Celebrity Health – Dr Dawn Harper
Images of Dr Dawn Harper © Barker Evans
Dr Dawn Harper shares some fascinating facts and expert tips on how to live a long and healthy life
Best known for her appearances on Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies, Dr Dawn Harper is a trusted voice in health and wellbeing. A practising NHS GP and the author of numerous popular health books, she is passionate about making medical advice accessible and practical. Now, Dr Dawn is on a mission to promote healthy longevity through small, sustainable lifestyle changes. Here, she shares her expert tips on ageing well, from staying active and socially connected to supporting blood sugar balance, proving it’s never too late to prioritise your wellbeing.
Q: Do you have any favourite health tips or small daily habits that YHL readers can try?
A: Yes I have several! One of my favourites comes from Public Health England and it’s that if you walk briskly for 10 consecutive minutes every day, you can reduce your risk of premature death by 15% and your risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease by 40%.
Another one is that if you can sit down and stand up from a chair without using your arms 35 times or more in a minute, you’re twice as likely to live a longer, healthier life than someone who can only do it 22 times or fewer.
Then there’s the ‘stork test’, which is standing on one leg. You should be able to do it for 40 seconds if you’re aged between 40 and 49, for 37 seconds if you’re aged between 50 and 59, and for 30 seconds if you’re aged between 60 and 69. Practising this will help to improve your core stability, which declines as we age. It will also help to prevent falls, which are a major cause of physical and mental decline in older people.
Q: How big a factor is loneliness on health and longevity?
A: It’s absolutely critical. I think loneliness and falls are often intricately linked. What I often see in general practice is that someone has a fall, becomes afraid to go out in case they fall again, they stop socialising and their world gets smaller.
Social connection is vital. During lockdown, every Sunday afternoon, my husband and I started calling friends and family who lived alone. We started doing it to help other people but actually we got so much out of it too.
When I interviewed centenarians for my book, Live Well to 101, none of them said they were lonely. They all had meaningful social connections in some form.
Q: Tell us about your own wellness routine.
A: I’m a big fan of cycling. This came about after I was involved in an accident many years ago where I was hit by a car and my knee was shattered. I had to do rehab exercises on a bike, and I discovered I loved cycling. My husband and I now cycle regularly, even doing London to Paris a few times. We’ve got e-bikes now, which help us explore even further. We have four dogs, so we do lots of walking too. I also do daily brain exercises, like Wordle and the New York Times Connections puzzle, to keep my brain sharp.
I grow all our own vegetables, and we cook most meals from scratch. We rarely get takeaways. We tend to eat twice a day – brunch and an early supper – which ends up being a form of intermittent fasting. I try to eat a rainbow, so lots of colourful fruit and veg. Last year, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, which was quite a shock as I have a low BMI and I’m very active. I started using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) through a company called Yuwell Anytime and it was eye-opening. My main issue turned out to be bread. Even sourdough spiked my sugar levels. So I’ve almost entirely cut bread from my diet. Since making that change, my HbA1c measurement (a measure of the body’s blood glucose levels) has dropped from 48 to 38, so I’m no longer even pre-diabetic. I think CGMs could be revolutionary for people at risk of type 2 diabetes, helping them understand how their body responds to food in real time.
Q: Do you take any vitamins or supplements?
A: I take a probiotic, and I also take a multivitamin. I used to think that if you eat a varied, balanced diet you shouldn’t need supplements, but I’ve changed my view.
The nutritional value of food isn’t what it was a generation ago, and as we age, our ability to absorb nutrients declines. So I take one as a precaution.
Q: You have a new role as a Health and Wellbeing Ambassador in the retirement sphere. Tell us about this.
A: I find the healthy retirement space fascinating. I think 60 really is the new 40, and if we get it right we have lots of years in retirement. I’ve recently started working with Rangeford Villages as their Health and Wellbeing Ambassador, which involves travelling around the different villages, giving talks to residents, and sometimes to members of the local community too. I usually do a book signing and give away copies of my book. Each village has great facilities, including an on-site shop, a restaurant serving healthy food, a swimming pool and a gym.. They make socialisation, healthy living, healthy eating and exercising very easy.
Dr Dawn Harper is an author, GP and Health and Wellbeing Ambassador for Rangeford Villages.
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