FEATURED ARTICLE
drive the life decisions you make to attempt to reduce the probability or severity of those diseases in yourself. This is extremely important because it dictates the strategies you will need to adopt to maintain your own good health.
In my family, heart disease is the big killer on both sides of my family. On my mother’s side, everyone suffered a coronary thrombosis which was usually fatal. She lost her mother, brother, and mother’s sister that way. My mother had one which significantly reduced the pumping capacity of her heart, but was fortunate to have my wife with her who got her to the hospital where a stent was
installed. My father’s family had a different type of heart disease which generally had to do with deterioration of the heart itself. For my father and some of his family members, this appeared to have some link to unmanaged stress that would not so seriously affect most of us.
The other big killer was smoking. My maternal grandfather developed COPD at an early age. His brother died of lung cancer. My father developed pulmonary fibrosis. My mother, a non-smoker, developed pulmonary fibrosis from
lifelong exposure to second hand smoke. My mother’s first cousin recently died from lung cancer. lifelong exposure to second hand smoke. My mother’s first cousin recently died from lung cancer.
From this history I knew that I should avoid actions that would build plaque in my arteries, make my circulatory and pulmonary systems as resilient as possible, and never think of smoking.
Exercise.
My real introduction to serious exercise was in the gymnasium at Cass Technical High School. I started lifting weights. The coaches also had us running on the indoor track and all this alternated with swimming in the natatorium. I really took to weight lifting and purchased a weight set for use at home. Over the years I added other forms of exercise including running, singles tennis, cross-country skiing, and walking.
What I learned long afterward was the importance of building your body. Weight lifting increases not only muscle strength, but also your bone density. Both are extremely important, especially as we age. Exercise forces calcium into your bones, helping to avoid bone brittleness in our later years. If you haven’t seen it, bone brittleness means that bones fracture more readily when subjected to stress such as a fall. Weak bones limit your mobility and make you subject to serious fractures such as that of the pelvis (which is often leads to life-threatening deterioration).
In my mid-twenties, I began running. My buddy and I were at the Oak Park High