Tips to help you check your health at home

Regular health check-ups are key to early detection of potential health problems. Here are some tips to help you check your health at home.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Lam - Deputy Director of the National Institute of Nutrition

People often say: prevention is better than cure. In today's stressful life, regular health check-ups are extremely important, but nowadays we do not have the habit of checking our health regularly until we feel there is a really serious problem, by then it is too late. If you are one of them, change your perspective as soon as possible. In addition, you should know how to check your health at home before going to the doctor. Here are some tips to help you start the habit of checking your health:

1. Check your heart rate

The heart rate controls the rate at which blood is pumped throughout the body, providing the blood needed for all activities. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common form of arrhythmia, affecting millions of people but most of them do not realize it. People with AF have a 7 times higher risk of stroke than the general population.

To measure your heart rate: place two fingers next to your thumb on your wrist, use a watch to keep time and count how many beats you get in 20 seconds, multiply this number by 3, the result will be your heart rate in one minute.

In adults, the normal heart rate is 60-85 beats/minute (for athletes it can be lower than 40-60 beats/minute). Children have a faster physiological heart rate of 110-130 beats/minute. A fast or slow heart rate can be a sign of illness.

2. Check for wheezing

Wheezing is an abnormal sound in breathing. Wheezing is caused by narrowing of the airways in the lungs, often as a result of conditions such as asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), bronchitis, bronchiolitis, or pneumonia.

To check for wheezing, look for phlegm. If there is phlegm, look at the color of the phlegm to see how far the bacterial infection has progressed, for example, clear but very sticky phlegm is characteristic of asthma, etc.

3. Check your blood sugar

Diabetes is a disease that occurs when the body does not have enough insulin or does not use insulin effectively. When you have diabetes, sugar builds up in your blood instead of being transported to your cells. You are at higher risk for diabetes if you are over 45, overweight, physically inactive, or have a family member with diabetes (parent, sibling). If you are at high risk for this disease, get regular blood sugar tests. You can buy a blood test kit to see where your blood sugar is. Normal sugar levels fall between 70 and 99 mg per deciliter (mg/dL) (testing should be done in the morning before eating).

4. Measure your waistEven if you're not overweight, extra fat around your waist can put you at risk for a number of health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and stroke.

To do this is very easy: stand up straight, relax your abdominal muscles, wrap the tape measure around your waist starting from the navel, do not pull the tape too tight and record the result. For women, a waist of 80cm or more is alarming. For men, a waist of over 95cm is a warning, you need to review your diet and exercise, if necessary, see a doctor for a health check.

These tests are of course not a complete substitute for annual health check-ups, but self-check-ups are also very important to help you detect diseases early. In addition, you need to have a reasonable diet, such as supplementing products rich in amino acids and precious trace elements that the body cannot synthesize itself, such as bird's nest, to increase resistance to disease.

According to (24h.com.vn) - M.D