Authors :
Demetrios Chavatzas MD MS Facs
Volume/Issue :
Volume 5 - 2020, Issue 11 - November
Google Scholar :
http://bitly.ws/9nMw
Scribd :
https://bit.ly/2KnOmzO
Abstract :
As a pensioner vascular surgeon, I tried to
adopt an active life style. Physical inactivity causes
approximately 17% of premature mortality in the UK1
. I
began walking 10.000 metres every day in three sessions
for 11 years making a total distance of 40.150 kilometres
and covering a distance longer than the circumference of
the Earth’s Equator, making our great planet looking
small. I burned while walking nearly 160 kilos of fat and
more than 2 million kcal. Big things have small
beginnings. The beneficial effects of walking are proved
to be significant on human systems (respiratory,
cardiovascular, skeletal, muscular, gastrointestinal,
genital, nervous system), quality of life, life expectancy
and cognitive vitality. The last with its perception,
memory, judgment and reasoning will help us to further
understand, among others, the “medical aspects” of
Fyodor Dostoevsky's writings, his acute explorative
psychology down to the “basement” of human nature.
Free time is freedom. Pensioners in their golden age
and after knowing themselves, their potential and
weaknesses, they are free to choose, sense and adapt fast
enough to any useful availability – as our cells sense and
adapt to oxygen availability [Nobel Prize 2019 to Sir
Ratcliffe, Kaelin, Semenza]. They are free to follow a
walking program, tailored on each individual case, a
program “singularis” and not always “universalis”.
We are wise to doubt, but the presented world
experience along with my own unusual one of 40.150
kilometres of beneficial walking – covering a distance
longer than the circumference of the Earth’s Equator
and consuming 160 kilos of fat and 2 million kcal – are
they sufficient evidence to conclude that the Hippocratic
advice, as appeared in the title, remains a timeless, nonpharmacological prescription of well-being and
longevity
As a pensioner vascular surgeon, I tried to
adopt an active life style. Physical inactivity causes
approximately 17% of premature mortality in the UK1
. I
began walking 10.000 metres every day in three sessions
for 11 years making a total distance of 40.150 kilometres
and covering a distance longer than the circumference of
the Earth’s Equator, making our great planet looking
small. I burned while walking nearly 160 kilos of fat and
more than 2 million kcal. Big things have small
beginnings. The beneficial effects of walking are proved
to be significant on human systems (respiratory,
cardiovascular, skeletal, muscular, gastrointestinal,
genital, nervous system), quality of life, life expectancy
and cognitive vitality. The last with its perception,
memory, judgment and reasoning will help us to further
understand, among others, the “medical aspects” of
Fyodor Dostoevsky's writings, his acute explorative
psychology down to the “basement” of human nature.
Free time is freedom. Pensioners in their golden age
and after knowing themselves, their potential and
weaknesses, they are free to choose, sense and adapt fast
enough to any useful availability – as our cells sense and
adapt to oxygen availability [Nobel Prize 2019 to Sir
Ratcliffe, Kaelin, Semenza]. They are free to follow a
walking program, tailored on each individual case, a
program “singularis” and not always “universalis”.
We are wise to doubt, but the presented world
experience along with my own unusual one of 40.150
kilometres of beneficial walking – covering a distance
longer than the circumference of the Earth’s Equator
and consuming 160 kilos of fat and 2 million kcal – are
they sufficient evidence to conclude that the Hippocratic
advice, as appeared in the title, remains a timeless, nonpharmacological prescription of well-being and
longevity
