Top Health Risks for Dallas-Fort Worth Residents
Living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has a lot of amazing advantages. However, residents’ dependence on automobiles, combined with busy schedules, often result in a lack of exercise. Combine this with a lot of meals on-the-go made up of those huge portions that make Texas famous, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Our lifestyle choices matter when it comes to our health.
The Leading Health Risks in Dallas-Fort Worth
D Magazine, a local Dallas-Fort Worth publication, published an article some time ago that asked experts about major health risks for DFW residents, and those experts came up with 6 major concerns:
- Respiratory problems (allergies and asthma)
- Traffic accidents
- Skin cancer
- Smoking
- Metabolic syndrome
- Hypertension and diabetes
You can read the full article here.
As medical professionals working to treat people suffering from hormone imbalances, it is these last 2 that we find worrisome.
Dallas-Fort Worth Health Risks — Metabolic Syndrome
Formerly called Syndrome X, metabolic syndrome occurs when people suffer from a combination of any 3 of the following conditions:
- Abdominal obesity
- High triglycerides
- Low HDL (high-density lipoprotein, or good cholesterol)
- Elevated blood sugar
Genetic risk is thought to be the largest contributor, but poor diet and lack of exercise can definitely play a role in increasing the risks to a person’s health, which include hypertension, diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.
Even a modest reduction in body weight could help lessen the impact of metabolic syndrome. That usually means eating less sugar and less fat, as well as being intentional about adding regular exercise to our busy daily routines.
That can be a tough proposition for many busy DFW-area residents with tight schedules and long commutes.
Dallas-Fort Worth Health Risks — Hypertension
Also commonly referred to as high blood pressure, hypertension is well known to be a serious health risk, even life threatening in severe cases.
Hypertension is a leading contributor to coronary heart disease, which is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. Untreated hypertension itself can result in stroke, kidney failure, or even blindness.
Life in a metropolitan area like DFW, no doubt, contributes to high rates of hypertension. Another major contributor common to urban living worldwide is stress, and yet another is the frequency with which people eat out, increasing the opportunities to eat too much food that is often less than healthy.
One of the concerns with hypertension is that many of those suffering from the condition are unaware that they have it and that they need to make changes to their routines immediately.
It’s clear that, similar to metabolic syndrome, regular exercise and health-conscious diet choices could do a lot towards reducing the risk of hypertension.
Dallas-Fort Worth Health Risks: What About Hormones?
As medical professionals, we get concerned when we see some of our DFW-area patients locked in a cycle of poor health.
They need to make changes to their routines, including better eating habits and more exercise, but that’s really hard when they’re also suffering from the symptoms of low testosterone or other hormone imbalances at the same time. Common symptoms include the following:
- Chronic fatigue
- Mild depression
- Anxiety
- Difficulty with weight management
Added to the already-difficult conditions that life in Fort Worth places on us, low testosterone or hypothyroidism could keep a person locked into a spiral of bad health.
Take the First Step — Visit TCT’s Hurst Clinic
If you’re suffering from an unhealthy urban lifestyle — stressed out, under-exercised, and sitting in DFW traffic — and a hormone imbalance is working against your best efforts to make a change, the first step you’ll probably need to take is to get your hormones under control.
That would require getting a firm grasp on your current, base-line hormonal health situation.
At Testosterone Centers of Texas, we believe that the goal of any reputable Testosterone Replacement Therapy clinic (or other hormone replacement treatment center) must be to return you to a “normal” range for your body — to bring all your hormone levels back into harmony and help your body function like it’s supposed to.
To help you get into a position where you can more easily make those lifestyle changes you need to make, we offer a free initial consultation. You can make a reservation online here, or you can just drop by our Hurst clinic — walk-in visits are always welcomed.
Learn more about our Hurst clinic here.
