WHAT LIFE AHEAD COMPUTES
GETTING STARTED with the DEMO: A Demo program that includes average health factors and a variety of diets for US men and women will illustrate various Life Ahead results. The Demo program assumes age 50 for either a man or woman and average user diets and habits. You can enter your own age into the first Demo information display if you wish to make the value more pertinent to one of your age. You then enter your gender and select one of two options. First click the Upper option 'Enter or Edit Wellness Information' accesses the entry screens. Click through these briefly to understand what the program would like to obtain from you. But don't try any entries yet. The exercise entry display will produce results in Demo mode, and you may find it interest to explore various exercises and intensities here learn how this important entry produces results. And you can try the 'Enter Fitness Measure' option to observe how the program can develop your actual cardiofitness. But entries in Demo mode will not save.
Then return to Start and access the 'Compute Results from Data Entered' option. Now the program will display help screens at upper left that will guide you through the Demo and program . Ask here first for "Typical US Diet.' You can display help info or program screens full view by clicking on the screen wanted.
Life Ahead first computes a likely incidence of death from each of nineteen included disease and other groups at each age of life, and computes an annual life table for each year of life. The program obtains an average population life expectancy for a person having your habits and factors, and sends this to a Well-Days routine. This in turn subtracts from life expectancy an estimated number of days Not Well due to the various diseases assigned by the program as likely from given habits. An assumption here is that days Not Well are days are of little value to living. Important contributors to Not Well days are subtractions for risks of suffering majors diseases, dementia or alzheimers, or being blind from macular degeneration.
Life Ahead next computes what the specific program that users should do to improve future health by achieving health goals that most people should be able to achieve. As example, many people today have CFR of 90-100. Life Ahead sets a cardiofitness target is often taken as a 110-120 CFR level achievable from a very good brisk and monitored walking program or from a moderate higher level cardio program. In contrast an extensive cardiofitness program can produce a 130 to 150 CFR on most younger and middle aged people. Diet targets also are those potentially achievable over time.
The Main Results Display will show program results. Key results are the Well-Days ahead for the program user's habits, and the added Well-Days and years of life potential for changing these habits to good health habits. Risks during a period that usually is 10 years will show directly for heart disease and cancer. A more complete listing of disease risks for present habits and good habits will display from the option 'List all Diseases'. And if desired, risks of disease can be recomputed for any number of future years desired that are below life expectancy.
Still using the Demo, you can explore much of what the program can develop. Be sure to click the 'Get More Well-Days' that shows how various life style changes can contribute to the health of this population. . And the 'Disease Analysis' option tells how nutrients in the entered diet need to be improved for better health. The specific disease tabs shown here will tell what must be done to decrease risk of each of these diseases. Try adding a food to the diet as suggested in the help info display to learn how the the program can value the change in risk for adding a specific food to a diet.
Now or later you can try the 'Value vs. Other Diet' option to view in the Demo how any other of the 11 diet included in the Demo compares in health vs. the 'Typical US Diet' initially used. The 'Disease Analysis' will show results for the new diet asked, and the 'Nutrient Analysis' option will compare in detail how the change in nutrients of the two compared diets contributed to losses and gains in diet health. You also can explore the effect of adding any individual or combination of supplement on Well-Days. An option permits you to compute results with or without all supplements entered.
You can learn how changes in lifestyle habits can improve life from the 'Main Results' Display. The exercise fitness option takes you back to the exercise cardiofitness module where you can change any amount of kind of exercise. The program can then compute a new Well-Days of life that shows the effect on health risk and life of that change in exercise. The weight/smoking option explores be benefits of improving weight by different amounts, and/or if you are a smoker, the benefits of stopping. The 'Female Factors' lets women explore the effect of changing female hormones, mammograms and other female factors on Well-Days.. The 'Change Other Factors' option explores the effect of changing blood pressure, aspirin, and other factors on Well-Days. A caution about all of the estimates: They assume each change is made for the rest of life, as the computed risk of Well-Days is for the rest of life. Changing habits for a short time may have an insignificant effect on long range Well-Days.
YOUR OWN HABITS and WELL-DAYS of LIFE: After getting acquainted with Life Ahead using the DEMO you will wish to use the program to explore how you can get more Well-Days of life. Go back to start, enter gender, and click again on 'Enter or Edit Wellness Information.' Complete the first display with name, age, etc, and the second that asks for your exercise habits and exit these options. Life Ahead requires completion only of the first two displays for a computed result. But you should should browse through the remaining five or six entry screens and enter information that is now available. And note those items not now known for possible entry at a later date. The more entries you make the more accurate will be a Life Ahead projection.
Your resting heart rate is the rate measured for a full minute after sitting quietly for at least 2 minutes before breakfast. And get at least one blood test that shows the most recent serum cholesterol values from your doctor's nurse if you do not have it. Better, enter more cholesterol values by date if you have them. If you have a good treadmill available home or in an exercise facility note from the 'Enter Fitness Measure" option on the exercise display the fitness test data you will be able to take to compute your cardiofitness level. This information can be entered into the program at a later date.
Now go back to start and click on 'Compute Results from Data Entered' You now can start either by entering your own diet say for a previous day, or by using the "Typical US Diet' option. It is best to start with an actual diet, but if you are primarily interesting, say in exercise habits, you will obtain a useful result from using the US Diet option. But the diet analysis in Life Ahead is unique and you should plan to enter some diets to realize full benefit from the program. It always is best to write down or journal each food eaten after each meal because it is so easy to forget things eaten. Don't overlook additions such as butter, dressings, sugar and salt, etc that are added to foods eaten.
The program includes two kinds of help information. Those accessible as named info options will display written descriptions that can be printed out. The second health info options are the immediate help displays that appear at upper left in the Demo program. You can access this immediate help if you wish via the 'Show Help' options at start and at other steps during entry of your own values and habits.
The program then operates similarly to that in the DEMO, except that during an actual user access all values inserted into entry displays will be saved. These can be revised at any time by re-entering new values and exiting the displays. Diet entries can be saved if desired, but only after the diet is completely entered. Once saved, a diet entry cannot be changed. Saved diets can be recalled and their results recomputed any time later. And the program can accumulate results of multiple and successive saved diet entries as for example all daily diets during a week, or weekly diets eaten during a month. See much more on this in other papers on the web-site and in the program help.
See More Well-Days from LifeAhead and More Healthful Diets from Life ahead for more about how to achieve many more Well-Days of life!
