Most people start improving their health from the wrong direction; adding new habits before fixing the underlying problems.
Smoking, heavy alcohol intake, and uncontrolled blood sugar cause more harm than any supplement or training protocol can compensate for.
~1 in 5 UK adults has pre-diabetes - most do not know it. Check your HbA1c.
Baseline blood testing is the fastest way to find out which problems are worth solving first.
Introduction
In line with the growing popularity of hyper-optimizing wellness culture, a new kind of person emerges.
They track their sleep score every morning and take seven supplements at breakfast, but drinks heavily on weekends, is 15kg overweight, and has never checked their blood sugar.
Without addressing those fundamentals you're not actually taking care of your body - trying to "optimize your health" will give you marginal benefits at best.
Instead, try re-directing your efforts towards fixing the things causing you the most damage. Below are a few ideas on where to get started:
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Quit smoking & vaping
Noteably the single highest value intervention. Smoking accelerates cardiovascular disease, raises cancer risk, and compounds virtually every other health risk a person might have.
Quitting halves your heart attack risk after a year. Your heightened risks of developing type 2 diabetes, bone disease, eye disease, and dementia also significantly decrease.
If you struggle with smoking, there are countless resources to help. Here is one by the NHS.
Reduce alcohol intake
Alcohol is arguably the most socially appropriate addictive substance. The NHS advises staying below 14 units a week - roughly 6 pints of average-strength beer, or 10 small glasses of wine. Above that threshold, the risks to the liver, heart, and several cancers rise in a dose-dependent way.
However, alcohol has no safe level of consumption. Any alcohol intake is detrimental to your health and raises your cancer risk, even below the advised 14 unit limit.
Longevity starts with awareness
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Monitor your blood sugar
High blood sugar levels are often much less visible, and tend to go unnoticed. Around 1 in 5 UK adults now has diabetes or pre-diabetes; blood sugar elevated enough to cause long-term harm. Many will not find out until the problem has progressed.
The biomarker to know is HbA1c: it indicates your blood glucose over the past 2-3 months.
A between 42-47 mmol/mol suggests pre-diabetes.
Above 48 mmol/mol is a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis.
Neither diagnosis is catastropic, as both respond to early intervention through diet, weight management, and exercise. The sooner you catch a heightened HbA1c, the more receptive your body may be to returning back to normal.
Where to start
Triage applied to personal health means asking a question: what is doing the most damage right now?
To help you identify the single most valuable lifestyle change, you could consider getting a biomarker blood panel done - you cannot triage what you cannot see.
You can get a comprehensive private blood test that covers all the markers worth knowing about in one go.
Once you have the data, and have consulted a GP, the question often answers itself. If your HbA1c is elevated, that is the priority. If your cholesterol profile is poor, that is the priority. If everything looks reasonable, then - and only then - does it make sense to start thinking about the finer details.
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