Thursday, March 28, 2024

Why you are as healthy as your internal age

Share

How Healthy Living Can Reduce Internal Age and Disease Risk

Why improving your Internal age really matters

Heart attacks, strokes and sudden deaths are becoming increasingly common in Zambia and other developing countries. In fact, one of the most disturbing trends is that these devastating conditions are occurring more frequently in younger individuals than one would typically see elsewhere. Heart attacks and strokes can be quite disabling if not fatal and can adversely affect individuals who are in the prime of their most productive years.

Risk factors for heart attack, sudden death and stroke

Two impressive large clinical studies were conducted across all the 5 continents, the INTERHEART and INTERSTROKE  studies demonstrated that the in over 90 percent of all the cases of heart attacks and strokes, 9 risk factors were mostly responsible for these unfortunate events. These risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, high cholesterol, smoking, poor diet choices (lack of fruits and vegetables), excessive alcohol consumption and stress. Further there is also a very close link between all these risk factors and early memory loss dementia and early cognitive decline)

The good news however, is that all these risk factors are modifiable i.e. can be reduced or avoided through adoption of lifestyle changes and or aggressive treatment with medications.

Internal versus chronological age and the risk of cardiovascular events

Advancing age has for the longest time been closely linked to cardiovascular events (heart attacks, strokes, sudden death and memory loss). Recently, however, the scientific community has started to focus more attention on internal age as a more powerful predictor of the risk of suffering a heart attack, stroke or dying suddenly. While chronological age refers to the time that has passed since birth, internal age, on the other hand refers to how well the organs are functioning. Normally, chronological age equates to the internal age. It is well established that People who live the longest (centenarians and supercentenarians) have lower internal ages compared to their chronological ages.

Reducing internal age and risk of events

Chronological age cannot be reversed and has nothing to do with our adopted lifestyle choices. On the other hand, internal age is intricately connected to our lifestyle choices (physical activity, stress, sleep habits, smoking etc.) as well as with biological genes and acquired medical conditions (obesity, diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure etc). Lowering one’s internal age through adoption of healthy lifestyles along with aggressive management of medical conditions such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes can lead to improved quality of lives and longevity.

By Sula Mazimba MD, MPH

 

 

3 COMMENTS

  1. I feel 20 on the inside. Healthy life has helped. No smoking and only drinking healthier alcoholic beverages. Also going to the gym 4 times a week. You will be surprised how this helps even in the bedroom department. Many zambian men are letting themselves go with pot bellies which leads to poor performance in bed. And then their wives cheat with gym instructors and they wonder why

    4
    5
  2. Run 10miles every sunday in all kind of weather, without fail, and it is true bedroom performance as always been great and do not take any kind of medication, put it down to physical exercise, if you can manage, please come and join us in Surrey and be prepared for the hardwork, it is not a joke.

    3
    1

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading