On Tuesday, March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic in response to infection rates of the COVID-19 virus. According to current WHO data, mortality ratios (the number of reported deaths divided by the reported cases) for COVID-19 is between 3-4%. For seasonal influenza (upper respiratory tract infections), mortality is usually well below 0.1%. While many people have built up an immunity to seasonal flu strains, COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity. That means more people are susceptible to infection. Some will suffer severe disease and may not recover.
Given our current vulnerability, everyone should be following the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (i.e., social distancing, washing hands, etc.). As important as these recommendations are, our long-term health (and ability to fight infections) requires that we begin taking better care of ourselves. In a world that’s socially and economically interconnected, local epidemics can quickly become global pandemics! The question we must answer is how do we protect ourselves from this potential new normal? Just like in flight, we can’t help those around us if we haven’t first helped ourselves (i.e., placed our oxygen mask on). Thankfully, the first step is a simple one. The best offense is a strong defense. The healthier your body, the more likely it is to survive infectious diseases.
In 1979, the U.S. Surgeon General assembled a panel of health experts to address the question of health variance (i.e., why does our health change). They wanted to learn why some people are more susceptible to disease, while others seem to have natural resistance. The result was a 700-page Surgeon General’s Report on Health and Nutrition. The report identified key factors that influence health variance. It’s no surprise that access to medical care, the environment, and genetics made the list. However, the most significant finding and the biggest surprise of the report was that lifestyle (i.e., daily health habits) controls 50 to 70 percent of health variance. Your lifestyle is everything you choose to do or not to do, including what you eat and whether you exercise. Over the past four decades, the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health have reinforced the Surgeon General’s message stating that the vast majority of health variance is directly related to lifestyle.
In his book DISEASE PROOF, renowned physician, Dr. David Katz describes a simple disease-proof lifestyle that everyone can benefit from. He writes about the field of epigenetics which is the study of how our health habits influence the activity of our genes. In other words, living a healthy lifestyle can affect genetic expression (i.e., how your genes behave). This process is called genetic regulation. Even if your living with a chronic illness like heart disease or cancer, taking care of yourself (living a healthy lifestyle) can down-regulate disease-promoting genes, and up-regulate disease prevention genes, significantly improving your prognosis!
Where do we go from here? The evidence that our health is in our own hands (i.e., lifestyle matters most) is overwhelming! Yet millions of adults are stuck in the mud. In my experience, simple advice is best, given the complicated world we live in. Here are “Three Simple Steps” to help you build the disease-resistant body you need in our modern world.
Build Minutes. Everyone knows exercise is good for you! The challenge is fitting it into our busy lives. The current Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans shed some light on this issue. These guidelines state that there is no minimum threshold for gaining benefits. This means you don’t have to perform large blocks of physical activity (i.e., 30 or more minutes in a single bout) to get benefits. For example, you can build minutes throughout the day to reach your goal. Taking a brisk 7-minute walk at lunch, another 7- minute walk before dinner and a third walk in the evening provides the same calorie-burning, and health-building benefits, as doing your walking all at once! Current guidelines recommend at least 21 minutes per day of moderate-intensity physical activity (i.e., brisk walking or biking) or 10 minutes per day of vigorous-intensity physical activity (i.e., running or stair climbing).
Stay Strong. Losing strength was once viewed as a necessary part of aging. That changed in the 1980s when researchers at Tuft’s University demonstrated that the ability to gain strength does not diminish with age. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend Strength Training for all adults! Why Strength Train? It keeps you strong and independent as you age while reducing your risk for numerous degenerative diseases (i.e., heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, diabetes, dementia, etc.). The American College of Sports Medicine (the world’s largest group of exercise scientists and fitness professionals) recommends full-body workouts that train the major muscle groups (chest, shoulders, back, arms, trunk, hips, and legs). Each muscle group should be worked to a high level of fatigue to stimulate strength gains. If you don’t have access to Strength Training equipment (machines, barbells, dumbbells, etc.), bodyweight exercises are an excellent alternative.
Eat Wholesome Foods. When it comes to healthy eating, most American’s are misguided! Despite the confusion, healthful eating can and should be simple. When you consume nutritious, wholesome foods, you feel and function better (i.e., less disease). Evidence from the eating habits of the world's healthiest populations reveals dietary patterns centered around wholesome, unprocessed foods. If your diet is full of the right stuff – vegetables, fruits, fish, whole grains, nuts, poultry, seeds, lentils, and beans – you don’t have to overthink the processed foods you should be minimizing (i.e., fast food, chips, cookies, candy, hotdogs, etc.). Prioritizing unprocessed foods (i.e., apples instead of apple pie) provides thousands of disease-fighting micro-nutrients and phyto-chemicals. You also achieve what nutrition professionals call “displacement”. This is the crowding-out effect wholesome foods have on your diet. When you eat more apples, you end up eating less apple pie. In the end, your ability to fight infections depends upon what you do right now! Taking at least one Simple Step will protect your health sooner versus later!
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Stay Strong,
Richard J. Wolff, RDN