So High

Dr Kong gets off his high horse and into a high car.

- Dr Kong Yongyao

BALANCE. Everything kept within a narrow tolerable range. Temperature, blood pressure, sodium, acidity, red blood cells, white blood cells, clotting factors. All maintained in the “green zone”.

Our bodies are armed with countless regulatory systems constantly balancing too much against too little. We call that homeostasis, and it is how we stay alive.

Sometimes, and increasingly often in first-world Singapore, the body’s compensatory mechanisms for glucose are damaged from exhaustion to the point that the body needs medications to help with blood sugar suppression.

Which results in Prime Minister Lee’s newly nominated enemy of the state – Diabetes Mellitus Type 2.

Funny thing is, sometimes when freshly admitted inpatients are given their regular dose of diabetic medicines, their blood glucose levels fall too low. Given that hospital food is by design nutritionally optimal, it can only mean that their pills are being used to compensate for excessive sugar intake at home. That, of course, is not ideal.

Which brings me to the insufferably unstoppable phenomenon of the city biased sports utility vehicle.

Ever since SUVs began taking over the automotive marketplace like the plague, I have had a reflexive animosity towards them. Why? Because they are unnecessary.

They are heavier and taller than regular hatchbacks and sedans, and barely more practical. Consequently, like Johnny Diabetes, they need stiffer suspension and more complex technology, all to still remain more unwieldy and uncomfortable than “normal” cars.