08/16/2024

Seven Metrics Everyone Should Know About Their Own Health

Focus on the basics first

If you're asked to share a few fun facts about yourself, you're probably not going to rattle off your blood pressure or cholesterol levels (even if your "good" cholesterol is, well, really good). But you should have a solid sense of what those numbers are, experts say. Why?

"That old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is absolutely correct," said Dr. Josh Septimus, an internal medicine physician with Houston Methodist Hospital. A small number of conditions, including heart disease and metabolic disorders, cause an enormous amount of suffering. "If we can identify a few things that help us prevent those morbidities, it's very much worth your time."

That said, you don’t have to know everything. Experts widely pan full-body health scans, for example, that claim to catch early signs of problems like cancer. And while it's certainly possible to track and analyze your health data via smartwatches and other gadgets, you're not necessarily going to gain much by doing so. Septimus' patients sometimes "get lost in some random number," he added—and when that happens, he refocuses them "on the basics."

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.