ALLSET Gazette #3
Top three healthy ageing highlights this week.
Hi there!
This is Jing, founder of ALLSET.
Top Three Healthy Ageing Highlights
👋🏻 A quick introduction if you’re new here.
I highlight three healthy ageing insights each week to fast-forward Singapore’s healthspan vs lifespan gap reduction.
If you know of anything I should include, please email me. 🙏🏻
Otherwise, here goes:
1. The Age You Gain Strength Fastest
If you’ve done a VO2 max test or strength assessment at my company, you would know the force plates pictured above.
I got them from an Australian company, VALD.
The company’s head of data science was recently interviewed on a podcast, and he shared some new insights.
Including:
The company aims to use its data to predict injuries.
The age with the largest strength development, based on their users’ peak power data, was 12 years old for females and 14 years old for males.
At those ages, adolescents can gain the same strength in three weeks that a typical adult would take a year to build.
It puts into perspective this graph from the World Health Organisation.
Previously, we could only infer that our physical functions formed a reserve when we were young.
We now know how much easier it is to build strength while you’re young versus when you’re old.
Not strengthening yourself today is perhaps more than a day wasted.
2. Insights From Forming a Healthy CEO Club
I started enrolling members into my Healthy CEO Club pilot last month.
The intake for this batch closes this week, and here are some of the statistics so far:
VO2 max average percentile: 42
Strength average percentile: 40
Members mix: ~20% large enterprise, 30% medium/small enterprise, 50% micro-enterprise
I expected a stronger start, i.e. higher average percentiles, but now I’m eager to learn how much the cohort can improve their health.
If you’re curious about the club, check out the information on this page or reply to this email to arrange a chat.
3. A Glimpse into Singapore’s Super-Aged Future
In a recent webinar, NUHS’s Centre for Healthy Longevity featured the project Health District @ Queenstown.
You can find the full presentation by Professor John Eu-Li Wong above, but here’s my TLDR version.
Background:
Populations are now ageing faster than ever - it took France 145 years to go from an ageing to a super-aged population (from 7% to >21% above 65 years old), the United States 88 (projected), Japan 36, and Singapore 28 (projected)
Queenstown has 78.8% of its 99.6K population in public housing, similar to Singapore’s overall mix
22.3% of Queenstown’s population is above 65, which means it falls into the super-aged category (Singapore, as a whole, is at 19.1%)
Things piloted at Queenstown:
According to researchers, only 10% of our health is influenced by our medical/healthcare system; 30% of it is our genetics, and the other 60% is social, behavioural and environmental factors
Out of the social determinant’s 60%, 24% can be linked to environmental factors
The interventions at Queenstown therefore comprise of not only care delivery, but also HDB’s design interventions, improving social compact through programs which promote purposeful longevity like intergenerational engagement, and utilising ageing-related technology
The health district is then evaluated on a NorthStar metric, wellbeing, which I thought is also useful for us to check on how we are ageing.
Of note, Professor Wong highlighted that healthy longevity is an economic investment; the ageing demographic challenge is about removing barriers for people to meaningfully contribute to society in their later years, and Queenstown has shown how we can do that.
On the whole, this is my takeaway:
We have many steps to take to prepare for a super-aged society and depending on our efforts, our social compact will evolve either painfully or gracefully.
Check out the entire presentation, starting at the 8:30 mark.
From the Team
💪🏻 Personal training and physiotherapy remain our company’s primary revenue stream; support our healthy ageing efforts and improve your health by working with our trainers.
📝 Continuous education courses for health professionals and enthusiasts start soon. Join our chat group for updates.
😎 ALLSET Advocates, our affiliate program, is now live. Find out more.
📅 We are curating events related to healthy ageing; see the calendar.
🚀 If you are exploring healthy company solutions, see our list.
Have a Chat
Have a recommendation for our weekly healthy ageing highlights?
Want to work with us?
Simply reply to this newsletter or email us at hello@allset.sg.
If not, till next time, take care! 💪🏻
Kindest,
Jing 💜