Aspirations to Immortalilty Vs Genetic Predisposition.

Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 12:50am
I've been preoccupied lately with trying to increase my longevity. This isn't one of my usual out of the blue sudden neurotic fixations. Well, maybe it is just a little. But this one has a basis in some very real concerns. First of all, let me just state that I'm exaggerating when I say I'm striving for immortality. It's my way of saying that I'm trying to live a healthier lifestyle. Here is one of the biggest reasons why:
My father had his first heart attack when he was about 56 years old.
My mother followed suit, with a heart attack when she was approximately 56 years old or so.
My dad cleaned up his act a lot after his and he's doing pretty well, 20 some years later. My mom didn't clean up her act, and while there were certainly other complications, she died a fairly slow and disturbing death. At one point doctors were offering her a choice between death or amputations that might or might not save her. A woman that envisaged herself as elegant and graceful (though this is not likely the way she was perceived) she opted for death.
My brother is 14 years older than me. With the exception of perhaps myself he has lived the healthiest lifestyle of any member in my family. He has exercised regularly, avoided alcohol and stayed with a pretty specific diet for most of his adult life. He was a smoker however.
Tonight my now non-smoking brother is in hospital, at the age of 51 or so, recovering from bypass surgery. He had FIVE bypasses. I didn't know that many were possible. He told me that the Doctors had told him it wasn't lifestyle that caused it, but it was his choice in parents. It's basically hereditary heart disease.
Here is where you all find out what an asshole I truly am. I'm not close to my brother, and my thoughts instantly went to myself.
I subscribe to a Running magazine, and the December issue focussed on a runner that fell victim to a heart attack in his 40s. Despite being a marathon runner and health nut, he had a heart attack at the same age as his father. The article went on to explain that if you are coded for heart disease, even extra precautions aren't extra-precautionary enough. It mentioned that it's almost like clockwork how uncannily close someone will have a heart attack to the age that their parents had theirs. So I'm looking at all kinds of ways to go beyond the already fairly healthy lifestyle I've been living (chili dogs and vanilla icing binges excluded) to an even healthier one.
For starters, no more hot dogs, and no more chicken wings. In fact, if it's been submerged in oil, I'm not eating it. In addition I'm not cooking my vegetables anymore, apparently they do more for you raw, and since I hate them either way it makes no difference to me. I'm also forcing myself to choke down more and more fruit.
It's just like poker really. Once you know how your opponent plays, you just have to pick the right strategy to beat him. And beating this one means implementing your strategy early in the game.