Read on: danhwilliams.com

Read time: 3 minutes

Unlike heart disease or diabetes...
Our hips & knees have a trick up their sleeve.
(Or trouser leg).

Our hips & knees speak directly to us.
They warn us when all is not well.
A blast or niggle of pain is...


🔴 A RED Flag Warning Sign 🔴

Our hips & knees are talking to us.
All we have to do is listen.
 
When my hip hurts, and it sometimes SHOUTS at me…
I now listen to my right hip [see link]. 
And I force myself to take action.
 
Action that helps me to do MORE.
More with LESS joint PAIN.

I’m convinced that if we all listened to our joints, and acted right away, we could ALL do MORE with LESS joint pain.
 
BUT...
 
Society does NOT make it easy.

There are Barriers.

Now, I don’t think that my right hip is particularly interested in politics.
And I know that I'm not particularly party political.
BUT I am passionate about hips & knees.

And it's interesting to think, if our joints had a voice..


What would our Hips & Knees vote for?

And, if we’re listening in, and paying attention..
What should WE be voting for?
(NOT who)

We’re all living longer (the good news) with more complex healthcare needs (the challenge). So, the main thrust of any policy should be to keep us, the people with hip & knee pain...

Well away from the hospital or clinic.
Well away from surgeons like me. 
Well away from joint surgery.
 
I don’t mean by putting up barriers to timely healthcare.
When we really need it, healthcare has to be there for us.

BUT keep us 'well away...' by putting in place policies that nudge our hip & knee pain in the right direction.
After all...

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
 

🌍Blue Zones 🌏

Let’s take the lead from one of the so-called blue zones in Sardinia.
A small cluster of villages in a small part of a small Mediterranean island.

With 10x more centenarians (people living to 100 years) per capita. Wow!

Clearly they're doing something right. Or rather, they're still doing something that's always worked well. So what is it that works well..?

Well, Sardinian geography offers a clue...

The Blue Zone area circles the mountains of Sardinia.
And these are the key factors found there...

1. Activity: People are more active than average throughout their life- that mountainous region plays a part.
2. Food: People consume locally produced food, garden vegetables and fruits that are in season, or dried / pickled in the off-season.
3. Community: People live in strong communities with a family-centred environment
4. Stress: All aided by a low-stress and relaxing lifestyle. 

Amen to that.

You can dive into the detail here and explore the same factors common to all Blue Zones...

Want to live longer? Pay attention to those 4 factors.
Want to do more with less joint pain? Same deal..

In terms of evidence, to help people do more with less pain it’s...

1. Activity- see the Evidence for Moving More in Newsletter #009
2. Food- think Bodyweight from Newsletter #034.

So, back to our voting Hips & Knees. Nutrition first…
 

 🍏 NUTRITION 🍏

I’m no expert in nutrition.

BUT I see misjudged policy play out in hip & knee clinic every day .

Healthy diets in the five global Blue Zones have common threads in that people eat:

• Wholefoods
• Mainly plants
• And NOT very much

With that in mind, and working backwards from the clinic room our Hips & Knees would vote for..


=> Better Public Health
Let's support those who are overweight or obese. Our local Health Weight programme recently lost funding and closed.  A programme that my patients found it super useful.


=> A National Food Strategy
Henry Dimbleby’s oven ready deal seems entirely sensible with proposals to expand the successful sugar tax, out to foods high in fat, sugar and salt. Tax ££s to fund positive action.


=> Education and prevention
More free and healthy school meals
Continued healthy eating education, and a
Crackdown on junk food advertising on TV and online.
 

Our Hips & Knees demand that we...
Support anyone overweight or obese
Support the good and tax the bad and
Shift the dial on good nutrition early on in life.

As with a lot of things, our schools and early years are key.
That is the Nutrition side of The Hip & Knee Manifesto...