Today I thought I’d share some stats that I have read recently outlining the current state of Australia’s Health. Australia currently has; a) Most medicated pills per person compared to any other country. Take that USA and Great Britain… b) Average cholesterol of 5.03 as a Nation (should be below 4.5 for individuals to prevent cardiovascular disease, stroke and Type 2 Diabetes). c) Over 53% of our population are overweight, with 21% of the population being classified as Obese. Thats 10.8 million & 4.7 million people respectively. There is a growing rate of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes seen in children, linked directly with a culture that doesn’t meet our National Guidelines for Physical Activity of just 30 minutes a day (1 hour for kids). d) On top of this the average office work spends as little as 73 minutes a day standing or moving……… Take some time for that last one to sink in, that means almost 23 hours a day of the average life is spent sitting, eating, lying, sleeping, watching TV, sitting at your desk, sitting to have coffee with your friends, etc. But wait there’s more; We have seen some amazing advances in modern medicine, which has been highly effective at making us live longer, which has thrown us a new set of problems in the form of Dementia & Alzheimer’s Disease. 1 in 10 people over the age of 65 suffer AD/ Dementia, with your risk doubling each 5 years beyond 65 years of age. This is set to become a huge societal issue, capable of crippling healthcare systems as our ageing patterns begin to resemble an inverted pyramid. Are we really that surprised when we hear that 1 in 4 people have or at high risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes, with 408 Victorians being newly diagnosed each week. New research tells us that 1.2 Million Victorians will be diagnosed with Diabetes in just the next 3 years. With growth trends like that surely there is a share/ stock or bond we can buy into??? Perhaps we can revisit that medication stat? If this many people are becoming obese, having high cholesterol or diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes surely someone has created a wonder drug by now right! There are some great medications out there, which help to save lives and improve quality of life for patients, don’t get me wrong on that one. Yet I find it interesting that with all the time, research, the billions of dollars, put into drug companies, no one has ever created something as holistically effective as exercise. Eg. Metformin (to manage/ prevent diabetes) decreased the onset of Diabetes by 31% in a high-risk group, pretty good right? Exercise and lifestyle change decrease the onset by 58%, almost twice as effective! Or how About the German research study that looked at cardiovascular disease patients. They took 2 groups, the first group had stents put in (major surgery), the second group completed regular physical activity. The Stented group (high-tech) were 70% event free 12 months later, compared to the exercise group having 88% of participants event free. Important to remember the stent only fixes one part of the heart, where exercise improves everything. But I’m no triathlete you say? All the above studies looked at participants achieving 30 minutes of light to moderate exercise 3-7 days a week. The main message from every study was that as little as 10 minutes can have benefits on blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose levels, absolute risk of cardiovascular disease, life expectancy, quality of life, depression/ anxiety symptoms, weight loss/ management, waist girth, etc etc etc. Something is better than nothing, and something more is better than something. So what’s stopping you walk out that door today???
Posted on: Thu, 01 May 2014 03:18:21 +0000
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