The results from a 20 year British study of 5000 adults are in! (drum role please….)

…smoking, heavy drinking, inactivity, and poor diet can age you by 12 years and increase your chance of death. OK, this isn’t exactly groundbreaking news but it never hurts to be reminded.

Also in the news today…the Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that nearly half of all Americans have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes. One in eight Americans have two of those and one in 33 has all three. Of those with one condition only 15 percent have been diagnosed. In other words, there are a whole lot of people (50 millionish) walking around with some health issues that will kill them.

There are many implications to these two bits of news. First there is the societal cost. Who pays for these sick people? What is the cost of lost production? But closer to home is the impact this can have on your and your family. What about at work? You cannot go the distance if you are on your back in the hospital.

Our nation is a great place but a fast food diet does more harm than good. Do you have a breakroom at work? What kind of food and snacks are there? When you have company meetings do you serve donuts and coke or is there a more healthy option? Have you had a check-up in the past five years? Coventional wisdom says annually.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.