TN50#114, The 4 Horsemen Are Coming for You, Final, 1 May 2023

Hi Team,

Happy Monday and welcome to The Next 50 #114.  I like to think of personal performance in 3 parts: physical, mental and emotional; my frameworks focus on 4 Levers: Eat, Sleep, Move, Think.  This blog is my sandbox for sharing little tidbits of information that you might find useful regarding your personal performance.  Let’s continue with our coverage of the 4 Horsemen, as described by Peter Attia in his new book, Outlive.

I saved Metabolic Disease for last even though Attia starts with it in his new book, Outlive.  Why you ask?  Because in almost every case; metabolic disease is riding next to any one of the other 3 Horsemen when they find you.  You may remember this from one of my previous blogs, TN50#72, Close the Gate (2 minute read).  So today we’ll focus on the 4th, and final Horsemen, Metabolic Disease.

Insulin Resistance is nasty little bugger, historically we have called it “metabolic syndrome” here are 5 things to score, if you score at least 3 out of 5, you officially have the disorder.

  • High blood pressure (>130/85)
  • High triglycerides (>150 mg/dL)
  • Low HDL cholesterol (<40 mg/dL in men or <50 mg/dL in women)
  • Central adiposity (waist circumference >40” in men or >35” in women)
  • Elevated fasting glucose (>110 mg/dL)

If you are not quite there yet on 3 out of 5, don’t kid yourself; without a course correction, it’s just a matter of time – clip pity clop, clip pity clop, clip pity clop.

Here’s some more bad news from Chapter 6, The Crisis of Abundance (page 109).  If you have insulin resistance studies have found that your risk of being visited by the other horsemen increase.  A lot!

  • Cancer (up 12x)
  • Alzheimer’s Disease (up 5x)
  • Death from Cardiovascular Disease (up almost 6x)

Now for some good news; you have the ability to immediately begin reversing this and I have been blogging about how to do that for over 2 years.  Here are 3 things you may remember hearing in your self-talk:

  • “Put the donut down”
  • “I should go for a walk”
  • “Stupid phone, that’s 90 minutes of sleep time I can’t get back”

I remember these quotes, or similar ones, from my internal dialog for sure.

“Hey Alex, you said I can immediately begin reversing this, how’s that work?”

Glad you asked.  Start Eating, Sleeping and Moving Better!  It’s that simple, at least to get started; and the entire Section III of Attia’s book is focused on the tactics around this.

Alright friends, if you are still on the fence, please buy this book for your own good, then gift it to the first 3 people who come to mind (as needing the book) while you are reading it.

As always share the post with your team or anyone who might find it useful and let me know what you think!

Have a good one, Alex

PS. If you have a question or two regarding any of the last 4 “4 Horsemen” blog entries please ask.