By Alec Hogg
Ten years ago I got to see the late Muhammad Ali in the flesh. It broke my heart. The greatest boxer of all time, the man who beat the odds time and again, needed to be helped onto the stage to receive his Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum in Davos. And he slurred a few words of acceptance.
Four years after seeing how Ali had been ravaged by Parkinson’s, we buried one of my dearest friends who also lived the last decade of his life with the disease. Parkinson’s isn’t itself fatal – Ali lived three decades with the disease – but complications which accompany it can be.
There is no cure for Parkinson’s, a neurological disease where victims lose control of their movements, limbs and speech. It involves the deterioration of dopamine-producing cells, the critical substance which ensures smooth transmission of messages within and from our brain. It usually hits after 60, but some of the 5 million people globally afflicted have had it since their 40s.
There’s no guarantee against Parkinson’s. But I fancy Warren Buffett’s approach makes him a lower risk. Buffett, now 85 and having as much fun as when he was 35, says his secret has been to live stress-free – consciously reducing the frictional cost of life wherever he can. He realised early on health is our most important asset. Pity it takes so many of us so long to cotton on.
