Germany is really that healthy

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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High blood pressure, stress, sport or alcohol consumption - how healthy do Germans live? And how does that affect your physical condition? The most important answers!

It is the largest study of its kind in 15 years: More than 7,000 Germans between the ages of 18 and 79 had their doctors put them through their paces and answered extensive questionnaires about their lifestyle. From this, the Robert Koch Institute created a comprehensive report on the state of health in the nation - the "Study on Adult Health in Germany" (DEGS).

The most important topics in the overview:

Cardiovascular

Blood pressure is an important indicator of heart health. If it is too high, the blood vessels - and in the long run even the heart itself. This increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes - these are still the most common causes of death in Germany. On average, Germans are not that bad when it comes to blood pressure: men have 127/73 mmHg, women have an average of 121/71 mmHg. A blood pressure of 120/80 mmHg or less is considered ideal.
But these numbers are only to be understood as average values. In fact, almost every third adult in Germany has too high a blood pressure - a total of 20 million people.

High blood pressure can usually be regulated down very well - with the help of medication, but also through lifestyle changes such as weight reduction, exercise and moderate alcohol and salt consumption.

Elevated blood lipid levels are also considered a risk factor for the heart. 18 percent of men and 20 percent of women have very high cholesterol levels. Here, too, a lot can be done through diet, exercise or medication.
A comparison with the Federal Health Survey from 1998 shows that many people do not take heart prevention seriously enough. Since then, the number of strokes and heart attacks has not fallen: almost five percent of 40 to 79 year olds still suffer a heart attack and almost three Percent have a stroke.

Stress & psyche

Pressure at work, theater with the youngsters, worries about money: stress is omnipresent for many Germans. Every tenth adult in this country is not only constantly but also heavily stressed, shows the DEGS. Younger people are under more pressure than older people, women more than men. Of the 18 to 29 year olds, 13 percent are electrified - 16 percent of them are women and 10 percent are young men. The pressure decreases slightly with age. On average, 14 percent of women and 8 percent of men are chronically stressed.

Money is an important factor in stress levels: those who are financially poor suffer more from stress. Here, too, women are more frequently affected: women with a low socio-economic status are almost twice as likely to suffer from chronic stress as those who are financially very well off (20.2 versus 11.3 percent).
Stress not only affects the quality of life, it can also make you sick in the long term.It affects the body's defenses, interferes with the metabolism and damages the heart. But first the soul gets sick - sleep disorders, burnout and depression are possible consequences. Of those surveyed who were slightly to moderately stressed, only around 16 percent suffered from at least one such disorder. In the case of the heavily burdened, it was more than 60 percent.

Contrary to what is often assumed, the number of mental illnesses such as depression has not increased, write the DEGS experts.

Allergies

Allergies have increased continuously in recent years and decades. Meanwhile, the probability of developing an allergy in the course of a lifetime is already 30 percent, shows the DEGS. Most Germans suffer from hay fever - the risk of illness is more than 14 percent. The respondents were tested for 50 common allergens - from egg white, grain, fruit and animal hair to various types of pollen.

The result: Almost every second person (49 percent) reacted overly sensitively to at least one of these allergens. 33 percent were inhalation allergens such as pollen, 25 percent reacted to food allergens and 22 percent to insect venom.
Overall, people with a high socioeconomic status were more likely to suffer from allergies. They also occurred more often in women than in men. Overall, younger people reacted more often than older people. The authors of the study say that the trend towards more allergies will probably continue in the future.

Obesity & Diabetes

Germans are a fat people: According to the data, 67 percent of adult men and 53 percent of women are overweight. Your body mass index (BMI) is more than 25. Compared to the last major health survey from 1998, hardly anything has changed here. A second look, however, shows that among them the number of obese people (BMI> 30) has risen sharply. 19 percent of men and 22 percent of women in Germany are obese. This is particularly worrying, as it is precisely for these people that the risk of serious illnesses, from heart attacks to diabetes, increases. Men of all age groups in particular, but also younger women, are increasingly not only overweight, but also obese.

In fact, diabetes is also on the rise - above all type 2 diabetes, which is favored by being overweight. Since 1998, the number of people with diabetes has increased by 38 percent. Only one third of the increase is due to the higher average age of the population - the remaining two thirds are likely the result of an unhealthy lifestyle.
In total, around seven percent of the adults surveyed were diagnosed with diabetes.

Exercise & Diet

The good news first: Germans are moving more than 15 years ago. According to their own information, around one in three adults makes sure they are physically active. Around one in four exercises at least two hours a week. However, only one in five Germans manages the minimum time of 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity training per week recommended by the World Health Organization. This is especially true for women: only 15 percent of them achieve this goal, but at least 25 percent of men.

Germans have also improved in terms of nutrition - at least when it comes to their fruit and vegetable consumption. In 1998, only 18 percent of women and 10 percent of men ate fruit and vegetables several times a day, today the figure is 24 and 14 percent respectively.

It's not quite optimal yet. The German Nutrition Society recommends five servings a day. Because fruits and vegetables contain important vitamins and fiber and are also comparatively low in calories. This five-a-day rule only applies to 15 percent of women and 7 percent of men. After all, 39 percent and 25 percent of those surveyed get three servings a day.

Alcohol & cigarettes

Beer, wine, Aperol "Spritz": Germans drink a lot of alcohol. Younger adults in particular consume alcohol in a risky manner - and happily to the point of intoxication. More than half of 18 to 29 year old men consume 20 to 24 grams of pure alcohol daily. 48 percent are drunk at least once a month. One in three women in this age group drinks too much. And every fifth person looks far too deep into the glass once a month. Alcohol consumption continuously decreases with age, so that in the group of over 65-year-olds only one in three men and less than one in ten women drinks too much alcohol.

Fortunately, the number of smokers in Germany has decreased. But when it comes to tobacco consumption, the younger Germans have the noses ahead. Almost 30 percent of women under 29 smoke daily and more than ten percent smoke occasionally. For young men of the same age, the figure is 34 and 13 percent, respectively. Cigarette consumption decreases with age.

This also contributes to the fact that many succeed in saying goodbye to the glowing stick. It is mainly created by people with a high socio-economic status (62 percent of women who smoke and 66 percent of men who smoke in this class). Of the socially and financially disadvantaged people, only 36 percent of women and 43 percent of men manage to do this.

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