Do Healthy Lifestyles Really Matter?
How much should we rely on study results?
Sarah was a successful Pennsylvania chiropractor and wellness guru who succumbed to cancer in her mid-40’s. She endured 2 rounds of the disease within 3–4 years- breast cancer followed by bone cancer. I will always miss her amazing tutelage on lumbar health and overall wellness, and for her gentle and efficacious way. She was the queen of “bedside manner”. It was quite difficult to comprehend that such a lovely person who helped so many people had to experience such trauma and be dealt such a fate. But that is another topic altogether.
Sarah’s lifestyle, as she described to me: A vegetarian with an all-natural/ organic diet. Never drank alcohol. She was an herbal-vitamin authority and avoided medication for any illness whenever possible; for her there was always a “natural” option over chemical. Genetics may have played a role in her premature passing, but it certainly wasn’t lifestyle.
Though Sarah is just one example, it’s no secret that healthy lifestyles are inextricably linked to a lower risk of many maladies including cancer. The most common causes of serious illness and death are heart disease, cancer, stroke as well as Alzheimer’s disease. And it seems there will always be the question of whether lifestyle or genetics, or perhaps a combo of the two, are the reasons.
In the Daniel Levitan book, Successful Aging, the Canadian Neuroscientist presents multiple studies that demonstrate how environment, and a healthy lifestyle are more important than genetics for predicting body/brain health and life span. Sarah’s outcome could certainly bring Levitan’s assertion into question. She could not have done more to live “a clean life”.
But what constitutes a healthy lifestyle- and why is it easy for some to practice while others struggle? Perhaps for the hesitant folk it’s too much effort without the guarantee of a payoff. Add a dose of “Im gonna die anyway” mentality and the tradeoff becomes self-fulfilling. In their defense, it’s human nature to opt for what is easier and feels better.
My Mom and dad began their struggle with cancer in their forties and neither survived the disease. Dad was a smoker, drank too much alcohol and had a meat and potatoes diet. He was the guru for what not to do. Years of adult inactivity superseded his WW2 training and youth athletics and he perished before the half-century mark. Some of my folks’ siblings also succumbed to cancer, yet Mom’s brother made it to 100 and my maternal Grandmother reached 98; the result of good, clean living with the latter two.
Perhaps early life experiences and conditioning are the conduit to success? During my adolescence I witnessed my parents lengthy struggle with cancer, and that experience fueled my motivation to adopt early diet choices that most teens- other than athletes- would never consider. Thus, I was an early vitamin popper though I often bowed to peer pressure and freely indulged in recreational drink. After all it was the 70’s.
Thankfully, sports were an almost daily activity for me then; all these years later I continue to be quasi obsessive about exercise, eating organically wherever possible and attempting 7 hours sleep nightly- though sufficient sleep is a continual work in progress.
For anyone focused on clean living, and with no assurance of a favorable outcome, the question may be- why bother? Perhaps following the science as an insurance policy is reason enough. Once healthy habits become routine over a significant time they become lifestyle. In my case the lifestyle has been multiple decades.
Until the next grand medical breakthrough appears, the question of whether good health and longevity results from lifestyle choices- or from superior genetics- will be long debated.
