Making Medicine Work for You
For as long as I’ve been in medicine (even as a patient, as a young child), medicine has been focused on disease treatment. This sounds like a great idea in the moment, as it allows a doctor and scientists to use treatments to try to help measurable diseases. As it stands right now, medical schools around the globe spend years focusing on teaching the litany of diseases and their treatments to many young doctors getting ready to start their careers. This makes sense, because this is a lot of what physicians will end up doing in their careers: trying to slow down disease.
Because of this time spent, many doctors and nurses only receive a marginal amount of training in disease prevention. Much of this training is outdated, and tools for learning how to continue this path of study tend to be poor at best. Unfortunately, this has created a system of medicine where patients will only receive testing or treatments once they finally have a disease state. (Or if the disease state is finally severe enough!) This leaves most patients feeling like they are the least important part of the process.
Well, there’s a growing shift in medicine that a number of us providers are beginning to dive into. The focus is on PREVENTION! The idea is that if we can help the patient unlock their biggest risk points by putting them first underneath the looking glass, then we can begin to get ahead of their weakest links. This process begins to build true Longevity. Not just being alive longer, debilitated, sitting on a couch the rest of your life, but living longer Functionally! The term, I’ve begun to call Functional Longevity. Or as others will call, increasing your “Healthspan.”
To begin to accomplish this goal for yourself, try to start looking at the medical system as something that needs to learn how to bend itself to you and your needs. There needs to be a combination of taking care of the disease states you currently have (high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, etc.), but also a focus on prevention. Looking at your highest risk areas: Cardiovascular, strength, endurance, bone mass. Each of these areas has a number of ways to evaluate from a Functional Longevity standpoint, and when proactively adjusted, can have a direct impact on your overall Functional Longevity.
Sometimes this takes finding a Doctor or medical provider who has the time and is willing to partner with you on this journey. Getting 2nd or 3rd opinions along with trying out a few providers can help you to see who may click and connect with you! Also, sometimes it takes investing into your health and healthcare. These investments may need to be financial, but are always an investment in your time. This could be through gym memberships, exercise programs, diet changes, diet programs, but also could be through Functional Medicine concierge clinics.
Either way, as the volume of data continues to grow, it is obvious that the earlier you make these changes in life, the more “payout” you can get in your final decade of life. It’s somewhat similar to retirement investing in that way. Here we are, early into a new year. This is the perfect time to start planning and making your medical care work for you!
