Testing Your 'BQ': The Body-Quotient Quiz

May 9, 2005 — -- Readers can test their knowledge of their own bodies in a new book by authors Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet Oz, "YOU: The Owners' Manual." Part of the quiz excerpted from the book is below.

Testing Your BQ: The Body-Quotient Quiz

Everyone knows that IQ (intelligence quotient) measures your smarts. There's also such a thing as EQ (emotional quotient), which measures traits linked to personality and character. Though some people may live and die by DQ (Dairy Queen), our favorite acronym is BQ: body quotient. How much do you know about your body? Sure, you know your legs make you run, your liver cleans up your happy-hour shenanigans, and your gut makes a nice ledge for your bottle of Bud, but we want to give you a little test -- to introduce you to how cool your body is and to challenge your preconceived notions about how your body works and ages.

Though you've lived in yours for thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, maybe seventy or more years, our contention is that you probably don't know your body as intimately as you think. By knowing your body, you develop a base of knowledge that gives you the power and authority to preserve and strengthen your life.

Don't worry if you fail this Body-Quotient Quiz because we'll answer everything throughout the book. Remember, too, that after you're finished with our book, you have ready tutors: your doctors. And you should use your doctors for more than just signing prescriptions. Use them as teachers; after all, that's what the word doctor means in Latin. Most want to be used this way -- it is their fun, let them have it. Ask them questions. Use their knowledge to learn more about how your body works.

So now pluck that pencil from your kid's backpack, and take a guess at these questions. At the end, flip to the back pages in this chapter, check out the answers, and find out how well you know your body.

The BQ Quiz: How Body Smart Are You?

1. Which of the following ages you the least?

a. Smoking one pack of cigarettes a day

b. A HDL (good) cholesterol level of 29 mg/dl

c. Consistently avoiding "cleaning grout" on your to-do list

d. Eating steak twice a week

2. What is the ideal blood pressure?

a. 115/76

b. Anything less than 140/90

c. Whatever the heck made George Burns live to one hundred

d. Depends on your family history

3. Which of the following is the best advice about diets?

a. The less you eat, the more weight you'll lose

b. The best diet is one you can follow forever

c. A good weight-loss diet include foods with little or no fat

d. Would somebody please pass the bacon?

4. What is the greatest threat to your arteries?

a. An elevated blood pressure of 160/90

b. An elevated LDL (bad) cholesterol of 200

c. An elevated helping of fried zucchini sticks

d. An elevated amount of time spent on the couch

5. Which of the following conditions is not primarily caused by the deterioration of arteries?

a. Strokes

b. Wrinkles

c. Diabetes

d. Impotence

6. What's the best Valentine's Day gift you can give your partner to make him/her healthier?

a. A little real chocolate candy for its nutritional effects

b. Schedule a warm massage for loosening up muscles

c. Flowers, for their therapeutic and aromatic effects

d. I'll be more than happy to take a spin through the Victoria's Secret catalog to get a few ideas

7. What is the ideal amount of aspirin you should take to decrease arterial aging?

a. Whatever it takes to cure a hangover

b. Two or more baby aspirins or half a regular aspirin

c. One baby aspirin

d. None; ibuprofen is better

8. What is the most revealing sign that you might have Alzheimer's-related dementia?

a. You constantly forget where you put your keys

b. You can't recognize information that someone told you five minutes ago

c. You forget that you told the same story to your coworkers last week

d. What was the question again?

9. What food has qualities least similar to that of an addictive drug?

a. No. 2 with a large Coke and a chocolate shake

b. Peanuts

c. Potatoes

d. Sugary cereals

10. Which of the following is true about the gender differences in brains?

a. Men are able to solve problems faster while women analyze complex issues better

b. Women have more emotional intelligence than men

c. Men's brains have a neural substation hiding under their Calvin Kleins

d. Men and women have the same brain system

11. What's the best kind of crossword puzzle you can do for your brain?

a. Whatever's available on the back of the toilet at the time

b. One you can finish

c. One you can't finish

d. I don't know, but I'm looking for an eight-letter insulin secretor starting with a p and ending with an s

12. What size particles are most hazardous to your lungs?

a. Size of the peanut, since they can block your windpipe

b. Size of small pieces of tobacco

c. Size of the stuff that causes smog

d. Size so small that you'd need more than the usual light-powered microscope to see them

13. Fill in the blank with the most appropriate comparison. Sleep is like _______.

a. Sex, because you can never get too much

b. Seat belts, because it helps your body come to a stop

c. Your boss, because it's most agreeable when it's uninterrupted

d. Church, because it's always so quiet and peaceful

14. What is excessive snoring the sign of?

a. That you stopped breathing

b. That there's some kind of obstruction in your throat

c. That you haven't had enough sleep

d. Imminent divorce

15. What's the equivalent risk of an hour's exposure to secondhand smoke?

a. Smoking four cigarettes yourself

b. Driving without a seat belt

c. Sunning yourself for an hour without sunscreen

d. Having a cholesterol level of 240

16. Which of the following is not an inherited taste?

a. Sweet

b. Sour

c. Adam Sandler movies

d. Fat

17. Your intestines are most similar to what other organ?

a. Your heart, because it pumps nutrients through the body

b. Your brain, because it releases the same chemicals

c. Your vocal cords, because they growl when you're hungry

d. The big one at the back of the church, because it makes all kinds of majestic sounds

18. Who is most likely to give you a stomach ulcer?

a. Your boss (from stress)

b. Your chef (from bad food)

c. Your spouse (from kissing)

d. Yourself (from overeating)

19. What is the major function of the colon?

a. To signal your brain that you're full

b. To suck fluid into your body

c. To digest food and get rid of gas

d. To separate an independent clause from a dependent one

20. Which trick has been shown scientifically to help you eat less at a meal?

a. Eating a lot at your previous meal

b. Eating fat at the start of every meal

c. Duct tape

d. Drinking a non-diet soft drink before your meal

Answers to The BQ Quiz: How Body Smart Are You?

1. D: Eating steak twice a week makes you less than one year older compared to smoking a pack of cigarettes (eight years older), an inadequate healthy HDL cholesterol of 29 (about four years older), and the stress of avoiding a nagging task makes you eight years older.

2. A: The ideal blood pressure is 115/76, established in fifty-six studies and fifty-two countries and over 20 million people. It is the same in New Delhi as it is in Chicago as it is in Tokyo. A lower blood pressure does not add much to your rate of aging, but higher numbers aren't good -- over 50 percent of heart attacks can be attributed to a blood pressure between 125/80 and 140/90.

3. B: The key to a diet is loving it and being able to stay on it. Eating too little will slow your metabolism.

4. A: Blood pressure of 160/90 is more than three times more of a threat to make your arteries dysfunctional than any of the others. That doesn't mean you should avoid physical activity or avoid lowering a lousy cholesterol reading; it just means that your blood pressure may be the most important number you know, other than your spouse's birthday, especially if your blood pressure is over 160/90.

5. C: Diabetes makes disease of the arteries worse, but is primarily a genetic disease made more evident by obesity in adults. The others -- impotence, wrinkling of the skin, and strokes -- are like heart attacks: They are primarily caused by the aging of your arteries.

6. A: The flavonoids and healthier fat in real cocoa-based chocolate make it healthy. Scheduling a massage does not count until you get it.

7. B: The data show that you get as much benefit for preventing arterial disease and cancer from two or more baby aspirins as from a full aspirin. And two baby aspirins are more than twice as good at preventing arterial disease as is one baby aspirin.

8. B: While you forget recent information with Alzheimer's, the forgetfulness is so profound that you can't not recognize that you forgot.

9. B: Only peanuts don't cause the direct release of the pleasure neurotransmitter dopamine. Peanuts are actually a healthy substance with both healthy fat and healthy protein.

10. A: That's the data; nothing more said.

11. C: By consistently challenging yourself, you increase the growth of brain cell dendrites and brain functioning.

12. D: Smaller particles escape your natural defenses of the beating brushes in your trachea and get deep into your lung, where they can cause inflammation, among other problems.

13. C: The more uninterrupted you sleep the better it is, because you get the rapid eye movement and slow wave sleep patterns that are restorative to functioning.

14. B: Snoring is caused by a narrowed passage for air to move. It's actually the sound of turbulence in the air movement caused by partial obstruction rather than smooth airflow.

15. A: Secondhand smoke is remarkably similar to firsthand smoke when it comes to its health effects in making your arteries dysfunctional and causing impotence.

16. D: Fat is a learned taste, so you can change what kind of fats you enjoy tasting over an eight-week period.

17. B: Your intestine is very similar to your brain because of its nervous system and chemicals.

18. C: The bacteria that cause most stomach ulcers can be transmitted back and forth from significant others.

19. B: You need to remove the fluid to concentrate your stool and also to maintain a high enough fluid level in the rest of your body.

20. B: Eating a little fat first at the start of every meal slows your stomach from emptying; you feel full sooner and stay full longer, so you don't want to eat as much.

Your Score: Give yourself one point for each one you got right to get your final BQ score.

45-50: EXCELLENT. You've either been accepted to medical school or watch way too many "ER" reruns. Prescription: The medical texts are on the next shelf, Doogie.

30-44: GOOD. You know more about the human body than many people. With a good, strong basis in anatomical knowledge, you'll appreciate the insights and action steps of this book. Prescription: Read one chapter a night for two weeks.

16-29: AVERAGE. Though you wouldn't break any "Jeopardy" records, you know enough about your body to understand its complexity and artistry. Prescription: Take the next 371 pages and call us in the morning.

0-15: WHAT, YOU A LIZARD OR SOMETHING? The bad news is that you need to explore the human body a lot more. The good news is that you can become an expert with a strong dose of knowledge, supplemented by a lifelong course of action. Prescription: Turn the page and get crackin'.

Excerpted with permission from "YOU: The Owner's Manual," by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet Oz. Copyright © May 2005, HarperResource .