How Oxygen, or the Lack of it, Affects Longevity and Quality of Life

When you go for a walk through the suburbs or for a hike in the bush, do you take your children, or grandchildren? Or, are they wrapped up cosy at home, playing the computer, texting ethereal friends or watching a DVD? It could be good for your future health and quality of life to get them out walking the trails with you.

My partner and I sometimes joke about which one of us is going to be looking after the other in old age: Will she be operating the food blender and lovingly wiping the dribble from my chin, or will it be the other way round? We joke about this because we know that we will probably be fending for ourselves along with most of the other people who make up the Baby-boomer Tsunami that is now about to swamp aged care and creaking health services.

Baby-Boomers will be the longest living generation in human history. Alarmingly, it is predicted that the generations coming after the Baby-Boomers are going to suffer significant declines in health, quality of life and overall life expectancy. Let me share some observations about this pressing issue from my experience of almost 30 years of assessing the health and fitness of healthy, ill and injured people:

Fact: Physical functions decline by about 1% per year from 30 years of age

Let's look at that one essential thing for life: OXYGEN

- Ten years ago, the average sedentary 30yr woman had a maximum oxygen uptake of about 35ml/O2/Kg/min (35 millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute).
- Ten years ago, the average sedentary 30yr man had an oxygen uptake of about 40ml/O2/Kg/min

Averages have already declined by at least 5ml and will continue to drop with each decade as even larger, more obese and increasingly sedentary children become even larger seriously positionally challenged adults