On the topic of not dying: Let’s not forget that many cancers today are manageable if caught early. I have seen several people suffer and sometimes die of colon, prostate, breast cancer that could potentially have been caught early. I am not a medical doctor, so I will write non-technically. Maybe others can improve the list.
If you are over 40 and have a prostate, get it checked. Today you can do that radiologically. If a urologist ten needs to check it by hand, s/he will.
If you are over 45, colonoscopy. Not fun, but can alert and deal with one of the most preventable cancers. I am supposed to have one in the coming months. Not looking forward to it, but I am also not looking forward to cancer.
Cervical Pap/HP for those with a cervix (over 30, apparently)
Breast exam (self exam + mammogram)
Another item I see often among people my age (50 and over) is heart related issues. A general practitioner can do one of those treadmill/bicycle exam, where they measure ECG and blood pressure. Easy and quick and can detect something fatal. More than once I have heard things like “oh, he was always very fit and then one day he collapsed while playing tennis”
These items may seem obvious to some of you. But I do now and then talk to smart and health-conscious people that postpone these tests.
Any percent point that you can shave off the probability of dying of cancer or heart attack is worth considering, particularly for those 45 and older.
While it’s true that cancers today are more manageable if caught early plenty of what gets diagnosed as cancer disappears without intervention and gets very harmful surgical interventions like amputations if diagnosed. During the Obama administration they purposefully reduced cancer by policy testing to reduce the amount of false positives.
Colonoscopy is not a risk-less procedure. There’s no evidence that the advice of getting a colonoscopy if you are over 45 reduces all-cause-mortality. The biggest modern randomized colonoscopy trial (NordICC) enrolled ages 55–64 found no reduction in all-cause-mortality.
For health-conscious people “I do only things that are proven to help with the goal of not dying” is a perfectly reasonable way to relate to the topic of these kinds of tests.
On the topic of not dying: Let’s not forget that many cancers today are manageable if caught early. I have seen several people suffer and sometimes die of colon, prostate, breast cancer that could potentially have been caught early. I am not a medical doctor, so I will write non-technically. Maybe others can improve the list.
If you are over 40 and have a prostate, get it checked. Today you can do that radiologically. If a urologist ten needs to check it by hand, s/he will.
If you are over 45, colonoscopy. Not fun, but can alert and deal with one of the most preventable cancers. I am supposed to have one in the coming months. Not looking forward to it, but I am also not looking forward to cancer.
Cervical Pap/HP for those with a cervix (over 30, apparently)
Breast exam (self exam + mammogram)
Another item I see often among people my age (50 and over) is heart related issues. A general practitioner can do one of those treadmill/bicycle exam, where they measure ECG and blood pressure. Easy and quick and can detect something fatal. More than once I have heard things like “oh, he was always very fit and then one day he collapsed while playing tennis”
These items may seem obvious to some of you. But I do now and then talk to smart and health-conscious people that postpone these tests.
Any percent point that you can shave off the probability of dying of cancer or heart attack is worth considering, particularly for those 45 and older.
While it’s true that cancers today are more manageable if caught early plenty of what gets diagnosed as cancer disappears without intervention and gets very harmful surgical interventions like amputations if diagnosed. During the Obama administration they purposefully reduced cancer by policy testing to reduce the amount of false positives.
Colonoscopy is not a risk-less procedure. There’s no evidence that the advice of getting a colonoscopy if you are over 45 reduces all-cause-mortality. The biggest modern randomized colonoscopy trial (NordICC) enrolled ages 55–64 found no reduction in all-cause-mortality.
For health-conscious people “I do only things that are proven to help with the goal of not dying” is a perfectly reasonable way to relate to the topic of these kinds of tests.