The colleagues I knew who were fitness freaks in their youth, i.e. 10 BX, jogging and the like when they were invented, all died young of heart failure.
One lost his licence for awhile because he had something called an inverted T wave on his ECG, and 'til it was discovered that this is the mark of super, Olympic standard, athletes he was grounded. He got his licence back eventually and is still alive, tho' the Cardio reading the subject ECG was almost ready to call the undertaker.
A recent NZ CAA Medic.,young, female, ( fact, not bigotry ) and recently out of University and big in computer analysis programmes, decided that no-one should be allowed to fly if they had more than a 5% chance of having a heart problem in the next 5 years. For awhile this became known as the 1% rule, i.e. 5% in 5 years = 1% in 1 year. Jeez .... everybody walking around has at least a 1% chance, and this just about grounded every pilot in NZ, including Air New Zealand airline. Fortunately sense prevailed - eventually. Said female no longer works for the NZ CAA.
A Flt.Eng. once told me that the medical profession change their minds every 5 years or so, and when they decided that sitting on the couch drinking beer and eating potato crisps ( chips ) was the way to go, he was way ahead of them. When we reached our destination I asked him what he was going to do for the rest of the day ? Go to the bar first and then practice some IFR, he said. IFR ? Yes, climb to and maintain 3 feet, horizontal.
He's still alive.
I had a friend who was a dietician, and her hospital had a 3 year old child brought in for care and attention following a marital upset. The child wouldn't eat anything,and after awhile the staff got concerned and asked the father - who had custody - what he had been feeding his son? The father explained that when his wife had walked out, he had no option but to take the child with him to work - as a long distance lorry driver, and when he stopped at truck stops for a meal he gave the child the same fare - Guinness and Fish & Chips.
Shock horror !! You can't feed a child on that, they said, but in view of the lack of appetite displayed, they want out and bought an order of Fish and Chips and a bottle of Guinness. The childs' eyes lit up and he tucked into this first meal for a long time with gusto.
Then the lab. got to analysing the food, and decided that the child had had a balanced diet - iron in the Guinness, vitamin C in the fried fish, bulk stuff in the French Fried chips etc. etc. and certainly he wasn't seriously undernourished.
Way to go !
Last edited by ExSp33db1rd; 29th Sep 2013 at 07:24.