But "good" behavior isn't the point. The issue's much simpler. Incorporate those six guidelines into your lifestyle and you may prevent disease. Ignore them and you may create disease.
The lifestyle link to disease prevention is so strong that it begs some questions.
Why don't we eat right? In other words, why so much animal fat (an across-the-board disease-causer) and so little fresh fruits and vegetables (risk-reducers for virtually everything)? Because, points out John Wurzelmann, M.D., clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, "there really is such a thing as comfort food." Fat, says Dr. Wurzelmann, has a tendency to satisfy you far more than any mere vegetable would. "That's why you enjoy vegetables more when you put a fat dressing on them," he says.
Furthermore, says Moshe Shike, M.D., director of the prevention and wellness program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, "it's a habit. You get used to eating hamburgers and French fries, and you don't think about the consequences."
Why don't we exercise? Because we don't need to, according to Walter M. Bortz II, M.D., clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and author of Dare to Be 100. Of course, we do need to if we want to avoid heart disease, diabetes, and lots of cancers because that's the way our bodies are designed. But it's not the way our everyday life is designed-not when pizzas can be delivered at the touch of a speed dial or home theaters can be controlled at the click of a remote. "In our culture, we don't have to move for anything," Dr. Bortz says. "We're the only species that doesn't have to move even to eat."
Why do we let ourselves get fat? Mostly because we eat too much. "There's no doubt that caloric consumption is too high," Dr. Wurzelmann says. "There are too many fat people in the United States." Obesity is a different risk factor than a lousy diet, but one easily follows from the other. And inactivity leads to, and follows from, both. "If any other species had food supplied to it the way we do, it would get fat, too," Dr. Bortz says.
Why don't we quit smoking? It's not that a smoker doesn't care that more people die from tobacco use than from automobile accidents, drug abuse, AIDS, and alcohol combined. It's that he's probably addicted. "The nicotine receptors in the brain are very similar to the receptors for cocaine and heroin," says Thomas Glynn, Ph.D., director of cancer science and trends for the American Cancer Society in Atlanta. What's more, those receptors stay eager to receive years after you quit. One puff can get you back to a pack a day before you know it.
Why do we ignore stress? Probably because we're not too sure what it is. "People don't have a lot of knowledge about it and what to do about it," Dr. Shike says. "I think people understand that excess stress has a negative impact on their lives." Heart disease is one negative impact. Undermining the rest of your disease-free lifestyle is another. "Some people, when stressed, run to the refrigerator," Dr. Shike says. "Or they smoke."
Why do we avoid Checkups? Denial, according to Dr. Shike, "is the feeling that 'it will never happen to me,' only to somebody else." In reality, all that is being denied is the possibility of early detection, which, for most men-stalking diseases, is the best bet for cure or containment.

*79/36/5*
GENERAL HEALTH
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