NORTH’S HEALTH BLOG

The Vulcan greeting from Star Trek has become almost an iconic statement in the modern world. Live long and prosper. It encapsulates the western dream – a long and successful life. But does modern living and medicine guarantee a long life?

If you believe the health gurus, it certainly does. Regular exercise, a healthy diet and quick medical intervention when required should be able to see you into a ripe and healthy old age. It looks like we might soon be too healthy to die.

The last point is certainly true. Quick medical intervention has saved many a life. A release from many dangerous occupations and unhealthy living conditions has also helped regarding our longevity. But let’s hold on a minute. How do they know we’re going to live longer?

They know because people are already living well into their eighties. But don’t you think it is a little too convenient to claim this as a success of modern living standards?

Let’s put it like this. A person of eighty today was born in 1927. There was no real understanding of healthy living then. But what he did have was a diet rich in vegetables and a lifestyle of hard physical labour.

Such a lifestyle and diet saw him through the Depression and Second World War. And it is quite likely that the diet and work also provided some benefit to off-set smoking and drinking, which he was likely to partake.

A healthy diet and exercise today is a pale imitation of the average lifestyle in the past. Five a day may be today’s mantra, but the average person of eighty could well have topped that. We will see, in fifty years time, whether today’s lifestyle will bring longevity like that of the past.

© Anthony North, Jan 2007