Masters Series: Five Medical Exams Essential to a Healthy Life

Editor's note: Retirement Millionaire editor Dr. David Eifrig says our country is suffering from a medical epidemic… where doctors are over-testing and over-treating patients.

Yesterday, we showed you five dangerous and overused medical exams "Doc" says will do you more harm than good.

But that doesn't mean you should avoid doctors completely… In today's edition of our weekend Masters Series – originally published in the October issue of his Retirement Millionaire newsletter – Doc shares a list of medical exams that are actually worthwhile.

These five tests won't eliminate your risk of overtreatment or even disease. But it's likely you can improve the quality and length of your life by considering these tests sooner than later…

Five Medical Exams Essential to a Healthy Life
By Dr. David Eifrig, editor, Retirement Millionaire

Some medical warning signs shouldn't be ignored...

George was 85 years old when his wife noticed some strange moles on his face. At his wife's insistence, he went to the doctor to have the moles checked.

After a biopsy, the doctor found George had an early stage of skin cancer. Within a few weeks, he had surgery to remove the cancerous moles. He's been cancer-free for more than a year.

I regularly criticize the medical industry. A lot of my criticism might lead you to believe I'm anti-medicine. But I'm not... I'm all about common sense, science-based tests and treatments.

As a medical doctor – an insider to one of the country's biggest industries – I've seen the benefits of medical procedures and drugs... when used appropriately.

We're in the middle of an overtreatment epidemic. Doctors are over-testing and overtreating patients…

However, some tests are useful and necessary – likes George's skin-cancer screening. Today, we'll discuss the medical tests you should get. The five tests that are critical to your health are:

Most of these tests received an "A" grade from the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF). Recall, the USPSTF is a panel of 16 MDs and PhDs whose specialties range from behavioral health to pediatrics. These experts look at the research data and make recommendations on the usefulness of screenings, counseling services, and preventative medications.

Its grades range from "A" to "I." Receiving a "D" means the USPSTF recommends against getting the exam. An "A" grade means the USPSTF recommends the exam. Screening for high blood pressure, colorectal cancer, and lipid disorders all received "A" grades.

If the task force feels there's not enough evidence to either recommend or advise against a service, it could opt to assign the service an "I" for inconclusive. Skin cancer and eye screening currently have "I" grades. But as I'll explain... I've studied the research, looked at the facts, and found these to be among the five most important exams to maintain your health...

1. Screening for High Blood Pressure: High blood pressure has earned its nickname "The Silent Killer." Symptoms often emerge too late to avoid dire (even fatal) health consequences. One of the first signs can be a stroke.

If your blood pressure is 140/90 or higher, then you have high blood pressure. The problem is, you can't detect high blood pressure without screening. Your pressure can slowly rise over time, doing damage to your internal organs, including your brain... This makes screening for high blood pressure essential.

Fortunately, you don't need to spend time at a doctor's office to monitor your blood pressure. Stores like Rite Aid, Walgreens, and many Wal-Mart pharmacies have blood-pressure monitors in the store. I regularly roll my sleeve up and use these monitors to check my blood pressure.

Factors like caffeine and anxiety can also raise your blood pressure. So be sure to avoid these before the test. Some people actually have "white coat" syndrome – where anxiety over visiting the doctor sends their pressure up artificially. Also, try to sit calmly for a few minutes before you take the test. If one of your readings shows your blood pressure is high, don't panic. Take the test again in a couple days or at a different store. If it's still high, ask someone at the pharmacy how often they calibrate the machine. (They should at least once per year.)

If you find you do have high blood pressure, there are plenty of ways to take control of it without immediately going on medications. Make sure you exercise regularly and eat the right foods. Foods that lower blood pressures are dark chocolate, eggs, wine, olive oil, and foods high in potassium.

And do what I do – meditate regularly. This can quickly relieve sensations of stress, a leading cause of high blood pressure. After a few months of regular mediation, research shows you can lower your blood pressure by at least 10 points without visiting a doctor or using medications.

2. Screening for Colorectal Cancer: Colorectal cancer can strike both the colon and rectum. It typically begins as benign clumps – called adenomatous polyps. These polyps are small and don't often produce symptoms early on, making the cancer hard to detect without screening.

Of course, not all polyps develop into cancer, but they can. And the cancer can even spread to other organs throughout your body. Symptoms of this usually show up in the later stages. Screening can catch the polyps before they're cancerous. So it's wise to have them removed.

The USPSTF recommends screening for adults aged 50 to 75 years. If there is a history of cancer in your family, be sure to have screening done starting at age 50. The types of screening include fecal occult blood testing, sigmoidoscopy, and colonoscopy.

Fecal occult testing requires stool samples which are tested for blood – a sign of colorectal cancer. It's a little annoying but has fewer side effects. A sigmoidoscopy looks for unusual growths in the rectum and lower colon. A colonoscopy examines the entire rectum and colon. Growths can be removed or biopsied during a colonoscopy, but the colonoscopy is slightly riskier than a sigmoidoscopy.

There's no way to prevent colon cancer, but you can reduce your risk. Most important, keep your weight in check. People who are overweight or obese have a higher risk of colorectal cancer. This is especially true for people with large waistlines. To lower your risk, limit your intake of alcohol and processed meats. Also, some studies show regular use of aspirin lowers your risk. Do what I do... take one baby aspirin a day or one 325-milligram aspirin every week.

3. Screening for Skin Cancer: The three main types of skin cancer are basal-cell skin cancer (the most common), melanoma, and squamous-cell skin cancer. Basal-cell skin cancer is found on the face and other areas that deal with regular sun exposure. Melanoma occurs anywhere on the skin's surface. It can even occur on the eye and in the intestines. Both basal-cell skin cancer and melanoma are more common in people with fair skin. Squamous-cell skin cancer is the most common type of skin cancer in people with dark skin and is usually found on legs and feet. For fair-skinned people, squamous appears on the head, face, ears, and neck.

Skin cancer looks like a slightly strange mole. In fact, some benign moles can turn cancerous. There are ways to tell potentially cancerous moles from benign ones. Cancerous moles are asymmetrical, have irregular borders, uneven color, changing size or appearance. The only way to identify if a mole is cancerous is through monitoring and screening.

Screening with a doctor is generally simple. A quick look by a dermatologist is enough to know if a biopsy is needed. The doctor biopsies the lesion, taking a small tissue sample to test and examine for cancer cells. Biopsies are often done in a doctor's office or as an outpatient at a hospital. The doctor uses a local anesthetic on the biopsy area to lessen pain from the procedure.

The easiest way to prevent skin cancer is to protect your skin from excessive sun. Avoid going outside during prime burning times of 11 a.m. through 2 p.m. If I have to go out midday, I wear a long-sleeved shirt and a hat. I also wear sunglasses to protect my eyes. But avoid sunscreens – they're loaded with known carcinogens (think of them as cancer-causing chemicals you'd never put on a baby). I try to avoid lotions stronger than SPF4.

4. Screening for Lipid Disorders: Lipid disorder is a broad term used for excess fat in the bloodstream. The most common lipid disorder is from excessively high cholesterol and triglycerides (another type of fat). Many components make up total cholesterol. But the two most important are considered "bad" cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL) and good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL).

LDL is "bad" because it's thought to catalyze arterial plaque formation, clogging arteries. HDL cholesterol inhibits excess levels of harmful fats and LDL from sticking to arteries. High cholesterol and especially triglycerides increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Unfortunately, high cholesterol has no symptoms. So you may not know you have it until it's too late.

Screening for cholesterol is simple... A patient fasts for nine to 12 hours before a blood test, called a lipid panel. The test measures the levels four common types of lipids in the blood – total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides. A doctor determines if you have high cholesterol based on the quantities of these lipids.

High cholesterol is preventable in most cases. The simplest ways to prevent high cholesterol are exercising regularly, eating a diet packed with vegetables and fruits – high-fiber foods – and maintaining a healthy weight.

5. Screening for Eye Diseases: Two of the most common eye diseases (except general vision problems like near- or farsightedness) that occur as we age are age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma.

AMD is an eye disease that damages the macula – the part of the eye that provides central vision. Glaucoma is a group of eye problems that damage your eye's optic nerve (which carries images from the retina to your brain), resulting in vision loss and blindness.

To test for AMD, your doctor should examine the back of your eye, test your central vision, even use an angiogram that uses a colored dye to highlight abnormalities in the blood vessels in your eye, or use an optical coherence tomography (OCT). The OCT discovers thinning or thickening of areas around the retina nerve fiber layers.

To test for glaucoma, a doctor may measure the thickness of your cornea, examine the back of your eye, test your distance and peripheral vision, and measure the pressure in your eye using a tonometry test. Most of us get the "puff of air" test when we go to the eye doctor... That's one type of tonometry test.

Factors like cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure increase your risk of AMD... as does smoking. So keep your health in check and quit smoking. The best way to prevent both AMD and glaucoma is through a diet rich in foods with vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, copper, and omega-3 fatty acids. If you have AMD in your family or have been diagnosed with it, be sure to discuss the pros and cons of supplements containing these substances.

Omega-3 pills, and supplements in general, have real risks and should be considered only when science has proven benefits. In the case of AMD, supplements with these vitamins and chemicals have been shown to change the course of the disease. But as always, consider getting the chemicals in the form of whole foods – like fresh vegetables, nuts, and fish.

While these five tests we've described don't eliminate your risk of overtreatment or even disease, it's likely you can improve the quality and length of your life by considering these tests sooner than later.

With these exams, should you have positive results, please research the possible treatments with your doctor and get a second opinion if you're in doubt. Always weigh the benefits and risks, and feel free to ask your doctor about the scientific proof for his recommendation. If he can't show you the proof, get a new doctor.

Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,

Dr. David Eifrig, Jr., MD, MBA

Editor's note: Doc shares health tips like this every month in Retirement Millionaire. For example, he recently showed readers the dangers of supposed "all natural" dietary supplements. But he also fills every issue with tips for saving money and building wealth for a happy retirement.

Doc recently released a report describing an unusual strategy for retirees to consistently generate extra income. Learn more about Retirement Millionaire – and how to access his new report – here.

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