My mind is a waste of space...

Dear guy with putrid B.O. in the gym: Holy fucking shit. I can smell your noxious stench three racks away. For the love of all that’s pure, wear some fucking deodorant and stop doing those fucking jumping jacks.

I was thinking I should get an allergy test just to see... I know I’m definitely allergic to something, and they’re generally mild, but I have no clue exactly what those somethings are. Since I left my wallet at home, I log on to the health web portal thing to try to find my insurance number just in case that’s necessary, and I see that there’s an offer to participate in the Scripps Genomic Health Initiative SGHI study which would allow me to get a genetic test done for the “greatly discounted” price of… $470! Right, that’s not expensive at all. Apparently Microsoft is partnering with Navigenics to provide the testing and results-health-web-portal-thingy for the study, which would otherwise cost $2500 at Navigenics. The study’s supposed to help determine the psychological or behavioral impact of getting genomic testing results—whether a predisposition to a disease would promote “healthier” behaviors and the flipside, whether not having genetic disposition might lead to riskier behavior.

So, I spent like half a day at work researching the whole thing and wondering if I should partake—I really wonder if I have a much larger risk of diabetes as my family history might indicate. I looked around and it looks like other genomic typing services like 23andme and deCODE basically do the same thing as navigenics but don’t have a $2500 price tag. What exactly is that $2500 going to? And it seems like genomic typing is in its nascent stages, as there was that bill/law/act/whatever that Bush signed recently to prevent genetic information nondiscrimination yadda yadda. So it seems that this genetic typing stuff will only get more and more prevalent over time, and consequently, cheaper. So why get this data now, especially for somebody that’s not… old. yet. not that old. yet.

But the kicker really is even if you’re genetically predisposed, what can one really do to reduce risk? I mean, all the common health saws apply: eat healthier and exercise, stop smoking if you are, and reduce your alcohol consumption. Basically every disease they screen for, they’ll give the same tired, stupid recommendations of better diet and exercise. And their definition of better diet invariably means less fat, less meat, more fruits, more vegetables, all the carbs you can eat, as long as it’s not fat. Yeah, I’ll get right on that. And their definition of exercise is brisk walking. What is this, the 1970s? No, because we’ve got statins! Take your statins! they solve everything! I think I eat healthy enough: eat whatever I want. Luckily, I don’t want anything sweet, but steak, bacon, sausage? Bring them on :)

The interesting thing is their statistics say that the average lifetime risk of getting type 2 diabetes is 25%, risk of heart attack is 42%. ON AVERAGE. Really? I’m kinda skeptical since those numbers seem ridiculously high, but I guess the more numbers of people they can scare into NOT EATING SO MUCH DAMN FOOD YOU FATTY and taking statins! statins for everybody! the better, right?

Is it racist if a sunblock commercial doesn’t cast black people?

Hmm, I realized I never blogged about the health screen at work. This happened in early March…

So for the health screen, they take a little bit of blood, then while their tabletop blood analyzer does its thing, they do a few other tests like body fat, blood pressure and BMI. BMI they just ask you your height and weight and then calculate it for you, as if you’re too stupid to do that yourself.

Blood pressure, the nurse cuffs me with the machine thingy, and it comes back 148/64. Uhh. What? Last time I checked I was 120/78 or so. So she uses the manual sphygmomanometer, and it comes back 116/60. Uhh. Ok. Kinda lower than I thought it’d be but not crazy like 148/64. Not sure how much I trust those numbers, but chances are I’m in the safe range of BP.

For bodyfat, they have a little hand held Omron device thingy that uses bioelectrical impedance to guess how much fat you have. Mine came back 7.7%, which according to uswellness.com’s little chart says I’m under the recommended body fat level of 8-20% for men. Even though I’m barely under, the nurse starts asking me if I eat enough fat (as if eating fat increased the body fat level, and as if my body fat level was dangerously low).

Then, the cholesterol numbers come back, and my numbers are

• total: 248 mg/dL
• HDL: 82 mg/dL
• LDL: 153 mg/dL
• triglycerides: 65 mg/dL

The nurse then does a 180, and is now asking me if I eat too much fat to have such high cholesterol. I had previously told her I eat plenty of meat, eggs, dairy, nuts, fish, etc when she asked if I ate enough fat. Now she’s telling me that a handful of nuts is the most anybody should eat in one day because nuts contain a lot of fat. ooooook. Apparently, I don’t eat enough fat *and* I eat too much fat at the same time. Health screening nurses FTW.

And later on she shows me the rest of my numbers: my (fasting) glucose comes back 101 mg/dL, yet she doesn’t even bother mentioning anything about this. The desirable range for fasting glucose is <100 mg/dL. Since several of my aunts and uncles have diabetes, this number is much more alarming to me—so I schedule a doctor’s appointment to get a second reading on my glucose, and also to see if my HbA1c is high.

So I show my doctor the health screening results, and now my doctor’s all admonishing me about eating too much fat and cholesterol and heart disease yadda yadda too. Sigh. I’m like just can I please have my blood sugar and hbA1c checked? The doctor thinks it’s too soon to check again and the numbers likely won’t change much in such a short time. So we agree to check again in May.

So then, in May, I get my bloodwork taken, with cholesterol and all, and the results came back today:

• total: 210 mg/dL
• HDL: 75 mg/dL
• LDL: 120 mg/dL
• triglycerides: 73 mg/dL
• glucose: 81 mg/dL
• hbA1c: 5.2%

So everything looks fine IMO. hbA1c is slightly high for my tastes--even though the “recommended range” is 4.0 - 5.9, optimal is < 4.8