Long HealthSpan or Long LifeSpan?

Modern medicine, supported by the public, has focused on extending lifespan. This has been remarkably achieved, though at a severe cost!

If we look at America as a preview of where the UK follows a few years on, longevity has been achieved with ever increasing medical support, so that now the American people are the sickest people among the industrialised nations despite, or perhaps because of, their highest national expenditure on medicine.

We should be making major, urgent changes to the way that our healthcare system works to avoid going the same way, and to take pressure off our NHS.

Most of us have a choice between a long, active, and healthy life or a long increasingly unhealthy life, progressively becoming more and more inactive and disabled through chronic illnesses.

Our life response-ability

The key question is “are we brighter than an amoeba?” Every living creature, from a single cell amoeba to an elephant, has the ability to respond to its environment. Shine a strong light on an amoeba and it will move away for its survival. As food or water supply become scarce the elephant will move on to find a better environment in which to survive. We humans also have the ability to respond to anything that is a threat to life, or in other words we all have response-ability for our lives.

Unfortunately, most of us are no longer living responsibly. We no longer feel responsible for our own health and longevity. Many of us have handed over this responsibility to others, such as a doctor who will “fix” us with “a pill for every ill”, the food industry that seeks to maximise profits with highly processed food that is designed to tempt us to buy rather than provide the best nutrition, or the government in charge of our health and safety, rather like an all-wise nanny, so we are relieved of our own response-ability for decision making!

Big pharma, big food & big media

So, we see in the USA, long healthy, active lives have been degraded into long chronically sick, highly medicated, and poorly nourished lives. This has been driven by “big pharma”, “big food “and “big media” industries all trying to maximise their income and profits at the expense of the nation’s health.

If we, in the UK, are to avoid going the same way, we must get back into the primitive survival habit of taking more responsibility for our own lives and the lives of our children. What does this mean? Using our common sense and the best independent advice and information not driven by profit but by the best science.

Optimal Health

At the simplest level this means:

• Eating for optimal nutrition as well as for enjoyment.
• Avoiding over-processed denatured attractively promoted foods that are filled with additives, preservatives, sweeteners etc.
• Getting more simple exercise; we are designed for walking rather than driving!
• Taking time out to relax mentally and minimise stress. This includes learning to breathe normally as over seventy five percent of us over-breathe due to stress, diet or just a bad habit.
• Drinking adequate water, roughly the same number of fluid ounces as your weight in kilos. That’s about five to ten glasses a day for average weight person; few people drink this amount.
• Being cautious with medications, do you really need all those over-the-counter pills and potions? Check with your doctor if there is anyway you could reduce the need for your prescribed medication. With lifestyle changes, they will generally be delighted to hear you want to take more responsibility for your health!

Please see image below, which demonstrates either a rapid decline with chronic conditions as we age due to an unhealthy lifestyle, or a slower decline as a result of a healthier lifestyle. Both lifestyles may achieve 80 – 100 years of age, though not necessarily with the same quality of life or vitality!

Michael Lingard BSc. DO. Cert.Nut.