In a shocking but yet not shocking study, only 7% of Americans had optimal cardiometabolic health. The criteria were blood pressure, blood sugar, blood cholesterol, weight, and cardiovascular disease.
This plays a major role in everything medical related from COVID outcome to $$$ spent and life expectancy.
To quote Pogo - we have met the enemy and he is us.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957255
JLC
JLC,
Cholesterol is the tricky one. People with very good readings are being put on statins for not having totally protective readings.
The bar is far higher than it had been in other words.
If in the EU that standard of care is not followed then Europe would have a significantly higher percentage of people in optimal cardiometabolic healthâŚaccording to them.
representative sample of about 55,000 people aged 20 years or older from 1999 to 2018
[From the link]
I would like to see the age demographic breakdown, how many Americans 20 to 30 donât meet this criteria? If even 40% of 20 to 25 year-olds donât meet these health screening, then does that mean that only 1% of people 60 to 65 do?
Does this maybe mean that only 90% of people 20 to 30 are obese?
Did the study follow people over the 19 year period and exclude them as healthy if at anytime they didnât meet the criteria?
TucsonBones writes,
I would like to see the age demographic breakdown, how many Americans 20 to 30 donât meet this criteria?
Iâd like to see âthe criteriaâ, which wasnât detailed in the article.
The criteria were blood pressure, blood sugar, blood cholesterol, weight, and cardiovascular disease.
https://www.medicinenet.com/blood_pressure_chart_reading_by_âŚ
Normal fasting blood sugar (glucose) is 100 or less. Is optimal something less than 100?
The are several measures of blood cholesterol. Maybe theyâre talking about HDL?
For weight, a BMI less than 25 is ânormalâ. Again is optimal something less?
Your doctor would need to tell you if you had any signs of cardiovascular disease.
intercst
WHAT? Thereâs something wrong when having healthy levels of blood pressure, normal blood sugar, blood cholesterol, and Body Mass Index means being part of a very small minority.
Thereâs something wrong when having healthy levels of blood pressure, normal blood sugar, blood cholesterol, and Body Mass Index means being part of a very small minority.
You can rejoin this minority by living right. One of the few things still under your control for most of us.
The Captain
did
You can rejoin this minority by living right. One of the few things still under your control for most of us.
When I left Venezuela in April 2019 I was weighing around 70 Kgs, 155 pounds which I considered my ideal weight, not far from my high school weight. Portugal has been fattening, so much variety, so much food. I didnât have a bathroom scale but my secondary gauge is the cowhide belt I bought in Santa Barbara decades ago. It keeps a record of my belly circumference which has expanded and shrunk by four to five inches over the years, the equivalent to between 45 and 65 pounds of body weight. I felt the need to rejoin the 7% before my medical conditions return so last week I bought a bathroom scale.
The Captain
The Bathroom Scale
The scale is the most gorgeous minimalist (less is more) consumer electronics device I have ever owned in my life. It puts Appleâs gadgets to shame! Itâs from the century old Dutch Brabantia company. https://www.brabantia.com/int_en/digital-bathroom-scales-batâŚ
It said: 75.5 Kgs! Only 5.5 Kgs or 12 pounds to shed. Should be doable in 12 to 24 weeks, four to six months.
Step one: Back to only olive oil, cut the cheese, less red meat, more chicken & fish.
Step two: More of the same.
The second day I used it my weight jumped by over a kilo and that is impossible. When I double checked it was back near to the original 75.5 Kgs! A glitch? It happened again. Was this thing defective? Google to the rescue.
It turns out you have to âcalibrateâ the scale, let it find out how much it weighs so it can deduct it from the total weight it âfeels.â Put some weight on the scale, take it off, and it will reset itself to 0.0 â could it be easier?
The strange thing is that nowhere in the instructions in at least nine languages does it talk about calibration. On Amazon it has a large number of very negative reviews because people donât know about calibration. Iâm going to do my good deed of the week by alerting them.
Itâs beautiful!
âonly 7% of Americans had optimal cardiometabolic healthâ
What is the normal percentage to have optimal cardiometabolic health?
Have we gotten worse or better in any meaningful way?
There is a difference between optimal and normalâŚ
There is a difference between optimal and normalâŚ
âOptimalâ probably depends on the personâs physical activities while ânormalâ is a statistical number of some sort which probably varies by ethnicity and culture.
The Captain
I would like to see the age demographic breakdownâŚ
Thereâs a graph in the abstract (link in the article) that breaks the numbers down by age, race, educational level and income. The full text seems to be behind a paywall. The relevant data are all available in the abstract/teaserâŚ
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07351âŚ
Mind you, even the criteria used to gauge this cardiometabolic health are pretty crude measurements of whatâs going on âunder the hoodâ.
âBlood sugarâ for instance. Iâm assuming this means fasting blood glucose and/or HbA1c. Well, those numbers, for but one example, donât give a complete picture since, type 1 diabetes excepted, the figures donât give any idea about insulin resistance and the earliest departure from healthy homeostasis. My FBG of 89 and HbA1c of 5.2 might well have been achieved with my pancreas pumping out boatloads of insulin because of insulin resistance. Thankfully thatâs not the caseâŚbut I didnât know that for sure until after this last physical and my new docâs attitude of âIf itâs important enough for you to ask, itâs important enoughâ (and how about a CAC scan while youâre at itđ)
I still think like a dentist even in retirement. With preventable diseases, itâs oftentimes behaviour that precedes any noticeable change in biomarkers like the ones in this study.
What is the normal percentage to have optimal cardiometabolic health?
Have we gotten worse or better in any meaningful way?
I recently saw a cartoon somewhere on the internet. It is easier to describe than to try and find it again and link to it.
âIn a shocking but yet not shocking studyâ
Statistics gives so much information but tells you nothing.
Howie52
Studies routinely provide the results that the organization paying for the study desire.
5) Your doctor would need to tell you if you had any signs of cardiovascular disease.
Actually and unfortunately , the most frequent sign of cardiovascular disease is sudden death from an MI.
As far as people arguing about âoptimalâ vs ânormalâ, you have to keep in mind the change in Americaâs health profile over the past 40 years. Sadly, todayâs optimal (no disease, everything under control without meds) was normal a few generations ago. Todayâs normal is obese, multiple meds, and poor control.
JLC