An MD's job is to get you OK. That's an easy way to put it and most folks think they know what this means. But do they? What is OK your standards? Is it the same as your next door neighbor's?
Today's point is not to explore the standards of healthiness. That can be done by anyone with or without professional guidance. Rather, it seems more pressing to ask whether OK is good enough for you?
Any baby boomer who cares about looking like Stallone in his 60's or Jane Fonda in her 70's wants more from their health care people than just OK. To be certain they don't want a below the surface condition or any of the standard problems associated with middle age -- the ones that there seem to be an endless number of new drugs to cure. All one has to do is to stay awake for the TV commercials with the urinary remedies, the impotency cures or the blood thinners to know what is meant. Just do as your told on the TV and ask your doctor if any of these are right for you. They most likely will be.
Today's baby boomer wants more than just being kept OK via the taking of these drugs. Granted, its wonderful that they are around in case you have a problem caused by twenty years of neglect, generally referred to as natural aging. But it is not the same as being problem free. And it is radically different than being superlatively healthy.
Stallone and Jane Fonda are referred to here because they have kept at their routines and lifestyles for decades. Too, they are over the hill, if "the hill" is supposedly fifty (or is it forty?) If it's still forty then Olympic Gold Medalist Dara Torres at 42 can be included.
For the Stallone's and Fonda's, OK has never been good enough. They have wanted more and have never stopped reaching for what they desire. It may be that their physicians have been a little avant garde, but it is not likely . MDs believe in R&R along with "no bad habits" thinking that's all you need to allow the body to do its best. These people could never have been be satisfied by that! The question then is what about you?