Foreign Perspectives

One of the challenges that people face as they get older is the increasing number of health problems that tend to crop up. The question, of course, is what to do about them.

In most cases these start as relatively mild problems. So mild in a lot of cases that people can wait quite a long time before they go to see their doctor about them which can make them a little more serious issues by then of course but not necessarily serious in a dramatic way.

For instance, if you’re like most people in being a little overweight and not taking as much exercise as you should then chances are that you’ve higher blood pressure than you should have for your age (it’s something that goes up as you get older). Go to the doctor and, if it’s high enough, chances are they’ll prescribe some medication to get it down to where it should be. The snag is that, in most cases, this medication is a “for the rest of your life” deal which is obviously not such a great idea if you can avoid it. And, you can usually avoid it in this case if you’re prepared to put the effort into it. That effort entails getting that weight down, taking more exercise, reducing your salt intake and taking charge though measuring your own blood pressure. Sadly, most people just don’t bother to put that effort in yet the effort required, in most cases, is minimal. After all, it’s not that difficult to change from normal salt to the “low salt” variety, we can all fit a little walking in and blood pressure monitors are very cheap these days.

In terms of mental health, if recent studies are anything to go by, it seems that similar options are open. We’re seeing the first of the anti-dementia drugs these days but they’re likely to be “for life” deals as well. As with the exercise for your body, those recent studies seem to indicate that exercising your mind tends to, at least, alleviate dementia. Surely it must be a better plan to exercise your mind than to go onto medication?