Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

1) Book. It’s that time of year. The time of “Best of…whatever” in 2024. At the moment I’m thinking books. I really liked Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway on the fiction side, and I’m still mining nuggets, some of them gold, from “Outlive” by Peter Attia. How about you?

Not sure how you approach the “Best Of” lists but I’ve got the WSJ’s version next to me to help me plan my 2025. “The Anxious Generation”, “The Ministry of Time”, and “What If It All Goes Right?” are destined to join me somewhere, sometime this coming year.

2) Remontant. French: to rise again. Very specifically a term that refers to a plant that blooms more than once during the growing season. I really rather prefer the more poetic application as a descriptor of humans.

Who wouldn’t like to be thought of as “remontant”, blooming again and again as you enter each season of personal growth.

3) Exercise Rx. Up on my desktop I have an article I found that Alex Hutchinson references in the most recent issue of Outside Magazine: A Semiparametric Risk Score For Physical Activity. Man…so much math. Still, the outcome was pretty simple and straightforward:

15-20 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day is the single most powerful variable that decreases all cause mortality and improves health through age 70 (the cut-off for the study). The effect kicks in at 12.5 minutes and there is no meaningful additional affect beyond 20 minutes.

Keep this in mind as we start our conversation about Healthspan.

4) Healthspan. That portion of your life that is unencumbered by the ravages of chronic disease. In short what we should be pursuing is not simply the extension of our lives in years, but an increase in both the number of years we live and how healthy we are while doing so.

Last week I spoke at my very favorite conference of the year. Cedars/Aspens is a small group of like-minded cataract and refractive surgeons who also spend time consulting and speaking for the various companies that make medicines and medical devices that we use in our jobs. In short most (but not all) of my closest friends in eyecare, both doctors and people who work in the industry, attend this meeting. Last night Beth and I hosted our annual Holiday Lasagna fest. 8 couples who raised their children together gathered at Casa Blanco to eat monstrous servings of Beth’s homemade lasagna, downing this bounty with Italian wine picked out by yours truly. This is my local circle of close friends, together in one way or another for almost 30 years now.

So what does this have to do with Healthspan? Well, these are two groups of people I like and care about. I gave a formal talk to the C/A group about Healthspan (from which this series will emanate), and introduced the concept to my friends over tiny tipples of Icewine (a dessert choice not exactly on point as we will see later on!). Helping my professional family live longer and be healthy enough to be productive until they hang up their spurs is immensely satisfying; if successful I can take a tiny bit of credit for all of their good works toward the end of their extended professional careers. Doing the same thing for my close friends is an entirely selfish endeavor: the longer they live and remain healthy the longer I will get to have them by my side.

And as we will see, doing that for and with my friends will very likely increase Beth’s and my Healthspans in the process!

As we move forward in this endeavor I will offer what I have come to think of as a series of invitations to inquiry. The slides for my talk are probably best described not as dissertations but something rather more akin to chapter titles and subtitles. It is certainly possible to begin one’s journey toward an enhanced Healthspan by simply following the stuff that I’ll talk about, but you are far more likely to succeed if you use my bit of drivel as a series of “starting gates” that launch you forward. Assessment, nutrition, exercise, exogenous elements, and well-being are on the menu. Honestly, I have no idea how many Parts are to come. I do know that each time I look at these things, and especially when I write or talk about them, I get better at doing my own work toward expanding my personal Healthspan.

And honestly, as directed-toward-self as that obviously is, the more selfish aspect of this effort, like my C/A talk and last night’s discussions over dessert, is that I am highly invested in YOUR Healthspan. The longer you live and the freer you are from the crappy stuff that comes from chronic disease, the more likely it becomes that we will be together.

And be happy!

I’ll see you next week…

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 15th, 2024 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.