Humankind, from time immemorial, has been fascinated by being able to predict the future. The aura and the controversy surrounding the likes of Nostradamus. Say, the anticipation of the Sunday newspaper to read what our horoscopes have to say about the week or month or year ahead. The rock star status in various cultures of people’s ability to read leaves, animal entrails, palms, etc. What this tells us is how curious most of us are to know what the future has in store for us.
In real life, across different contexts we see this being applied. Be it for picking stocks, speculating on a commodity, or telling us how many more miles our car can travel or when will our inventory exhaust and so on. The emergence of artificial intelligence also opens up possibilities of leveraging these powerful tools and techniques to help take a futuristic view and plan for paths today.
Why we should care about the Future of our Health?
One place where this does not seem to be used and/or applied to the extent possible is in Health & Healthcare. All of us would like to be healthy. The reality is most of us are unhealthy or getting there. Even if one were to discount the spike in the demand for healthcare services driven by a black swan event like Covid-19, there is still a constant, growing, scary surge of people suffering from lifestyle diseases. What used to be 1 in 20 people has over the years come closer to 1 in 3 adults and is heading towards 1 in 2. This is overwhelming the healthcare system. This is making us unhealthy and our planet a warehouse of disease. The question then is. Can we do anything to prevent it? Other conditions like gestational diabetes, heart disease, hypertension or high cholesterol can also lead to prediabetes.
And specifically, can each one of us play a role in that. The answer is a loud and emphatic Yes! In simple terms:
- We should understand our current state of health and state of risk.
- If a state of risk is identified, we should mitigate that risk and ensure we do not get into a state of disease.
- If we are in a state of disease, we should work towards remedying that to move towards a state of good health.
While the above sounds simple and right, each one of us is not a qualified Doctor enabled to do this. So, how can we even know or act on the above – one might ask. Like it is said by the sage Albus Dumbledore in the world of Harry Potter and Hogwarts, help will always be given to those who ask for it.
The “magic spells” for predicting the future of your Health
First, we need to know – where are we today. In this article, we will focus on Step 1 from above. Lifestyle diseases are indeed preventable. And even if present, can be improved to mitigate progression and in certain cases reversed as well. Please look at our other blogs to find the paths/solutions for Step 2 and Step 3 or maybe just call/email us.
A few bodily processes going awry are predictive signs of risk of the onset of multiple diseases: Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Fat production/distribution etc.
The following would be a good starting point of diagnostic tests that can be useful and insightful to predict the future of your health.
- hsCRP – High Sensitivity C Reactive Protein
- LP-PLA2
- Ferritin
- Fasting Insulin
- HOMA – IR
- Waist to Hip Ratio
- Cystatin C
- eGFR
- Visceral Fat Percentage
- Body fat percentage
- Homocysteine
- Lipoprotein A – LP(A)
- HDL
- TG/HDL
- LDL/HDL
These should be easily doable at your knowledgeable neighbourhood diagnostics lab. We have built an online tool to help you analyse your values from the above tests and understand them and their implications. Please check it out here.
We also have a Smart Health & Risk Assesment Test that you could take advantage of which includes all the above and overall uses 150+ parameters to understand your State of Health, Lifestyle, Risk & Disease. Please check it out here.
So, all of ye, go forth, understand what the future has in store and, as needed, make changes today to change your future!
Armed with the above, we do hope you take the first step in your journey towards better health: Get a sense of where you are today and where you are headed. This can help you make the right choices on the journey to go forward.
This is one Crystal Ball gazing activity that can be very useful and one we hope you do take advantage of as you navigate your health improvement journey!
