Cardiologist Hu Dayi: Failing to Live Past Ninety Is Your Own Fault

Professor Hu Dayi is a professor and director of cardiology at Peking University People’s Hospital. He is a famous Chinese cardiovascular disease expert and medical educator, and has served as director of the Department of Cardiology at Peking University Health Science Center and director of the Cardiovascular Disease Institute of Capital Medical University.

Professor Hu Dayi was born in July 1946 in Kaifeng, Henan Province. He graduated from the Medical Department of Beijing Medical College in 1970. After graduation, he worked for many years in clinical practice at Beijing People’s Hospital, Beijing Tongren Hospital, and other institutions, while also teaching and conducting research at Peking University Health Science Center and Capital Medical University.

In one of his articles he wrote a very interesting passage, saying that doctors should “estand firm at thirty, be free from doubts at forty, know the will of heaven at fifty, write books and establish theories at sixty, reflect on life at seventy, travel and enjoy the mountains and rivers at eighty; if you cannot make it to ninety, that is your own fault.” He advocates that doctors set a staged life and career goal every decade.

Professor Hu is exactly 80 years old this year. I do not know whether he has been traveling widely, but I found that he still sees patients at United Family Hospital and other medical institutions in Beijing. He is now a renowned expert; even if he wanted to retire and travel, his patients probably would not allow it. Based on my understanding of the Beijing medical community, experts of his caliber are expected to “keep working as long as they live.”

Professor Hu Dayi says that if people can maintain a healthy lifestyle—zero smoking, watching what they eat, moving their legs, and keeping a good attitude—their life expectancy should exceed 90 years. Doctors are a profession with greater access to health-care knowledge, so a doctor’s life expectancy should definitely be 90, not 70 or 80. If a doctor fails to live past ninety, it must be his own fault—he has not properly cared for his body and health.

Professor Hu Dayi has done a great deal of health science popularization throughout his life. He says that treating an illness means ten doctors helping one patient recover, whereas health education means one doctor teaching tens of thousands of people how to avoid falling ill; therefore the social value of doctor-led health education is enormous. I deeply agree with this point.

Nowadays many people develop all kinds of health problems at a young age, and sudden cardiac death closely related to cardiovascular disease occurs from time to time. Professor Hu Dayi once cited autopsy data from the Guangzhou area of China to illustrate the severity of this problem. The statistics showed that among people aged 10–19, 21.1% already had atherosclerotic lesions, and among those over 40, 80% showed atherosclerosis. This shows how unhealthy everyone’s cardiovascular system is.

These are data from more than a decade ago; the figures may be even higher now, because the obesity rate among Chinese residents continues to rise. In recent years, the dietary structure of Chinese residents has become further unbalanced: animal-derived foods occupy an increasing share of the Chinese diet, and people’s physical activity has further declined, so the prevalence of cardiovascular disease has been rising. According to estimates by the Chinese medical community, the number of potential cardiovascular disease patients in China may now be 330 million.

So how does a cardiovascular specialist manage his own cardiovascular health? From Professor Hu Dayi’s writing, I learned that around the year 2000, his own blood glucose, blood lipids, and body weight were all above normal. At the time he wanted to lose weight quickly, so he took diet pills, but the effect was poor.

He then switched approaches: he began to exercise consistently, walking 10,000 steps a day, controlled his diet to about 80% fullness per meal, avoided trans fatty acids and saturated fatty acids as much as possible, and stopped drinking alcohol. As a result, within half a year he lost 15 kilograms, and his blood glucose and blood lipids returned to normal.

Since then he has consistently eaten to about 80% fullness, balanced meat and vegetables, and walked 10,000 steps daily; his weight, blood glucose, and blood lipids have remained well controlled. From videos and photos of his media interviews, his later physique is truly excellent—not at least bit flabby.

In fact, the healthy behavioral standards he advocates are very simple, totaling four points: 1. Do not smoke, or have quit smoking for more than one year; 2. Stick to aerobic exercise, about 150 minutes per week—roughly five days a week, about 30 minutes each day of continuous jogging or brisk walking; 3. Eat a healthy diet, especially controlling salt intake and strictly limiting trans fatty acids and saturated fatty acids; drink fewer sugary beverages; eat more fresh vegetables, fruits, and potassium-rich foods; 4. Maintain an ideal body weight.

Speaking of maintaining an ideal weight, my biggest takeaway is that the main thing is to control the amount of food eaten—just as Professor Hu Dayi does, eating only to 80% fullness per meal. My own weight and blood lipids are also slightly above normal, and I am working to control these through lifestyle changes. I have tried many methods and found that dieting is the most effective.

I recently saw statistics showing that exercise contributes only a limited amount to weight control—at most 20%–30% of the effect—and that controlling caloric intake is the key. Only by ensuring that daily calories expended are slightly below calories consumed can our weight gradually come down. The basal metabolic rate of middle-aged and elderly people declines, but conversely, by middle age people are financially better off than when young and can afford to eat more and better, which makes weight loss very difficult now.

We often say to eat only to seven or eight tenths full, but many people actually do not know what eight-tenths full feels like—nor did I. I have been losing weight by controlling food intake; my weight has been slowly declining over the past few years, though not as fast as Professor Hu Dayi’s.

I used a simple, laborious method: consciously reducing the amount I eat little by little. For example, in the cafeteria I used to take three dishes; now I take two, and I ask the server to give me a little less. After adapting for a month or two, I reduce a bit more. Gradually, I eat less than before, but my energy remains as abundant as ever and my physical stamina is still good.

I do not know whether I will live past 90 in the future, although I sometimes optimistically imagine I might live past 100. But after studying medicine, I have certainly become much more attentive to my health. Even so, I still have some health problems, but I am a big-hearted person: I work to change them without becoming anxious about them.