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I am always encouraging people to exercise and live an enriched life, so I figured I should post my weekend hike.

Had a great hike up La Luz trail that takes you up above 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) with an elevation gain of 3,775 feet (1,150 meters). This hike is in the Sandia mountains, which Albuquerque New Mexico is nestled up against. You pass through four different climate zones with changing flora and fauna (which I am sadly neglecting in knowledge). I was lucky enough to have met Dave a couple weeks ago at a coffee shop and he was my guide to this new playground that is only a few miles away from where I am currently living.

Sure this hike was no great adventure, but it was a very enjoyable long hike that additionally gave me a great multiple hour workout.

No matter what suggestions I make to try to improve your body and mental health (or the many other good sources of information and inspiration) it is nice to get some feedback on if your health is improving. You can use your subjective measurement of how you feel – which might be the most important, but it is also useful to have some concrete measurements than you can follow your progress.

All the hot buzz is personal health measurement centers around personal genomics, but in general your DNA does not change (mutations changes your genome and there are epigenetic changes (e.g. methylation). Therefore, you can’t use your genome as a measure of your changing health.

In a series of post I will discuss the many current cheaper and highly useful (predictive) measurements of your personal health you can use today. I will be concentrating on tests that are easy to implement and give a good bang for the buck.

Non-Invasive markers

Heart rate (self measurement or a heart rate monitor: low end $ 0.00, median $100, upper end $ 400)

Blood pressure ($ 50 - 100)

Physical aerobic ability

VO2 max (general fitness): done at exercise lab, but can do various approximate tests at home.

Body fat burning ability at different levels of exertion (approx $ 250 ? see Alan Couzens and his colleagues: Gordo Byrn, Matt Steinmetz )

Body fat

General body fat level not as good health predictor as visceral fat

(Tanita scales are the most popular: $100. )

Visceral body fat (DEXA scan: $125 -300 each scan)

Slightly invasive

Blood profile

Glucose (blood glucose meters: cheap or free but pay per test for strips)

Cholesterol: New home devices can measure cholesterol (approx $ 100)

Cholesterol, HDL/LDL (CardioChek PA: approx $ 550, might be new alternatives)

Inflammatory levels

C-reactive protein (CRP): no home test at this time.

IL-6: no home test at this time.

This is a first basic level of measurements that you can test and more importantly retest. Most of them you can do at home repeatedly (notable exception at this time is the inflammatory markers). The optimal test would be easy to perform, high reliability, and cheap so you can test many times. Additionally, no one test is the best measurement of ‘health’, so multiples test would give you a more accurate measurement of your health.

Tomorrow, hopefully I will concentrate on one of the simplest which is heart rate. There are multiple measurements that you take and get some predictive clinically tested health measurements.

New data released from CDC indicates that the number of cases of diabetes in USA has risen to 24 million (2007), up from 21 million 2 years ago (2005). Now, 8 % of the American population have diabetes. A further 57 million Americans are in the pre-diabetic stage, which makes this group prone to developing full blown diabetes. That would make a total of 81 million Americans being diabetic or pre-diabetic out of the 303 million population, a startling 25.7 % of the population.

The latest headlines about the obesity rate in America for teens claim great headlines about the rate leveling off. That is almost comical because all that means is that the rate is not rising as fast. The rate of obesity is still increasing, so not sure if people should be celebrating. 32 % of Americans kids still remained overweight or obese. With that high of a percentage of overweight children what do you think is going to happen to diabetes rate when these children hit adulthood or middle age?

As for American adults an article from 2007 indicates that 66% are overweight or obese (2003-4 data). According to the CDC website 33.3 % of men and 35.3% of women are obese. And remember these adults were not at the same level of obesity as the children of today, so again what will happen to these adult numbers when the current children become adults?

Gasoline, as we are all painfully aware of keep skyrocketing, with new record highs it seems almost everyday. On June 26th 2008 oil prices his just below $ 140 per barrel and speculation of $ 170 by the end of summer (update: today oil hit $ 142).

Obvious thought, why doesn’t America do a little less driving and a bit more walking. Lose weight, reduce the prevalence of diabetes, and save money and oil. Additionally, don’t you think carrying all those extra pounds add up to reduced gas mileage?

Not practical many would arguie, instead we are inventing more ways to make us lazy, such as power assisted luggage.

Funny how the models they used don’t represent the population of people that would really be using such a device. I thought the general idea of wheeled luggage and backpack devices was misguided to begin with. Carry the weight get some exercise.

What are the current trends: rising diabetes, obesity is not going away, rising oil prices, but we keep on wanting to reduce our bodies energy output. Does this compute ?

Well for you the betterment of your pocket book and health, why not this summer trying to increasing overall body energy output, for example by walking a bit more, and driving less.

What do you have to lose, other than some weight and more money in the bank. Even if you don’t need to lose weight (33 % of the population) I am sure getting in better shape would be good for your general health and you can still use the extra money.

Have a good weekend, get outdoors and enjoy the summer.

In previous posts (here, here, here, here) I have explained how the two simplest things you can do for better brain and body health is live in an enriched environment (new learning, novelty, etc), and exercise. But we all are limited by time. That is why I was quite excited by a post by Alvaro posted at SharpBrains who interviewed a leading neuroscientist, Dr Kraemer. Dr Kramer is widely published and wrote a very good review paper in nature reviews neuroscience, which examined the positive impact on the brain from aerobic exercise (a high impact review journal which you don’t get to write for unless you are highly published and respected).

The simple, but great idea, offered as practical advice in the interview was why not combine an enriched environment with exercise in the form of a walking book club. This would save you time and give you twice the impact (in theory). Why not combine intellectual engagement and exercise?

So head over to Alvaro’s interview of Dr. Kramer - very interesting and down to earth advice.

I was lucky enough to be involved in a book club back in Vancouver, Canada with some great friends, until I recently moved (temporary). The question I will have to ask my friends is how we are going to carry the wine (see resveratrol) during the walk and talk ?

I think once I go back to Vancouver we will have to implement the new and improved book club. Anyone reading this blog and living in Vancouver are welcome to join – I will keep everybody informed.

But beyond my own plans, the idea of an ‘active’ book club (walking is the easiest to implement I presume) could be started by any of you out there. How about it - this could be a whole new movement (well, if Oprah started one).