Expert: Don’t Let Fatalism About Aging Shorten Your Life

Far too many people are letting their fatalism about aging shorten what otherwise could be a considerably longer life.

As strange as this may sound to some people, there is truth to it — in fact, a lot of truth, according to one nutrition and health expert.

Many people assume that chronic diseases, such as hypertension, cancer and type 2 diabetes, are natural and largely unavoidable effects of aging. But that’s not necessarily true, says Dr. Robert Keith, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System nutritionist and Auburn University professor of nutrition and food science.

Indeed, in many cases, these diseases aren’t so much inevitable by-products of old age as they are effects of poor lifestyle management earlier in life.

“When lay people look at aging, they assume that you’re more prone to cancer, diabetes, hypertension or some other disease when you get older,” Keith says.

But the people who actually study aging don’t see it that way, he says.

“As they see it, this simply isn’t the case — these conditions are not the outcome of aging but of lifestyle choices,” Keith says.

Indeed, researchers have learned that people who manage several key lifestyle factors — such as their weight, blood sugar and blood pressure, to name only a few — better equip themselves to live up to their true genetic potential, which, in some cases, may involve living past 90, Keith says.

“If you can maintain your blood glucose and blood pressure and manage your body weight and fat, you have virtually eliminated many of the diseases you otherwise would accumulate as you age,” he says.

“If you can avoid those diseases, you have a good chance of living to be very old,” Keith says.

The implications of these discoveries are applicable to both young and old people, he says.

“Even at an old age, it’s worthwhile to avoid these sorts of problems,” he says.

“If you’re 75 and you want to live past 90, you’d better make sure you don’t smoke, you don’t have hypertension and all the other potential risk factors.”

Just how long can someone live who carefully manages these factors?

The maximum human lifespan runs as far as 114 to even 120 years old. And while most people will not live this long, many more people would increase their chances of living much longer merely by doing a better job managing critical lifestyle factors, Keith says.

Actually, Keith’s advice is not new. Dr. William Evans, author of Biomarkers, also contends that bodily decline is not so much due to the passing of years as to the cumulative effects of sedentary lifestyles, poor nutrition and chronic disease — a view supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University.

Evans and his coauthor, Dr. Irwin Rosenberg, identify 10 “biomarkers” — physiological factors that, if adequately maintained, can dramatically increase one’s chances for living a long life. Among these are lean body mass, body fat percentage, aerobic capacity and blood pressure.

More recently, a study conducted by the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for as long as a quarter century among 2,300 healthy men, found that five behaviors — abstaining from smoking, weight management, blood pressure control, regular exercise and avoiding diabetes — significantly correlated with healthy survival after 90.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at March 3, 2008 05:25 PM