Do you know someone with more than one long-term health problem, like diabetes, heart issues, or mental health conditions?
Turns out, the sequence in which you get these health issues can really make a difference in how long you might live.
A new study in the UK looked into this, and its findings could change how doctors manage patient care.
The Big Picture: Why This Study Matters
For many people, especially as they get older, dealing with more than one health problem at a time becomes a reality. In the UK alone, more than 1 in 4 adults has two or more ongoing health issues.
This jumps to a staggering 65% for those older than 65 and almost 82% for those 85 or older. It’s a huge issue that impacts not just the length of people’s lives but also their quality of life. That’s why scientists decided to study this in a big way.
They picked three common health problems—diabetes, mental health conditions called psychosis, and congestive heart failure (which is when the heart can’t pump blood well).
They looked at how these problems show up over time in more than 1.6 million adults in the UK. The results are eye-opening.
The Findings: Order Matters and Can Change Life Length
The study found that the sequence in which you get these health issues can change how long you’ll live.
For example, if you first get diabetes, then have mental health problems, and after that your heart starts failing, you could lose around 13 years from your life expectancy.
But if you get these same health issues in a different order, you might lose fewer years. A 50-year-old man could even see a difference of more than 10 years in how long he lives, just based on the sequence of these health problems.
Interestingly, having more than one health problem isn’t always bad news for your lifespan. For example, people with both diabetes and mental health issues tended to live longer than those with mental health issues alone.
Why? Well, it seems that people with diabetes usually see their doctors more often, which might help them get better overall care.
How This Could Change Healthcare and What’s Next
This isn’t just a “wow, that’s interesting” kind of study. It can actually help doctors and healthcare systems do a better job.
If doctors know that the sequence of health problems matters, they could work on spotting these issues earlier.
This might help people get the right treatments at the right time, which could improve their lives and maybe even extend them.
But keep in mind, this study isn’t perfect. It used health records that are routinely collected, which can sometimes be incomplete or incorrect. So, more work is needed to make sure the findings are rock-solid.
Future studies could look at other combinations of health issues, like the health problems people are facing after recovering from COVID-19, commonly known as “long COVID.”
This approach could also help in creating better screening programs to catch health issues earlier, which could make treatments more effective.
So what does all this mean? Well, as we all know, health problems are a fact of life, especially as we age.
But this research shows that it’s not just what health problems you have, but the order in which you get them, that can make a big difference.
This new knowledge could change the way doctors manage multiple health problems, potentially helping people live longer, healthier lives.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk, and herbal supplements could harm your heart rhythm.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about vitamins that may protect you from type 2 diabetes, and results showing this common chemical in food may harm your blood pressure.
The research findings can be found in The Lancet Public Health.
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