Why Age?

Tension Rising

August 11, 2007 – 12:05 am | by admin

“Grow old along with me,
The best is yet to be.”

Elizabeth Barret Browning

“Just relax.”

I could feel my tension rising as the doctor pumped up the blood pressure cuff and it tightened on my arm. I am a personal trainer and a bad reading could be embarrassing.

This was very bad timing - my first visit to the doctor in over ten years - and it had to follow a traditional Portuguese barbeque the night before. I could see the fat glistening on those chunks of grilled chorizo as I pulled them off the skewer. And washed them down with three or four, or was it five? beers.

“Very good. One twenty over sixty five.”

Phew. I had only made an appointment to have my Hepatitis A and B booster shot and here I was, having the full work up. The doctor’s large, blue eyes had flickered as she looked over my patient information and settled on my date of birth.

The previous fifty-one years had caught up with me and I would have to face a moment of truth in regard to my health.

“Blood triglycerides, cholesterol, liver function, prostate, blood glucose and bowel cancer check,” she said. “It’s time.”

I cursed those fatty chunks again as she took blood for sampling. Then I relaxed. Blood pressure is a very effective rule of thumb to ascertain the state of one’s blood vessels and heart and I was in the clear there. All those years of exercise, moderation and a dietary regime that had me periodically called a “health nut” would see me through.
Wouldn’t they?

“Every man of your age has some elevated blood triglycerides,” said the doctor . “They’re little globs of fat that circulate in your bloodstream. If we refrigerate a blood sample overnight, the triglycerides can separate and form a layer of fat on top of the blood, just like a salad dressing. It’s not desirable but it’s an inevitable part of ageing.”

I walked out of the surgery with an appointment in a week’s time to go through the blood test results. Would my salad be modestly dressed or drowned in mayonnaise?

It’s at times like these that we confront our own mortality and take stock of the future. Numerous people referred to me over the years by doctors had been spooked into starting an exercise regime by adverse test results and possibly saved their health and lives but what room did I have to move if there were some negatives on my slate?

It was a preoccupied week as I went back over dim memories of my grandparents and their cause of and age at death. On my father’s side, a grandfather I never met dead at fifty-three from heart complications stemming from war service. On my mother’s side, a grandfather I adored and mourned by weeping uncontrollably when told as an eight-year old of his passing. Bowel cancer, I think; they didn’t really tell the family much in those days.

To be honest, given Australia’s high life expectancy, I didn’t expect anything life-threatening but was niggled by the idea that I could be wrong about all the rules of eating, exercising and living I had adopted as a teenager and promoted to my clients as a professional trainer. An Australian boy born in 2005 can expect to live to 78.5 years and a girl born in the same year a venerable 83.3 years but will those years be preventable disease-free, enjoyable and lived to the fullest? Medical intervention helps us live longer but not necessarily healthier lives.
It’s up to us.

“Greg!” The doctor’s face shone from behind the reception desk. “Come in, I want to show you this.” As the consulting room door closed behind us, she bubbled over. “Your results are spectacular!” A sense of relief and excitement engulfed me.

As she painstakingly took me through each of the figures my sense of vindication grew. No elevated enzymes in the liver, groaning in protest at the load the body’s largest organ was under. No remarkable levels of fat in the bloodstream and low figures for the prostate specific antigen test. Cholesterol low, blood glucose low.

As I skipped up the road for lunch and a workout I pondered that you can still shop at a supermarket and have a healthy diet, you can enjoy a drink in moderation and enjoy good health, and you do not need to sit on a mountain top eating mung beans, or take supplements to reach your maximum health potential. Simple rules, like eating three pieces of fresh fruit and a sensible breakfast every day are powerful factors that shape our health in the long term and are not hard to follow.

With good health, ageing slows. Genetics play a part in ageing but it is a process we can control.
I know, because I sometimes have to produce my drivers licence to prove my age to doubters.

Come age with me.

Next article: What is ageing?

Today’s tip: Eat three pieces of fresh fruit every day.