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By Susan
Ince
Straight
from top longevity researchers: 28
things you can do to stay younger and
healthier, longer.
Age-Proof
Your Body
How do you
see yourself in your 70s, 80s, and 90s?
Our personal longevity heroes include Esther
Williams, still swimming and a business
owner at 85; Ileana Sonnabend, a
formidable presence in the art world at 92;
and Ruth Gruber, 95, who published her first
book of photography last month after decades
as a foreign correspondent. These women need
not be exceptions to the rule. Researchers
tracking the health and longevity of tens of
thousands of people have accumulated
powerful data that provides some clear
advice for all of us. The bottom line: You
have more control than you think, and the
time to take action is now.
"It's not
what you do when you're 75 but what you do
when you're 40 or 50 that makes a
difference," says Lewis H. Kuller, MD, a
public health professor at the University of
Pittsburgh who has been involved in a dozen
different aging studies. "Now we know -- you
can move the clock back."
Surprisingly, genes have little to do with
longevity. Whether your parents lived to 58
or 98, that number is neither the death
sentence nor the free pass that you might
imagine. "Knowing the age at which your
mother or father died reduces the
uncertainty about when you will die by only
about three percent," says James Vaupel,
PhD, executive director of the Max Planck
Institute in Germany. "How long you live is
largely explained by your environment -- are
the cars safe? is good quality healthcare
available? -- and by your behavior." These
practical do-it-now suggestions are gleaned
from major aging studies.
Keep Tabs
on Your Cardiac Health
Even if
you haven't been diagnosed with heart
disease, a slow, silent buildup of plaque in
your arteries can age you before your time.
The Cardiovascular Health Study at the
University of Pittsburgh tracked nearly
3,000 subjects age 65 and older, testing for
their degree of sub-clinical cardiovascular
disease (SCVD), which is marked by blockage
in the arteries that supply blood to the
brain, heart, and muscles. During the eight
years of the study, women with little or no
SCVD displayed the mental and physical
health of women six-and-a-half years
younger.
"The
health of your circulatory system has a big
impact on how long you live and the quality
of your life as you age," says Kuller.
"Cardiovascular disease has a long, slow
incubation period, and there is a lot you
can do in midlife to keep it from developing
later on in life."
Beyond the
well-known advice for reducing your risk --
don't smoke, stay active, maintain a healthy
weight, and keep your cholesterol and blood
pressure in check -- Kuller recommends
proactively managing and lowering any
existing heart disease risk factors that you
do have with these steps.
Schedule a Cardiac
CT Scan
"If your
blood pressure or cholesterol is a little
elevated, but not so high that you need
medication, or if you are overweight or have
diabetes, get a coronary calcium study -- a
CT scan that reveals the amount of calcium
in your coronary arteries -- as a baseline
when you are 55 or 60," he says. "That will
let you know how aggressive you need to be
with your risk factors." (Cardiac CT scans
are widely available, and more insurers are
covering them.)
Lower High Blood
Pressure
If you're
hypertensive in midlife, the length of time
you'll live without heart disease shrinks by
7.2 years compared with women with normal
pressure. Even high-normal readings cut two
years off your heart-disease-free life
expectancy, according to the Framingham
Heart Study. "It's not enough just to take
your blood pressure medication. Get your
pressure checked frequently and make sure
that you reach adequate levels of blood
pressure control with medication, physical
activity, and a healthful diet," says Oscar
H. Franco, MD, of the University Medical
Center in Rotterdam.
Assess Your Hearing
A
little-known sign of cardiovascular risk:
high-frequency hearing loss as you age. It's
most likely the result of high insulin
levels and stiff arteries, according to
researchers with the Health, Aging, and Body
Composition Study of the National Institute
of Aging. These may damage or reduce blood
flow to vessels in the inner ear.
Keep
Yourself Moving
Have you
slacked off on exercise lately? Here's a
fact that should get you back on your feet.
According to the Framingham Heart Study,
women who are moderately active (the
equivalent of walking 30 minutes five days a
week) gain one-and-a-half years in life
expectancy over couch potatoes, and highly
active women boost that benefit by
three-and-a-half years.
"Exercise
increases the number of years you can live
without heart disease and decreases the risk
of a second heart attack or stroke in women
who have already had one," Franco says. And
it's never too late: "You can become active
at 50 or 60 and still increase your life
expectancy."
Gauge Your Physical
Abilities
Jot down
how long it takes you to walk one-quarter of
a mile (one lap around a school track);
repeat every few months. If your time
increases, it means you're moving more
slowly and may need to boost your exercise
routine or ask your doctor for a
cardiovascular disease check. "As you lose
fitness, sooner or later even normal
activities make you short of breath; then
frailty kicks in," Kuller says.
Don't Just Cut
Calories, Burn Them
Dieting to
lose weight? Add exercise. When 50- to
60-year-olds in a pilot study at Washington
University School of Medicine in Saint Louis
lost weight by dieting alone, they also lost
bone density, muscle mass, strength, and
aerobic conditioning. But those who shed the
same number of pounds through exercise
maintained or improved their muscle function
and bone density.
Don't Think That
Size Protects You from Frailty
Thin,
fragile-looking women with low energy are
recognizable as frail. "But a woman who is
quite overweight may have little muscle and
be at risk of becoming frail -- unable to do
ordinary activities," says Linda P. Fried,
MD, chief of geriatric medicine at the Johns
Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore.
Get Back on Your
Feet After Illness or Injury
"Start
moving right away to rebuild lost muscle
mass, strength, and fitness," Franco
advises. Muscle loss is greatest in the
first two weeks after illness or injury, and
the older you get, the more muscle you lose
during periods of inactivity.
Adjust
Your Attitude
Ever call
brain freeze a "senior moment"? Don't do it
in front of Becca Levy, PhD, associate
professor at the Yale School of Public
Health. Her work has demonstrated that
negative expectations about aging may be
self-fulfilling and downright dangerous to
your health. Her study started in the 1970s,
when more than 1,100 people (two-thirds of
the over-50 residents of Oxford, Ohio)
signed up for the Ohio Longitudinal Study of
Aging and Retirement. The initial evaluation
contained several statements that revealed
participants' expectations of aging (such as
"As you get older, you are less useful" or
"Things keep getting worse as I get older").
Twenty-three years later, Levy found that
those who had more positive perceptions of
aging (such as "I have as much pep as I did
last year" and "As I get older, things are
better than I thought they would be") had
survival rates that were more than seven
years longer than those with less positive
impressions. "When it comes to longevity,"
Levy says, "self-perception is more
important than gender, loneliness, physical
ability, or socioeconomic status." Here,
ways you can think -- and be -- younger.
Change Your
Language
On memory
tasks, older people who were read positive
aging words just prior to testing (sage,
wise, insightful, accomplished) scored
significantly better than those who heard
negative ones (decrepit, senile,
incompetent). Reframe your reality by using
positive words instead of negative ones.
Don't Age Yourself
Stop
automatically ascribing forgetfulness or
some passing pain or weakness to age. Ask
yourself whether you might have had trouble
recalling the same information at a younger
age, or whether you might simply be tired or
have a lot on your mind, Levy suggests.
Eat
Yourself Younger
Eating
what's good for you may be at least as
important as avoiding what's bad for you. As
part of Sweden's Mammography Screening
Cohort, 59,038 women age 40 to 79 told
researchers how often they consumed 60
different foods. Ten years later, women who
ate 16 to 17 different healthful foods (such
as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish,
and low-fat dairy products) on a regular
basis were a striking 42 percent more likely
to be alive than women who regularly ate
eight or fewer from that list. "The number
of less nutritious foods they ate (sugars,
fats, fatty meats) did not increase death
rates but were associated with more cancers
of all types," notes Alicja Wolk, professor
of epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute
in Stockholm. Women younger than 40 showed
no relationship between diet and longevity.
Here, more food for thought.
Make It
Mediterranean
In a study
conducted last summer by Wolk, more than
40,000 Swedish women age 30 to 49 were
encouraged to follow a Mediterranean diet:
They got points for eating healthful foods
and lost points for eating fatty meats and
other foods associated with a Western diet.
For women in their 40s, an increase of more
than two points on the Mediterranean diet
scale led to a 13 percent reduction in
mortality and a 16 percent reduction in
cancer deaths.
Quaff Some Coffee
Whether
decaf or high-test, coffee seems to decrease
the inflammation linked to chronic
conditions such as heart disease. In the
Iowa Women's Health Study of 40,000, women
who drank one to three cups a day were 16
percent less likely to die in the 15-year
follow-up period than coffee skippers.
Eat Almost
Everything
In the
Okinawa Centenarian Study, Bradley J.
Willcox, MD, of the University of Hawaii,
examined the Okinawan lifestyle. Instead of
being admonished to "clean your plate,"
elders tell children to "hara hachi bu" --
stop eating when they are 80 percent full.
The New
Frontier: Anti-Aging Supplements
Longevity
researchers are focusing on our cells'
mitochondria to slow aging. These mini
combustion engines burn fat and
carbohydrates to form ATP, the fuel for all
your cells. With age, production falters,
which creates damaging by-products: the
notorious free radicals. In a vicious cycle,
free radicals damage mitochondria,
generating less fuel and more free radicals.
"Many degenerative diseases associated with
aging (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and
diabetes) involve decay in the
mitochondria," says Bruce Ames, PhD, a
78-year-old biochemist. Can we live longer
and healthier lives with the proper care of
our mitochondria? Ames and other scientists
think so and have introduced some
mitochondria-protecting products to the
market.
Anti-Free-Radical
Supplement
To boost
mitochondrial fuel efficiency and decrease
free-radical production, Ames combined
acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid to
create Juvenon (juvenon.com). Preliminary
studies in humans indicate that Juvenon may
lower blood pressure, and tests on memory
are now under way.
Herbal Enzyme
Booster
To
maintain levels of antioxidant enzymes in
mitochondria, University of Colorado
researchers extracted active ingredients
from five herbs proven to increase enzyme
production to yield Protandim
(protandim.com). "We have statins to lower
cholesterol and medications to lower blood
pressure, but until now we haven't had a
pill for free-radical damage," says Sally K.
Nelson, PhD, of the University of Colorado
Health Sciences Center. Independent studies
are starting to test the supplement in
people with liver and heart disease.
A Daily
Multivitamin
Not new
per se, but according to Ames's research,
deficiencies of vitamins and minerals lead
to mitochondrial decay. His fix: a daily
multivitamin.
Foods That
Increase Your Shelf Life
There
seems to be a recipe for living longer, and
physician and chef Ralph Felder, MD, author
of The Bonus Years Diet, has the
stats to back it up. "By enjoying the right
foods, women can live 4.6 years longer,
three and a half of those without heart
disease," he says. "Men, because they're
more prone to cardiovascular disease, gain
even more time." He based his
recommendations on the results of the
Framingham Heart Study, but he thinks the
longevity claims may vastly underestimate
the diet's benefits, since only
cardiovascular risk reductions were
included. What's on the menu?
Wine,
because it boosts HDL cholesterol and makes
blood cells less sticky. It cuts
cardiovascular disease risk by a third.
Daily dose: one 5-ounce glass, preferably
red.
Dark
chocolate, because it lowers blood
pressure, relaxes artery walls, and reduces
the risk of heart disease by 11 percent.
Daily dose: 2 ounces with at least 60
percent cocoa content (1 ounce if you need
to lose weight).
Fruits
and vegetables, because they lower blood
pressure and protect blood vessel linings,
cutting cardiovascular disease risk by 21
percent. Daily dose: 4 or more cups (variety
counts; potatoes don't).
Fish,
because it cuts heart disease risk by 14
percent by lowering triglycerides and
preventing blood clots, arrhythmias, and
inflammation. Dose: at least three 5- to
6-ounce servings a week.
Garlic,
because some studies say that it helps to
reduce cholesterol production by the liver
and lowers LDL, lowering your risk of
cardiovascular disease 25 percent. Daily
dose: one clove, cooked or raw.
Nuts,
because they lower LDL and triglycerides,
cutting heart disease risk by more than 12
percent. Daily dose: 2 ounces (1 if you need
to lose weight).
Originally
published in MORE magazine, May
2007.
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