Monday, February 2, 2009

The Benefits Of Thinking About Your Future Health Risks

By C. R. Bolden

It doesn't matter how old you are your future health is largely determined by what you do now. Its never too late to wonder about your future health risk. Your lifestyle and your habits have a dominant effect on how healthy you are, how healthy you'll be, how much time you'll spend in hospitals, and how rapidly faster you'll age.

There are techniques you can use to prepare for your future health risk. Basically you can complete a questionnaire or analysis about your lifestyle and health habits. Your responses are combined to estimate your likelihood of developing major medical problems such as heart disease and cancer. Other estimate such as your age also may be calculated. These questionnaires have a potentially large role in helping you shape your own personal health program. You should know several things about future health risk analysis:

- The results are only estimates. Even though they're based on the best medical studies, data are incomplete and may not apply equally to all populations.

- The predictions are only averages. Some people will do better than the tests predict and other worse.

- Any single analysis represents you at one point in time, but your actual risks depend on the changes you make and your average lifetime health habits as well. Regular repeated analysis can reveal your current status and the benefits you've achieved through lifestyle changes.

- A good health risk analysis should be based only on those relatively few risk factors that are scientifically well established and associated with major health problems like cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, salt, fat intake, obesity and stress level.

- The health risk analysis itself provides no benefits unless it results in changes in your health related behaviors. Therefore, these anaylsis are best used as part of a program that not only identifies risk but also educates you, motivates you for a change, provides suggestions and recommendations, and reinforces positive changes.

Your future health risk is about the growing role of health programs that focus attention on prevention of disease and about the use of good health assessment tools. Well designed programs are already having a large effect as far as decreasing human illness. Now check this out, they also reduce medical care costs in the long run. - 14130

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