Health Matters

These are uncertain times. The world is changing. People are changing. Or are they? I believe that we haven't changed much from the time that Oog first walked the earth searching for insects, shrubs, and beer. I observe people in my work and I have noticed a few constants. For example, one of the diseases of aging, in men, is the powerful need to wear black dress socks with shorts. Another is enlargement of the prostate. In fact, as their prostate grows, so does their need to don this hideous combo. Medically we don't understand why. Ladies, on the other hand, slowly but steadily infuse their wardrobes with purple-ish or frankly purple garments. It is apparently triggered by menopause. Again the link is not well understood.

So some things are predictable. We like to think that we are unique. We are in many ways, but we all die and most of us do it in just a few ways. Of the billions of people who have died on this earth, 90+ percent of them have done so from just a handful of illnesses. This is actually a good thing. It means that you don't have to worry much about spontaneously bleeding to death from the knee cap, or being struck by lightening, or being bitten by a rabid anteater. In a country largely devoid of anteaters, dying is a lot simpler than that. In fact, making your very own most-likely-to-kill-me list is actually quite easy, and besides, it's really fun!

Topping that list, of course, are heart attacks and strokes. One could think of these as heart attacks and brain attacks because both are caused by an artery being suddenly blocked by a clot. Kidneys are also susceptible to this. Yes, people do have kidney attacks. It is a big deal to lose even a small part of any one of these organs. None of the other precious giblets (liver, spleen, stomach, etc.), or optional accessories like skin, muscle, and bone, are as sensitive to this kind of injury. But whether considering the health of a giblet or non-giblet part, a lot of it is about keeping your arteries healthy.

Smoking, although not officially listed as a cause of death, should be put in a category all its own. It is unreal how much trouble it causes. It really should be renamed from "smoking" to "cancering," as in "Can I borrow one of your cancers?" or "Gee, you look so sexy when you suck on that cancer." The cancers promoted by smoking include that of the lung (the leading cause of death by cancer, but pretty rare in non-smokers), breast, colon, prostate, esophagus, mouth, pancreas, and bladder. Smoking also leads to COPD, emphysema, asthma, and all of the "giblet attacks" mentioned above. It is thought to be directly linked to about 50 percent of all hospital admissions. Wow. If you are a smoker, then your list of grim reapers is very short...one.

So heart disease, cancer, and stroke encompass about 3/4 of all the causes of death in this country. Infections of the lung, various accidents, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, kidney disease, spontaneously bleeding to death from the knee cap, and other infections account for most of the rest.

With these in mind, dodging the bullet, at least for a while, is pretty simple. Stop smoking, keep your BMI (body mass index) around 24, exercise, fix your blood pressure and cholesterol if needed (they will likely be fine if you are already doing the first three), wear a seat belt, get the usual cancer screening tests appropriate for your age, and, if you forget all of this advice, get screened for Alzheimer's.

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