Our goal, across this site, is to give you facts and figures which mean something to you. At an individual and personal level. And then to provide coaching so you can understand how you can shift your prospects.

The crucial thing, therefore, is to read the research and look for the evidence and piece it altogether.

The exciting thing is that this has been a subject with a mixed history but in recent times there has been an acceleration in the work done in this arena and the understanding and findings have grown. And the research and findings are very consistent.

This tells us a lot. Some simple things are already well-established and generally well-known. For example, improve your nutrition and diet, exercise more and you will be less likely to suffer ill-health.

Likewise, catch a chronic illness early and you may have more chance of dealing with it to a positive conclusion.

But the research etc. has developed and today it is possible to go further. When it comes to nutrition and exercise, for example, we now know that different strokes for different folks is an important factor. Naturally everyone can benefit from an improved diet, but some people benefit more than others. Some people have a greater risk of heart disease and some a greater risk of diabetes.

The one size fits all approach helps, but a tailored approach can really help on another level again.

Knowing what your risk factors are, what you will need to do to change your individual prospects is an exciting development.

At the general level the determinants of ill-health are heavily linked to many things which include:

  • Your diet (how much you eat)
  • Your nutrition (what you eat)
  • How much you do/don’t exercise
  • Your smoking habits
  • Your alcohol intake and habits
  • Your stress level
  • Your mental attitude 

That is not an exhaustive lifestyle list, but it is a good starter. Score poorly against this list and your ill-health prosects are worse than if you score well on the list.

But other things also come into play - where you live, how much wealth you have, and what job you do.

Then, you have factors such as your genetic disposition and also how you often you get checked up -general medical checks ups, plus also trips to the dentist and optician.

What has probably changed more than anything else in the past few years, is the understanding of how different every person is, which leads to a position where all individuals can benefit from positive actions around the general good health/ill health determinants, but any individual can go even further and if they can work out their unique risks and constitutional factors, can take ill-health prospects onto another level altogether.

In other words, if you imagine that a commitment to general improvements might increase your healthspan by 7-10 years, but working out an individual programme based on known individual characteristics, could see this increase to 10-15 years.