MORE WELL-DAYS With LIFE AHEAD
Many of the health factors shown in Life Ahead such as exercise, diet, cholesterol, weight, and smoking are not new. But this new technology provides a sharper focus about how much benefit can be obtained from each and how these benefits can be maximized. A brief summary follows here of the key health actions that can result in a longer and more healthful life. Exercise and Diet nearly always will be by far the major things we can do to protect health. But it is not just any "Diet" or any "Exercise." Conventional advice such as to eat less fat, less salt, five more fruits and vegetables each day may help a little, but may capture only a fraction of the Well-Days of Life potential from a Life Ahead developed diet. Advice to walk so much each week may capture only a small portion those Well-Days potential from the right kind and amount of exercise.
DIET: Our Diet can focus on two differing objectives. A first is to improve our Well-Days of life from its nutritional content. A second is to keep weight at a healthy level. Both of these objectives can be accomplished at the same time.
Life Ahead now can value for the first time the health potential of any diet, or even of the addition or subtraction of an individual food from a diet in producing Well-Days of future life. This new development is called Global Scientific Nutrition. Life Ahead values each diet and food included from the summed effects of not just fat or carbo but from up to 23 included nutrients. Further, each of these nutrients can change the risk of from 3 to 10 or more major diseases. It discloses that nearly all 'Diet Book' diets are deficient in some nutrients and can be improved. Life Ahead can assist the design of an optimum diet that produces over time adequate amounts of all needed nutrients - and that should produce a best now possible long range health. The program can start with a present diet, and revise this to provide a most acceptable modified result that should produce top or near top health benefit. Or it can start with a diet recommended in any book.
Life Ahead values the Well-Days of life potential from of any entered diet for different amounts of saturated and unsaturated fats, transfats, total, LDL and HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, omega-3 fats, lycopene and fiber. It also identifies nutrient values from your diet vs. best healthful targets for antioxidants as Vitamins A, C, B6, E and selenium. It similarly monitors best amounts for minerals as calcium, magnesium, and sodium and for folic acid and glycemic load. It also values benefits for amounts of aspirin and alcohol. And it identifies the probable effect of any diet in gaining or losing weight. A Life Ahead optimum diet may add 3-5 years of Well-Days of healthy life to diets now recommended by our "Health Establishment."
DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS: Life Ahead focuses first on getting needed nutrients from foods. And a very few special diets may be able to develop most nutrient needs from foods. But a striking conclusion from the Life Ahead project was the extensive confirmation of the extremely important role of dietary supplements. Many foods do include good amounts of various vitamins and minerals. But when the effective amounts of these in practical diets are added up they rarely can produce the optimum levels of the multiple antioxidants and other nutrients that research now shows will produce lowest risk of major disease. Each of the twenty three nutrient diet factors used in Life Ahead is adequately supported and verified by all multiple population research studies found published. Many actual research results are provided directly on the web site. The important new analysis of health risk from amounts of antioxidants is based on more than 160 mostly consistent studies. It usually will be difficult or impossible to obtain optimum amounts of all of these nutrients in most acceptable diets of foods.
Taking adequate dietary supplements is a most simple and inexpensive way to improve the extent and quality of life. Health experts have been arguing furiously about the value of diet supplements for decades. Yet no serious objective analysis of what today's research really shows about this was found elsewhere. The supplement haters simply find fault with every study that shows supplements to be healthful and extol the few that find the contrary. Serious science must objectively consider every published study and bit of evidence, and this has not done in the health research field. Nearly two dozen new articles and research papers about the benefits of dietary supplements are included on the Life Ahead web site.
CARDIOFITNESS: The fact that exercise can improve health and extend life has finally after at 4 decades of argument been accepted. But its importance still is underestimated and advice on what we should remains confusing and inadequate. See the extensive analysis of the fifty years of this research in the Exercise and Cardiofitness section noted on the Main Menu page. This may be the only really comprehensive quantified study of the actual research on exercise, cardiofitness and disease yet done. See also the extensive actual research confirming the benefits of cardio fitness on both heart disease and cancer on this web site.
Exercise protects against heart disease – and against cancer – mostly via its role in improving cardiovascular or cardiorespiratory or what is abbreviated here as cardiofitness. Much of today’s confusion about exercise is due to a mythology that exercise can be valued by its number of calories. Added calories of exercise can help reduce weight. But exercise calories can contribute much or little either to cardiofitness or to protection against disease depending on the kind of exercise involved. Today's research shows that only sustained vigorous exercise, best done at a monitored and moderately elevated heart rate for three or more minutes at a time, and this done for a period of at least several months provides useful reductions in risk of heart disease. Useful protection against both heart disease and cancer requires exercise to be done over long periods of time or entire life. You don’t have to run or exercise at very high heart rates. But exercise at much less than a quite brisk or fast walk or that does not increase your heart rate by a steady 30 beats per minute for several minutes or more at a time can be mostly a waste of time in improving health for most middle aged or younger people. A full hour every day of inadequately brisk walking may have minimal value in preventing heart disease or cancer.
Cardiofitness is the real key that protects health. Yet people today have had no idea of what their cardiofitness is or what their exercise accomplishes. The CFR or Cardio fitness factor is a simple measure of the cardiofitness that relates well to risks of heart disease and cancer. Life Ahead provides a variety of tools for estimating or measuring your CFR. First is a questionnaire structured to estimate how various kinds of exercise usually contribute to cardiofitness over time. Second, some simple treadmill tests for measuring the CFR are suggested that anyone can take by themselves or with assistance in a fitness facility. Third are methods for obtaining an CFR from some standard fitness tests that may be provided in fitness programs. Cardiofitness is partly age dependent. And some people have innate lower or higher than average cardiofitness due simply to genetics. As verified extensively in the included Health Research Library your cardiofitness in CFR can be more important to your future health than blood pressure, cholesterol, or smoking. Maintenance of good cardiofitness not only can add 7 years of Well-Days to the life of today's average 50 year old man and woman but can make all of those future years a lot better.
WEIGHT: The steady increase in obesity of our population is now a major public health problem. Life Ahead values the health effects of weight on death rates from the now classic studies on more than a million people. Life Ahead provides a unique new program that can optimize both body weight and health. The weight loss indicator identifies an average usual long range weight change for any diet for persons of any size, sex, weight or exercise habits. Users thus can monitor their diet daily or weekly by computer to check calories, likely weight change for the combination of calories and carbo, and health benefits. If metabolism is not average, and weight change is less than usual the user can adjust diet calories to compensate. The option of continuous and easy computer monitoring will caution when food intake moves higher than needed and continually help users to understand the probable effect of what they are eating on both weight and health. Exercise should be a part of and contribute to any program to reduce weight, and Life Ahead values this contribution in detail. But diet remains as by far the most important factor for changing weight.
SMOKING: Life Ahead can reveal a new dimension about the harm that smoking can produce when it is done in combination with other health factors. It can replace the usual general advice that "Smoking increases risk" with a quantified result such as "Smoking will result in a 95% likelihood of heart disease by a specific age". A combination of smoking with poor cardiofitness can be especially deadly. Life Ahead forecasts that a 30 year old heavy smoking man having a poor cardiofitness of about 95 CFR will probably have a heart attack in his 40’s and die at about age 50. With some other negative factor as a poor diet or family risk this tragedy can happen sooner and with higher certainty. Smokers have a vastly increased need to recognize all other risks and to take steps to reduce them. Life Ahead will show the benefits of stopped or any revised amount and time of smoking for those having any combination of other health habits.
CHOLESTEROL: Because cholesterol produces atherosclerosis throughout life, it is desirable to have past as well as present measurements for reference. Life Ahead provides for the entering of cholesterol tests by date of test, and can recognize that past values as well as present values can produce the atherosclerosis that affects present and future health. If a usual diet is entered the program computes a probable cholesterol from this diet and any accompanying exercise. Life Ahead then compares this computed value with any entered actual cholesterol values, and computes genetic factors for both total and HDL cholesterol. Cholesterol levels are substantially affected by genetics. Unfavorable cholesterol genetic risk factors can provide an extra warning about an added health risk that has not previously been available. A high cholesterol genetic risk can increase the advantage for a healthful diet.
Cholesterol has been given enormous attention to health in recent decades. Total cholesterol values 235 or 250 or higher do identify substantial risks to heart disease. But today's average US middle age person has a cholesterol closer to 210. Although further benefits are obtainable for improving a 210 cholesterol to below 190, these benefits are far smaller than those potential for improving other health factors such as antioxidants, omega-3 fats, or cardiofitness. A person should not assume that just because a cholesterol is low, he or she is has "no diet or other problem".
FAMILY HEALTH RISKS: The fact that the disease of a family member increases risk of this disease for every other family member has long been recognized. Life Ahead shows that these risks can be shockingly large and different. For example, the age at which a family member first had a disease or died, whether that member was a parent or sibling, or whether more than one member had the disease can be of major importance to a person's risk. Few today recognize how large a family history risk can become.
A family risk can substantially increase the health value of other actions such as better exercise and diet. A high family risk can make better health habits a life-saving necessity. Nearly everyone that has known family history either of heart disease or cancer who in addition smokes, is unfit, or had any other unhealthy habit is likely to give up decades of potential Well-Days of life. Life Ahead forecasts will show this impressively, and suggest ways for avoiding this potential tragedy.
WOMEN'S HEALTH RISKS: Women can incur a wide variety of risks of cancer and other diseases from a wide range of factors. Use of contraceptives, ages of first period and menopause, number of children, and even breast feeding are involved in the risk of breast cancer for women. Life Ahead provides a quantification of these complex risks that provides more meaning than the usual indefinite 'This increases risk". The Life Ahead valuation of the use of post-menopausal hormones does not agree with conclusions of the recent WHI study that has upset millions of women and their doctors. Review a comprehensive compilation of the actual research on this, and of the research on hormones on heart disease. Life Ahead can optionally value the use of female hormones for various time of use periods for women having any combination of other factors and habits, but hormones are not included now as a usual Life Ahead factor for health.
OTHER HABITS and RISK: Life Ahead notes many other health risk factors that can cumulate to produce a shortened life, and notes actions that nearly everyone should consider. Alcohol, at just one drink per day protects health against cardiovascular disease. But because it also increases risk of cancer, only one drink per day is beneficial. (Some advice erroneously suggests 2 drinks per day). Aspirin at one regular 325 mg pill per day is best. The use of a baby aspirin of 75 or 81 mg is OK for reducing risk of heart disease, but is not enough to usefully protect against cancer. Age at levels of baldness can suggest a surprisingly significant increase in risk for men. Both men and women who sleep too long or not enough each night can lose many Well-Days. Any periodontal disease should be corrected promptly. You can explore the effect of changing these other health factors by accessing from the Result Display the 'Change Other Factors' option, and for women the 'Change Female Factors' option. Motor vehicle risks are analyzed and included in Well-Days because they can become particularly significant for those younger.
The NON-ACTIONABLE HEALTH FACTORS: The risks for number of health factors such as family health risks and air pollution are valued in Life. Added risks related to C-reactive protein (CRP) are valued optionally as a largely non-actionable added risk warning because most actionable factors that affect CRP are already valued by the program. High non-actionable risks can greatly increase the importance of reducing actionable risks. The quantification of the likely health effects of air pollution and the cigarette smoking of others (i.e passive smoking) provides a perspective on the usually lesser importance of these factors vs. risks from actionable habits.
THE DOCTOR SHOULD BE INVOLVED: Life Ahead is designed to help people obtain better health from daily health habits that only they can perform. It brings a completely objective analysis of much of today's health research into the view of any user, and focuses on the specific things that individuals themselves can do. It is NOT a MEDICAL program that aims to correct illness. That is the role of the Doctor. Life Ahead uses only measurements that are commonly available to individuals from physical exams or that often are asked for by health-interested people. Life Ahead estimates usual blood pressures for age and sex and the effects on blood pressure of improving weight, cardiofitness level and dietary salt. But beyond this, the reduction of blood pressure becomes a medical problem for the doctor to help remedy.
A DISCLAIMER: Health-interested persons should make regular visits to their doctor, and obtain periodic blood tests and appropriate exams such as mammograms for women and PSA values for men. Life style habits should be reviewed with the doctor. Actions and diets suggested by Life Ahead as healthful for the average population may not be appropriate or healthful for everyone. Life Ahead is provided free by its developer without any warrantee or guarantee. A few that follow every here-included and other known health precaution will suffer major disease and die from it prematurely. Extensive program checking has been carried out. But there can be no guarantee that each of the millions of possible calculation alternatives computed by this extremely comprehensive and complex program will be accurate and correct, or that results will apply to every individual.
