Full transcript of “50岁最怕的不是三高｜凡人有约｜黄德威医生（Dr. Wong Teck Wee）”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 It's actually lovely working here because there's plenty of places to walk If you work inside a hospital your choices are so limited A lot of older people these days are really lonely And loneliness is even more dangerous than smoking or being overweight Have you ever thought about this? What life looks like after 50 is actually decided when you're young Last week I had a phone call with a cardiologist He said five things decide how well you live once you're older but most people aren't really prepared I wanted to hear him out So today I've got an appointment with him And the meeting place is rather interesting His clinic is in the hospital right above Mid Valley and The Gardens Mall
0:46 Hi, I have an appointment with Dr Wong at 5pm I can wait for him Hello, Dr Wong We've only just got here Let me pop to the loo first Of course No rush, take a moment While we're waiting do subscribe to our channel, Humangraph So this is suppose to be a garden for the patients They come out here after surgery to move about and get some fresh air Right It doesn't feel like a hospital Not like a hospital at all
1:31 I feel like I've come shopping Why choose Mid Valley, building a hospital next to a shopping mall? The boss here is a heart surgeon and he followed the Singapore model Most of them are on Orchard Road So patients come in for their appointment and afterwards they go shopping have a wander round the shops He reckons it's a very good model and I'd say he's right Let me take you to see the CT scan It's been a busy day I did two procedures This is what we call a CT scan So in the past when we didn't have this machine we checked the heart with a treadmill test Now we use this instead and it's rather more accurate
2:19 If we find a blockage we refer the patient for a catheter procedure the one where they put a stent in So it's the better way of doing it and it isn't even new It's been around for 20 years But plenty of patients still don't know it's the better option Especially patients in government hospitals They still get put on the treadmill which isn't very accurate And if you're elderly you can't run on it or if your legs hurt you can't manage it either With this one you just lie there, we inject the dye and we can see it So it's the better method It just costs a bit more But it's accurate Far more accurate
3:04 Thank you, doctor So how do you want to do this? The other day you said we'd chat while we walk Wouldn't that make it hard to focus? So let me explain This is a really important concept in Healthy Ageing Usually with older people those in their 60s and 70s I ask them this at this stage of your life what actually matters? So, what matters most? Have a guess Health At 60 or 70 Okay, health matters What else? Money matters too Money yes And? Relationships Relationships right And? Those three are You haven't seen my slides, have you? You came up with that yourself
3:51 No, I haven't seen them You haven't? Not yet So in healthy ageing you don't wait until you're old to start preventing things It starts from the womb from childhood right through to old age So it's a very long process The question I just asked you when you're old, there are actually five things that matter And the one you named the first one, is health Health does matter But for older people if you haven't got the financial means no financial independence life is still miserable So money matters The third one is our relationships How we get on with family
4:37 with your relatives with your community and the ones from your working life These matter You don't want to be the lonely sort A lot of older people these days are really lonely And loneliness is even more dangerous than smoking or being overweight Whereas if you're someone who's really well connected you can live very well indeed So those are the three you named There's one you didn't mention and that's time Time matters enormously So many people young ones, middle-aged ones they've got their health
5:24 but because of money they work themselves into the ground Absolutely flat out and they've no time of their own We all get the same amount of time, right? Everyone gets exactly the same 24 hours, the same for all of us But recently I was talking to an older mentor and he said we can actually buy time Our average life expectancy here in Malaysia is somewhere in the 70s You'd have to look it up 74, 76, around there But if you're healthy you could live to 100 You're better off than everyone else You get more time So if you've got your health you live that bit longer So health
6:09 buys you time The other one is if you've got the financial means you can buy other people's time He's an entrepreneur, you see He said, I use money to buy my staff's time to get my work done That's financial power Third, your connections If your network is good Say you run into a problem If you work it out on your own it takes ages But if you happen to know someone who can sort it for you they'll have it done in a minute So time can be sorted out using the other three things So these four things are the challenge for most older people
6:57 They're the real challenges But above these four there's one more thing that can hold all four together This one's on a higher level It's the spiritual side of things Shall we head downstairs? Sure Do we need to take our things? Or shall we leave them? Are we coming back? I'll lock up for you It's fine There's nobody about, no need Have you left anything in there? It's fine, just one small thing It'll be all right And there's CCTV Right, no problem then Let's get going Sure This is like a vlog, isn't it? It is Hi, Dr Wong Hi This is our CEO
7:51 This is the best thing about this place What's that? You walk straight down and you're in the shopping mall The mall's over that way That's right And there's plenty over here This way leads into the mall too It's actually lovely working here because there's plenty of places to walk If you work inside a hospital your choices are so limited Do you not normally have to wear a white coat? No When I first started I did wear a tie Now none of us bother with ties It feels like an ordinary office Right Office workers Exactly So on the health side of things
8:38 especially for older people there are five big things to prevent The first one is falls And falls have their own components So with falls the key is training your leg strength If your legs are weak and your balance is off you fall easily So if you don't want to fall it's leg strength Next comes our eyes You need to see clearly And even if your eyesight is fine
9:23 some people at home want to save money so they don't put the lights on No lights on you can't see and down you go These are all hidden risks And another thing your shoes Wear decent ones Some older folk especially try to save money so their shoes are poor quality They slip or don't fit properly, and over they go So with each of these the four big components are the main ones but there are lots of sub-factors underneath and they all matter Right Let's go this way Do you fancy something to eat? Sure We'll have a drink and a bite to eat What about your next appointment?
10:11 No, I'm free Once I'm done here I'll head home Let's have a walk round then and come back up here after Doctor, how old are you this year? I'm 56 And how old do you feel? How old do I feel? You see, how old you feel depends on your vitality whether you've got that energy If you feel worn out all the time Because from the outside you can't really tell But if you've no energy in you you feel old So if you've got energy, you're fine I feel like I'm about 40 not someone in his 50s Because a lot of my friends
10:56 and patients Don't walk too fast That's the thing they're in their 50s and they're already gone I went to a Malay-medium school and a lot of my Malay classmates around 5% of them have already died They had so many chronic conditions diabetes smoking high blood pressure So many problems strokes and the rest of it So a lot of them went far too early So it comes down to your vitality Your energy Some people are young and at 30-odd they've no energy left Take my dad He's got loads of energy He's in his 80s but the things he gets up to you'd think he was 50 or 60
11:43 So how do you look at age, then? Okay age There's what they call biological age and there's chronological age the number of years you've lived But your actual biological age that's the one that matters It's the age your health is at Some patients are in their 80s like my dad He's 80-odd in years but his body isn't The way he thinks is more like a 60-year-old that whole approach to life That's how it is Someone like you, doctor I imagine a lot of people
12:30 I won't say envy you but you're in your 50s and still have the energy to do so much I'm very content with where I am now And when I've got time I go and do charity work It's all things I enjoy You know what ikigai is, don't you? Yes So those four components I've got the lot I do what I love I can earn a living from it I do what people need and on top of that I love what I'm doing So I'd say I've got ikigai genuinely doing what I love Is this your secret to feeling younger than your years? Would you say?
13:16 Possibly But I don't do it to make myself younger It just happened The opportunities came along and let me do this kind of thing I didn't go looking for it But your viewers the younger ones if they prepare early it really is good for them Shall we sit here? Yes let's Right I think you're rather unusual, doctor Besides being a heart specialist you're a psychologist too? I'm not a psychologist I'm a cardiologist
14:01 It's just that my patients come from all walks of life All sorts of people And when they come to see me because of the rapport we have that connection between us which is a good one they bring me every problem going It should be heart problems I'm a cardiologist after all but if they can't open their bowels they still come to me And sometimes their emotional problems they bring those to me as well So in life our job is to solve people's problems Solve people's problems That's why they keep coming back So I've developed a real interest in life and how people live a genuine interest a real passion
14:47 So I don't just talk about hearts It isn't a case of chest pain, here's a painkiller take something for the chest pain That's wrong I want to find the root of it Find the cause Take your wife, for instance What are her symptoms? You said earlier A tight chest Ah, chest tightness, okay So chest tightness from a medical point of view is probably acid reflux But why has she got reflux? It comes from her lifestyle stress work the children you the family Right the husband It all leaves her stressed out And she's probably too busy to bother finding healthy food to eat You have to find the cause before you can treat it properly
15:33 rather than papering over the symptoms So as doctors we have two principles One, treat the root cause The other is prevention and that's the most important We should be holistic doctors looking at the whole picture Because these illnesses are never just the one problem Other things are feeding into them psychological things family things Take a patient who's had a stroke If he's got a family the question is whether that family will step in and look after him If your relationships are poor they might not come and care for you or they do care for you but grudgingly So it's all interconnected
16:21 We talked for over two hours that day and only a small part fits in here There are several more episodes coming where we carry on chatting with Dr Wong If you enjoy videos like this do subscribe to our Humangraph channel and turn on the notification bell so you won't miss our new videos One last question to leave you with How old are you this year? And how old do you feel? Let's carry on in the comments
