Secret #5 To Higher Health: What Your Doctor Really Wants You To Know

[This is Part 5 of a 7 part series. -- PK]

5. See Your Doctor Periodically

Well, you should have seen that one coming.

But seriously, there are some excellent reasons to make an annual physical a cornerstone of your plan for health. Overcoming your dread of the gloved finger, or the mammography squish, will pay you enormous dividends with the very first problem you let your doctor catch early.

Don’t Become A Statistic

A physician can check you for hidden problems long before they become obvious to you, at a stage when they can be better treated, or even cured. “I feel fine, therefore I must be fine” is generally right, until it is tragically wrong, wrong, wrong.

In college logic or rhetoric classes, this is called the inductive, or “black swan” fallacy: I’ve never seen a black swan, so there can’t be any such things as black swans, right?

It’s natural to think this way, but the health analogy sounds dangerously silly: I’ve never died, so I must be immortal, right?

You don’t want your body to break down, or to die before your time. But your odds start getting icky around your mid-30’s, just a bit. By your 40’s they’re noticeably starting to register in Vegas, and by your 50’s no one would be terribly surprised if you had a heart attack. 60 plus, and you should have been actively hunting for cancer for some time. Face it: this is simply statistical reality.

To shave those odds in your favor, you want to do some of the basics that I’ve alluded to (and that my colleagues and I are addressing in this series of blog posts). But seeing a doctor annually, specifically for a dedicated, “We are here today to systematically check you out” physical, should be a basic part of that.

It’s by no means a guarantee of immortality — in fact, the odds of picking up every single potential cancer and life threatening condition are kind of low, which makes sense, if you think about it.

But without that annual physical, the odds essentially drop to sheer dumb luck, which is to say, nearly zero.

Get By Pretty Well, With A Little Help From Your Friends

Second, a physician can advise you on the newest developments in medicine.

Lest you think that last one is a joke, consider this: in this new millennium, the docs who will “rise to the top of the cream” will be adept at sorting the wheat from the chaff, at Internet-search speeds and with quick email replies.

For example, the largest study to date — with nearly sixteen thousand participants — demonstrates an all-cause mortality reduction of up to 70% from exercise. Conventional wisdom said that staying active was good for you, but decades of study actually didn’t dramatically show that; you might enjoy life more, but not necessarily live longer.

This VA study, released earlier this year, showed reductions across the board in death causes, cardiac and otherwise, of about 13% per MET of increased activity (resting quietly is about 1 MET, stretching or Hatha yoga about 2.5 [as is straightening up around the house], walking the dog is 3, jogging is 7, running a 10 minute mile is 10, general weight training is 6, circuit training is 8).

Casual jogging, in other words, can reduce your risk of dying by about 50%, compared to being a couch potato.

There are tons of other nifty medical nugget examples, like the acai fruit being the most antioxidant rich food (not blueberries), or muscle aches being reduced post workout by berry juice drinks, or influenza being lethal to 14 World Trade Centers worth of Americans each and every year.

All of which the New Physician of the 21st century will either know, or be able to advise you of, from the standpoint of a trained, constantly retraining, and cautious medical professional.