Your health is a hugely important and even vital thing, and one that should not be taken for granted, especially as you begin to age. Treating you body right – feeding it the right foods, giving it the right amount of exercise, and seeing your general care practitioner are all important components that add up to living a healthy lifestyle. And as you grow older, it is likely that more health problems will naturally develop – as around seventy percent of all those over the age of sixty five in the United States have at least one chronic health problem if not more than just one – keeping yourself in good health in your younger days will not only help your body to cope with any chronic problems that develop, but help to prevent them from developing in the first place.
Going in regularly to see the doctor as you age is also important, as your doctor is likely to conduct a number of tests, such as colorectal cancer screening tests, to help ensure that you are in continued good health. Aside from colorectal cancer screening tests, if it is deemed necessary, your doctor will also be on the look out for conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. These three conditions are now more common than ever before, and rates of all three have risen among the population of those who are over the age of sixty five. With many people having less than healthy lifestyles, it has been concluded that people in their fifties or older living in the United States today have been found to have a higher risk of developing such conditions than their parents did when they were at the same age. It is also true that, with better disease screen and the full body scan health check, as well as with specialized tests like the ABI vascular test and general vascular screening, more of these conditions are able to be detected earlier than ever before.
And this preventative health screening is hugely important, as the earlier that a condition is noticed, the earlier it can be treated, saving many patients from a good deal of suffering. For instance, hypertension screening can help to spot chronically high blood pressure in elderly patients. As hypertension has been found to have a direct link to risk of heart attack, it is hugely important that it is detected and treated as quickly as possible. High cholesterol is also a culprit of heart attacks, and leads to as much as a doubled risk of having one.
With as many as seventy five million total adults in the United States diagnosed with high blood pressure and many more with high cholesterol, heart attacks and heart disease are all too common in the United States, no matter where you go in the country. In fact, there are more than seven hundred thousand heart attacks in just one year in this country, and nearly ninety thousand women between the ages of forty five and sixty four alone will sustain a heart attack in the same period of time. And heart disease itself, often the underlying cause of a heart attack, is responsible for as many as twenty five percent of all deaths per year in the United States, totaling more than six hundred thousand lives lost.
Colorectal cancer screening tests are also hugely important, as cancer rates rise with age. Colorectal cancer screening tests should be done if you have any risk factors for the disease, but colorectal cancer screening tests should also be conducted regularly once you reach a certain age. The importance of colorectal cancer screening tests should not be underestimated, as prostate cancer will be diagnosed in as many as ten percent of all men in the United States.
General medical screening such as colorectal cancer screening tests are important preventative measures for the general health of the aging population of those who are over the age of sixty five in the United States and becoming more susceptible to developing at least one chronic health problem, if not more than one. Your health is important.