Your Habits and your health:

For the most part, your health is upon to you. You can do much more than any physician to maintain your health and well-being. To do this, you have to get in the habit of health. At the age of fifty, individuals with good health habits are physically thirty years younger than individuals with poor health habits; you can have a physical age of sixty-five or a physical age of thirty-five. It’s up to you.

Your doctor’s examination of your heart will not prevent a heart attack, but you can greatly decrease chances of a heart attack by maintaining a good diet and exercising, and by not smoking cigarettes. You don’t really need physician to remind you that alcohol acts to destroy the liver and stomach lining, or that you can avoid lung diseases if you quit smoking tar-laden cigarettes, or that fat people have more health problems than slim people. You already know these things, and your destiny is controlled by your decisions.

In contrast, surprisingly few diseases can be prevented by actions of the physician. On occasion, the physician may detect an illness, such as high blood or cancer, at any early stage, and appropriate medical treatment can contribute significantly to you long-term health. Unfortunately, at the present time there is no way that your doctor can halt the progression of our major chronic diseases such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, osteoarthritis, emphysema, cirrhosis, and cancer of the lung. Perhaps it would be nice if the doctor could do it and you could avoid the responsibility, but this is not possible.

If we could eliminate all unhealthy habits, what would happen? Lung cancer and emphysema would almost completely disappear, death due to all cancers as group would decrease by almost one-half, cirrhosis of the liver would become a rare disease. Peptic ulcers and gastritis would decrease greatly, massive upper GI bleeding (bleeding from the stomach) would become unusual, pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) would be rare. High blood pressure would be less common, and there would be fewer strokes and heart attacks. Atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) would occur less frequently. We could eliminate one-half of the hospital beds now available. The cost of medical care would decrease, the price paid for the expensive bad habits would be saved, and the consumer would have more pocket money. The number of sick days would decrease by over one-half, and the national productivity would rise. An incredible set of possibilities!

Without the help of the patient, medicine can make no such promises. It is up to each of us. Here we review some of the habits that directly affect our health.