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Attaining your best all-round health requires a holistic approach – optimising your lifestyle alongside health professional advice and appropriate treatment.
A useful way to think about excellent health management is to view it as a “toolbox” packed with these essentials:
These elements amplify one another in a positive upward spiral towards better health.
Let’s see how they all work together.
Healthy weight management exemplifies how lifestyle changes, together with appropriate treatment, can produce the best outcome. We’ve recently entered a new era in the age-old “battle of the bulge”, in which prescription medication is a promising new tool.
Over the last decade, several prescription drugs have been approved for weight loss. These may be recommended to people with obesity i.e. their body mass index (BMI) is greater than or equal to 30. BMI is measured as your weight in kg divided by your height in metres squared (kg/m²). People who are overweight (BMI 25 to under 30) and also have related health conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes, may also be approved to take these medications.
For example, the drugs Wegovy and Ozempic both contain the same active ingredient, semaglutide, and are given as a weekly injection. However, Wegovy was designed for long-term weight loss while Ozempic was primarily intended for people with type 2 diabetes.
Weight loss medications and lifestyle changes help boost each other’s effectiveness:
weight loss medication → weight loss → exercise becomes more appealing → increased weight loss
It’s important to keep in mind that while medications can help with overweight and obesity, they’re not a magic bullet; there is no single weight loss programme that works for everyone.
The World Health Organisation reports disturbing global exercise figures: 31% of adults and 81% of adolescents aren’t getting enough. Physical inactivity is one of the leading risk factors for death from noncommunicable diseases (diseases of lifestyle, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory diseases and diabetes). People who get little or no exercise have a 20-30% increased risk of death compared to those who are sufficiently active.
Here are the latest exercise recommendations:
For adults:
For children and adolescents (5-17 years):
At least an hour per day of moderate- to vigorous-intensity, mostly aerobic exercise. Vigorous-intensity aerobic activities, plus those that strengthen muscle and bone, should be incorporated at least three times weekly.
There is evidence that doing more than the recommended amount for adults could have additional health benefits. In one study, for example, increasing moderate exercise to 5-10 hours (300-600 minutes) weekly lowered the risk of death from cardiovascular events by 28% – 38% compared to not exercising.
That said, any physical activity is beneficial, and every little bit helps. If you haven’t exercised in a while, start small and gradually build your fitness.
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Mental health is the state of well-being that allows us to cope with life stresses, be productive, and belong to a community. It often gets eclipsed by more obviously physical health issues, but there’s no denying its importance. Mental and physical health are both crucial components of overall health, and are closely linked.
For example, depression increases the risk for many conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Conversely having a chronic condition can raise risk for developing mental illness. Depressed, anxious people tend to also have poor lifestyle profiles: stress and poor motivation means they tend to neglect a healthy diet and regular exercise; and are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol and abuse other drugs. Depression also often makes sufferers more isolated, which becomes a vicious cycle: cutting ourselves off from others makes us psychologically more vulnerable.
Social isolation and loneliness have a serious impact on physical and mental health, quality of life, and even how long we live: the impact is comparable to that of other risk factors such as smoking, obesity and physical inactivity.
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It seems that deviating from doctor’s orders has always been part of human nature. Hippocrates, the “father of medicine”, warned physicians in the 5th century BC to: “Keep watch also on the faults of the patients, which often make them lie about the taking of things prescribed”!
About half of patients don’t stick to their treatment regimens: we stop or skip taking pills, and sometimes we take too many. The reasons for this “patient non-adherence” are complex, but it seems to be based on our emotional response. The more positive we feel about treatment, the more likely we are to stick to it. And there are good reasons to feel positive, considering that most medical interventions were undreamt of 100 years ago. We should really view the options now available as an extraordinary advantage.
It’s our responsibility to use the tool of treatment properly; in other words, exactly as prescribed to allow it to work as effectively as possible. Another advantage of our times is technology: electronic aids, such smart medication organizers and reminder apps are proving to be very promising aids in treatment adherence.
Most important, though, is to find a primary physician where there’s a good rapport and who you trust to guide you on your best health journey.
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