Know before you make a mistake! What kind of health check is useless? Know before you miss out! What kind of health checks are useless (but people still do them). In this week’s Tuck Talk, discover the truth that no one has ever told. What kind of health checks are like throwing money away? Thai medicine has advanced far, but Thais still have a higher rate of illness because the disease prevention system has failed? Is screening for cancer a waste of money?
3 health programs that you should get checked if you don’t want to die young. Knowledge is shared by Dr. Atthasit Saksuthaporn, a specialist in integrative medicine and owner of the page “Don’t leave your life in the hands of a doctor.” Let’s listen to the answer together.
Annual health check-up: At what age should we start having it ?
Dr. At: Actually, there are about 2 numbers. The first one is 25, and the other one is 32. This one is the slowest.
How to check if your health is good or not ?
Dr. At: The real goal of an annual health check is to prevent disease. Let me give you an example. Suppose that a person has their sugar level checked. This year, it’s a little over a hundred. The doctor said that their sugar level is starting to get high. They should control it a little. The next year, the test result is 110. It went up. They should control it a little more. The following year, it’s 126. You have diabetes and are taking medicine. This test is to screen people to see if they’re sick or not, right? And testing to prevent disease is a different matter. It looks similar, right? But it’s a different matter. One is to diagnose disease to see if you’re sick or not. If you’re sick, you take medicine, right? Oh, your sugar level is too high. You’re diabetic.
Taking even heavier medicine ?
Dr. At: I have to say that on the first day we were diagnosed with diabetes, half of our pancreatic cells had already died. 50%. The pancreas is an organ that helps control blood sugar levels. Now, when we were diagnosed with diabetes on the first day, half of them had already died. Why didn’t we take care of it when 10% or 20% had already died?
What are the basic programs that everyone needs to check ?
Dr. At: The first thing is about sugar. Some people behave well during the sugar check. For example, some people with diabetes will deceive the doctor for 2-3 days. To go for a good health check-up, you have to act the same as before. You eat what you eat. We want to know your true condition. Therefore, when you go for the check-up, act the same as before. I would recommend that if you want to get a better check-up, you should get a hemoglobin A1C cumulative sugar test. This is a sugar test that looks back at you for the past 3 months.
Is this important ?
Dr. At: It’s important. Accumulate sugar. If you want to make it better, you have to do it for all 3 months.
Look back over the past 3 months to see your average blood sugar level. The hemoglobin A1C test does not require fasting at all because fasting is useless. It is only one day and goes back for 3 months.
Can we go and have it inspected separately ?
Dr. At: Yes, I think the accumulated cost of checking blood sugar is not that much. We will also know whether we have eaten too much sugar or snacks in the past 3 months, and then adjust ourselves. A good value is less than 5.5, which is less than 5.5 indicates that the risk of chronic diseases, heart disease, stroke, or diabetes is lower than normal people.
Is this the one that is at risk of diabetes ?
Dr. At: The risk of diabetes, if we want to check a little more, actually I will say that before people get diabetes, we will have one condition first. This condition is called insulin resistance. Normally, if we eat sugar or eat snacks, we are not yet diabetic. When we eat sugar, let’s say the sugar is eaten, absorbed into the blood. When it is absorbed into the ทางเข้า UFABET สำหรับสมาชิกใหม่ สมัครวันนี้ รับโบนัสฟรี blood, our body sees that the blood sugar level is high. Our pancreas will produce insulin to control the blood sugar level. This condition is called insulin resistance. Simply put, insulin cannot reduce blood sugar well.
When it cannot reduce well, what happens? Our pancreas will have to produce more insulin to control the blood sugar level. Therefore, this condition will occur 5-10 years before diabetes. We will know before we get diabetes. But if we do not check, we will not know how to prevent diabetes. Do we have this condition yet? Some people say, is there something easy that does not cost money? One very good index, in the past we looked at weight and height.
Now, it is called a better index. It is the waist circumference to height ratio. Let’s say we are 160 cm tall, our waist circumference must not exceed 80 cm. People who are obese and have a big belly are at risk of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
In particular, diabetes is also hereditary ?
Dr. At: I think it’s just one part. Mostly it’s behavioral. Don’t blame it all on genetics. Don’t forget to look at your own behavior as well. But most people in the same family tend to eat the same food or have the same lifestyle.
How to check cholesterol levels to get good results ?
Dr. At: When checking lipids, I must first say that the lipid test will show 4 values. One value is the cholesterol value. I will divide it into one side first, which is the total cholesterol. There are 2 more values that will be in cholesterol, which are good fat and bad fat. This group is the cholesterol group. The cholesterol group is divided into good and bad. The bad will stick to our blood vessels and make them narrow. The good is like an empty car floating in the blood vessels.
When it meets the bad, it will be sucked out and destroyed in the liver. Another value of fat is triglycerides, which people don’t pay much attention to. It is important because fatty liver disease is caused by high triglycerides. Our body creates 80% of our own cholesterol and 20% comes from food.
How do cholesterol-lowering drugs work ?
Dr. At: They work by reducing production in the liver. If we roughly divide lipid-lowering drugs into 2 groups, one group reduces production in the liver. The other group reduces the absorption of cholesterol from the digestive tract. If you think that cholesterol comes from food, you should give this group of drugs, right? They reduce the absorption of cholesterol from the digestive tract, but this group can reduce it by only 10-15% when taken. But if the other group reduces production in the liver, when taken, it can reduce it by half.
It has to be the right way, too ?
Dr. At: This is something I will say that confirms that cholesterol does not come from food. The most important cause of high cholesterol is stress. When we are stressed, our body creates hormones to support the stress. These hormones use cholesterol as a precursor. When we are stressed, the body wants to create these hormones, so the body creates more cholesterol in the hope that this cholesterol will change into hormones.
And does exercise help? In terms of cholesterol, can we solve it with exercise in addition to stress ?
Dr. At: For example, if someone is stressed, light exercise is okay, but if they exercise too hard, it can be stressful. It is physical stress. So, the question is, why are we afraid of cholesterol? We are afraid that cholesterol will clog our blood vessels, right? Clogging our heart blood vessels, clogging our brain blood vessels.
So, regarding cholesterol, I suggest that if you have a budget, try to check for 3 more things. This is what I would recommend. Cholesterol, I have to say that it has been like the bad guy for a long time. It is like a villain in medicine. They see that when blood vessels are clogged, it is cholesterol. Nowadays, there are more and more cholesterol-lowering drugs, which are at the top of the best-selling drugs. Many people use them. But why are there more and more cases of cerebrovascular disease and coronary artery disease? Is there the wrong villain?
Is this 50-60 cancer screening good ?
Dr. At: Let’s go back to the basic health check for cancer first. Most cancer screenings will check what is called Tumor Marker to look at various CA. Ovarian cancer, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, I must say that checking these values cannot prevent cancer. But people check every year. Sometimes when we check, if the value is not high, it cannot be certain that we do not have that cancer. Or for some people, if the value is high, it may not be due to cancer.
These values are actually used to monitor cancer treatment. To monitor the treatment to see if our CA has decreased. I think that cancer screening is because there are many organs. Asking if there is a universal test is quite difficult. An easy test that does not cost much, most people with cancer will have 3 values that are usually high: 1. High LDH 2. High Ferritin 3. *High Fibrinogen. So try checking these 3 values. Usually, if there is cancer, it will be high.