Medical research has come a long way, and as a result, people live much longer than they used to. While no one can argue that expanding the average person’s lifespan is good, many folks are not enjoying the quality of life that we would hope as they get older. Many of the elderly have chronic conditions that overwhelm their daily activities or they get diseases repeatedly. Learning about and practising preventive healthcare, i.e. maintaining your body and good health throughout your entire lifetime, is properly the best method to prevent disease from happening in the first place. This has been the most glaring and disturbing issue in India, where there has been a complete lack of focus on preventive health care, with less than two per cent of the population focusing on it.

Preventive healthcare provides many direct benefits to the individual: Not having to deal with uncomfortable or painful symptoms, feeling more energetic and just being able to fully enjoy your daily activities. However, our health care system is geared to treating illness after the fact, once the acute symptoms force you to the emergency room. Even though many health insurance plans do cover preventive medicine such as regular check-ups, unfortunately, our medical system does not emphasize it. Therefore, the responsibility is for each individual to make sure the doctor understands the personal goal of staying healthy, and that preventing disease is a high priority.

Another aspect of preventive healthcare is finding and treating disease as soon as possible. Some sort of illness hits everyone eventually, but many, many diseases – when caught early – can be nipped in the bud and full health returned quickly. So it is important to become educated about illness and their symptoms, and what it takes to maintain good health overall. Moreover, it is also important to visit your doctor on a regular schedule – at least annually or possibly more often as you get older – in order to stay healthy and catch any disease early. If detected soon enough, a full cure is much more likely. It is also much more unlikely that most disease will become serious enough to negatively affect your lifestyle with debilitating symptoms or even loss of life.

Secondary benefits also result from all of us dedicating ourselves to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. No one can argue that medical care is expensive, and preventing disease can help avoid a large financial loss or bankruptcy.

Preventive healthcare should be considered an investment, with keeping your retirement nest egg as your return on investment by maintaining good health, as chronic illness is expensive

The choices regarding our health is simple: Either invest a relatively small amount in order to stay in good health, or pay a huge amount later to treat the disease that is bound to eventually hit us. Since major medical expenses could easily exceed our maximum insurance coverage, this second choice could cause us financial ruin as well. Weigh the relatively inexpensive cost of regular check-ups against the enormous expense of major care such as cancer treatment or long-term home healthcare visits by a nurse or health aide. Major medical expenses often destroys a person’s life savings; adding the insult of poverty to the existing injury of physical suffering. The years of frugally planning, saving and investing in order to enjoy your retirement years can be erased by neglecting physical health during those same years. Remember, most diseases are highly preventable by practising preventive healthcare habits.

Interestingly, as more and more people get on the preventive healthcare bandwagon, we will also be benefiting all of us collectively. By minimizing our individual demands on the health care system, we contribute to keeping the system efficient, affordable and functioning smoothly.  On the other hand, if too many people wait  to get treated (when the illness or injury is most like more serious), the burden becomes much greater on the system overall, and the quality of everyone’s health care suffers and medical expenses rise. The inevitable result will be higher health costs, poorer medical services for each individual and a highly-taxed medical system.

When you are sick, you have no choice but to think about your health; it’s right there in your face – as you feel awful. Preventive health care must be planned and executed ahead of time, even when illness is absent. You must build healthy habits even when it’s not convenient. You must believe that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important enough to make a few sacrifices. Eating right, getting exercise and avoiding health destructive substances like tobacco, alcohol and excessive amounts of sugar and salt are crucial, as is getting enough sleep each night. Healthy habits are an “automatic” defence against most illnesses and can provide us a long, healthy – and thus happy – life!

One should make it a habitual practice to visit their health care provider from time to time, even if they are healthy. The purpose of these visits is to:
•    Screen for diseases, such as high blood pressure or diabetes
•    Look for future disease risks, such as high cholesterol and obesity
•    Discuss alcohol use and safe drinking and tips on how to quit smoking
•    Encourage a healthy lifestyle, such as healthy eating and exercise
•    Update vaccinations
•    Maintain a relationship with your health care provider in case of sudden / emergency illness

The following are some of the tests that may be done or scheduled periodically:

Blood pressure; Blood sugar; Cholesterol (blood); Colon cancer screening test; Depression screening; Genetic testing for breast cancer or ovarian cancer in certain women; HIV test; Mammogram; Osteoporosis screening; Pap smear; Tests for Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis, and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Another part of preventive health is learning to recognize changes in your body that may not be normal, so you can see your health care provider right away, including: A lump anywhere on your body; Sudden drastic loss of weight;  Sudden drastic weight gain; A lasting fever; A cough that does not go away; Body aches and pains that do not go away; Changes or blood in your stools; Skin changes or sores that do not go away or get worse; Other changes or symptoms that are new or do not go away.

It is clear that preventive health care is important. To start your own “good health” practices, there are four things you can do immediately without any medical knowledge:
•    Don’t smoke or use other tobacco products
•    Drink only in moderation (red wine in the most acceptable use of alcohol)
•    Eat a proper, balanced diet to get the correct amount of nutrients and daily calorie intake
•    Avoid excess consumption of meat products (specially red meat)
•    Exercise at least three days per week
•    See your doctor regularly for check-ups.

Take the time to learn more; educate yourself. Most importantly, start working on your healthy habits today. A habit is something you do without thinking about it, and building good habits doesn’t take that long. You will thank yourself later by being healthier, having more energy and enjoying life to its fullest.

(The author is resident medical expert, Indian Health Organisation Pvt. Ltd).