Live long and with smoothies

Will aging soon become a treatable disease? In any case, yoga helps.

Will aging soon become a treatable disease? In any case, yoga helps.

What is more beautiful and satisfying than modern work in tune with the times, at the heartbeat of modernity with fresh blood in your veins - away from ugly, disgusting things like old age, illness and the worst death?

The family doctor has such a job and sees himself as part of a trend. Until now he had no idea about it, now he's sure: he's doing Longevity! He is part of a youth movement! He didn't know that, it's as new to him as the term, which he doesn't even know how to pronounce.

But his competition is great and essentially consists of so-called influencers. Apparently they don't work quite the same way as the family doctor. Above all, they only appear online and present their consumers with very simple explanations for health problems. That has to be the case, as they only have a few seconds and not the average ten minutes of the family doctor. What else is the poor influencer supposed to say in such a short amount of time other than “Drink this or swallow this and cream there and you’ll live to be 120 years old”?

When the family doctor looks around, a lot of it comes across in his circles. Many colleagues run and sweat, overuse their muscles and talk about it all the time - unfortunately not just for a few seconds. Anyone who hasn't run a marathon or taken part in a cycling race by the age of 50 has given up and is looking forward to the end. This quickly leads to a lack of understanding for the patient. After all, everyone could run and sweat a little and then illness wouldn't occur. Colleagues could exchange training, nutrition and other self-optimization advice in a much more relaxed manner and would not be constantly disturbed by unreasonable fat people or smokers or by people who sit too much and now deserve to be reminded of their wrong behavior by their intervertebral discs. “Will aging become a treatable disease?” asked a speaker at a conference in a luxury hotel in a big city.

Secretly, this is all a bit strange to the family doctor. Unfortunately, much to his dismay, his work offers little in the way of glamour. Many conversations, relationship work, patience and understanding are necessary to prolong life a little, to push back death and to slow down the deterioration of health. He makes compromises throughout the entire working day - together with his patients. Their uncertainty is growing just as general health knowledge is decreasing. The liberal mantra “It’s your own fault” runs through every health advice from the health insurance company and every Tiktok video.

Patients storm the family doctor's office out of fear of doing something wrong and because they didn't do this or that or didn't do it in a timely manner. General practitioners invest a considerable and ever-increasing amount of their work in reassuring healthy people. This ties up considerable financial and human resources, which contributes to the delay in treatment for those who are really sick. The fear fueled by the cult of health, also known as healthism, paradoxically contributes significantly to the inefficiency of the healthcare system.

The number of annual doctor visits by people with health insurance in this country is well above the OECD average of 6.6 doctor contacts: everyone visits the doctor nine times, even though many men never go to the doctor. The family doctor then asks himself: Does the longevity of one individual possibly lead to a shortening of life for everyone? But how should the family doctor react to such complex relationships?

As always, he tries to calm down and calm down. Above all, himself. Because if he followed all the Longevity instructions, he would no longer have time for his work! He would have to mix smoothies, watch fitness videos and research recipes all day long in order to continue mixing smoothies, watching fitness videos and researching recipes in the years he has gained in life. Because anyone who stops doing this is doomed to die, and this must be avoided at all costs, even a premature end to life.