It’s been a bad week in sports with the death of several superstars. Paul Couch, Geelong football legend, died of a heart attack at just age 51 from a heart attack whilst cycling on the Great Ocean Road. Hard to believe that someone as fit as him could drop dead so suddenly like that. We talk and write so much about health and fitness and exercise as preventative measures, and then when something like that happens, we often wonder, “what’s the point; may as well eat, drink and be merry; who knows what’s round the corner”.

There was Martin Crowe, New Zealand’s champion batsman, who succumbed to lymphoma last week aged 53. And finally there was Sarah Tait, Olympic rower, who died at age 33 of cervical cancer. All champions of their sports, and all taken way too soon. For us mere mortals, there are some points that maybe learned.

Firstly, fitness and health are not synonymous. You can be superfit but not necessarily healthy. In fact many of the elite athletes have to push their bodies to extreme limits in order for them to be competitive. Such extremes maybe detrimental to health in the long run. There are studies that show that moderate levels of physical activity are more beneficial than no activity and are better than extreme activity.

Secondly, it raises the question about screening for illness, in particular heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and cancers. These are the big killers in our society. I was having lunch with a cardiologist friend and asked him about screening for coronary heart disease with coronary CT scan. The bottom line is that there is no survival advantage in the screened population versus the non screened. However, that is the outcome for the whole group and there will be individuals in whom screening detects disease at a stage where remedial action such as stenting can be taken. Maybe for those who are at higher risk such as family history and diabetes it would be beneficial to have a simple screening test, and maybe these sudden deaths like in Paul Couch could be averted. It’s hard to know and ultimately each individual should make this decision based on their own circumstances.

Finally, it just goes to show that life is fickle and unpredictable and that we have to make the most every single day. No matter how old we are, we never know when our time is up. Till then, do something useful and purposeful, help other people, and make every day count.

Worth pondering.

In Health and Wellness