Dr Phil Kieran: My prescription for a healthy nation

Dr Phil Kieran is back on our screens and this time with a mission to help us live longer, healthier lives by making small lifestyle changes

Fri, 16 Sep, 2022 - 02:05

Rowena Walsh

If you want to live longer, then all you need to do is take a break. Press pause on whatever programme you’re watching, get up and go into the kitchen and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. This little burst of movement can make a huge difference to your longevity, according to Cork-based GP and TV presenter, Phil Kieran.

This is because research shows if you sit down for extended periods in the evening, for example, for more than 45 minutes to an hour, it has negative impacts on your metabolism, says Kieran, who will be soon back on our screens presenting RTÉ’s health new show How Long Will You Live?

“Being sedentary for extended periods of time while you’re awake decreases your body’s ability to manage sugars and fats. When you are awake and sitting still, you should try and break up these periods with movement.”

While Kieran says that our relationship with alcohol is “probably more problematic” for Irish people, our love of a sedentary lifestyle is a red flag for our nation’s health.

“We have quite a poor tradition of continuing sport or physical exercise-based activity into our middle and later years, and I think that’s one of our biggest problems.

“A lot of the time when people hit their 30s, they get busy, they have kids. In the evenings, they sit down and watch telly, which is fine, we all need our time to relax and unwind, but we’re not as good at maintaining physical activity as we get older.”

However, we are a nation obsessed with our weight and the number on the scales, says Kieran, a focus that can exclude other healthy lifestyle changes.

“You can lose weight solely by restricting calories and going on fad diets, but then you’re not improving your overall fitness.

“We’re not focussing on maintaining fitness throughout your life into your 60s and 70s, which is one of the most important things for people to do to make sure that they can still look after themselves and live a healthy, independent life when they’re older.”

Minding your mood

For Kieran, the focus should be not on losing weight but on gaining health. And it’s a two-fold prescription.

“You can’t really have good physical health if you don’t look after your mental health. So looking after your mood is essential.

“I often feel like a complete hypocrite when talking to people about their mental health because I frequently make phone calls from my office at half eight, half nine at night, and tell people they need to watch their work-life balance.”

The father of Daragh, eight, and Max, six, describes his workload as a partner in a practice on Cork’s Washington St as “crushingly massive” and says that trying to facilitate it can come at a price in terms of mental health and stress.

“Covid has been incredibly stressful, but now the worry is what we missed. Instead of having one or two issues, everyone has several issues they want to discuss because they’ve put them off for the last two years. What was already a heavily creaking system is now under even more strain.”

If Kieran could do one thing to solve the difficulties with the health service, he says he would reduce the paperwork involved in his job. At least a third of his day is devoted to it, everything from advocating for resources for children with additional needs to letters for airline security.

He says the elderly were particularly disadvantaged during the pandemic.

“I have seen really big increases in depression and memory issues in older people because as they cocooned and became less socially interactive, their concentration and short-term memory has taken a hit.”

Social interaction is crucial to prevent dementia as we age, and he emphasises the importance of going out and meeting friends to keep our minds sharp.

How Long Will You Live?, presented by Dr Phil Kieran, will begin on RTÉ One on Tuesday, September 20.

Doubts on Dr Google

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Kieran says that he doesn’t like online medicine. However, he fully supports people searching for their symptoms and researching their conditions, “so long as they don’t become overly hung up on what they read because the problem with the internet is that it is a great source of information, but it’s a dreadful source of context”.

In each episode of How Long Will You Live?, a contributor undergoes rigorous medical and fitness testing to reveal the negative impact that their lifestyle is having on their life expectancy. Kieran then gives a six-week plan of action.

While it is possible to make significant changes in six weeks, Kieran points out that if you immediately revert to what you did beforehand, there will be no lasting benefits.

“We’re trying to show people how a number of small sustainable changes can have a huge impact further down the road.”

Some of the show’s contributors demonstrated dramatic falls in their cholesterol levels through these lifestyle changes, up to 40% in one case.

“Nothing is guaranteed — any of us could be hit by a bus tomorrow — but if you’re living to an older life expectancy, what you will also be doing is increasing your quality of life and your ability to live independently into your later years.”

Medicine plays a big part in the DNA of Kieran’s family. His wife Claire is a nurse, while his parents and oldest sister are also doctors. He is the 17th person to qualify in medicine on his mother’s side in just two generations.

Kieran, who previously co-presented the RTÉ series You Should Really See a Doctor alongside Dr Pixie McKenna, says his diet wasn’t as good as it could have been when he started working as a GP and he put on 24 kilos in just three months. His lifestyle habits have long since improved, although there was some comfort eating during the first year of Covid. He says his diet was quite good while training for the Cork half marathon this past June.

Now aged 39, the keen park runner says that his ambition ahead of turning 40 is one that many of us may share — to be fitter than he is right now.