4 SCARY HEALTH FACTS YOU NEED TO HEAR

4 SCARY HEALTH FACTS YOU NEED TO HEAR

It’s Halloween, time for pumpkins carved into ghoulish designs with flames flickering within, dark nights filled with witches, vampires and monsters trick or treating through the streets and freakish movies keeping us up too late. But the truth is, what’s going in inside your own body could be scarier than anything Halloween has to throw at you. Here are 4 scary health facts that you need to hear.

1. Exercising a couple of times a week doesn’t mean you’re healthy

When we do our weekly exercise class once or twice a week we can mentally tick off the to-do box in our head next to exercise. The reality is though, if the rest of the time we are sat behind our desk for 8 hours a day with the only exercise being a few steps from home to car, that we are still at risk for a number of illnesses that can be exacerbated by inactivity like heart disease and diabetes. So, as well as your weekly exercise, make sure you’re getting up and moving regularly during the day.

2. If you’re a man you’re more likely to have high blood pressure

Not only do around 16 million people in the UK have high blood pressure but if you’re under 64 years of age, you’re more likely to have high blood pressure as a man. For women, worryingly, the lower your income the higher the likelihood that you’ll have high blood pressure. The only way to check whether you have high blood pressure is with a test, and many pharmacies now also offer this service. To lower your blood pressure, opt for cardio based exercises like swimming or gentle jogging.

3. 4 million people will be living within cancer in 2030

Charity Macmillan say that the number of people living with cancer in the UK will rise from 2.5 million to 4 million, and that is definitely scary. However, survival rates are also rising too. For women the hormone oestrogen is said to contribute to many types of breast and womb cancers, and being physically active is said to reduce the levels of oestrogen which could cut the risk overall.

4. The biggest killer in the UK is now dementia

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, The biggest killer in the UK is now dementia, overtaking heart disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia that affects brain, language and thought, and whilst age is the biggest risk factor in developing dementia having a healthy lifestyle and taking regular exercise is said to lower the risk.

We’ve seen some very scary health facts. There are no guarantees when it comes to our health, but what we have also seen is that keeping active gives us the best possible chance of staying strong and well for longer. Talk to us about developing a training plan to meet your short and long term health and fitness goals.

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