What if You Just Get Old - Later - Rather Than Sooner?

By Eve Prang Plews, L.N.C.

Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakenings magazine June, 2010)          
 

            What if you just got old a decade later than is common?  Or than you would expect? In the mountain villages of Sardinia, shepherds commonly have active lives past the age of 100.  Hiking up and down hills all day and growing your own food is really good for longevity.  In Sarasota, you don’t see shepherds or hills.  It’s rare to see  centenarians running marathons or pumping iron.  But you do see some people surviving many decades. The question is survive or thrive? The ones who thrive have made it their practice to move, move, and move some more.  They walk, bike, garden do whatever is active and then do it again tomorrow.  There is no substitute for activity.  You can’t put it in a pill.

            There are youth potions today: exercise and antioxidants.  Both are realistic ways to slow physical demise.  There are three components to lifetime fitness.  Aerobic fitness comes from tasking your body – not to the max – just moving longer and more intensely, rather than sitting with the remote or driving around a parking lot for 10 minutes looking for a closer parking place.  Flexibility increases with stretching which can be done in the yard or in a class: yoga, Zumba; oh, so many styles to choose from these days.  Just make sure it’s an activity you will sustain.  No one wants to be old and weak, it’s a good goal to be old and strong.  Strength building is the third component of lifetime fitness. It doesn’t matter if you tax your muscles with a machine, free weight, rubber band or swimming pool, any resistance strengthens.  If the yoga studio or gym is too costly, buy a DVD or even get one to use free at the library.  Remember you’re looking for activity you can do often and enjoy.  Easy.  Now do it for years and years and years.

            Surprisingly, exercise reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease and disability.  “Health years” are different from lifetime years, and no one wants to spend their last decade disabled.  Look around, too many people spend their last decade of life suffering from disability – that’s a loooong time.  Over half of all men of all ages in the USA die from heart disease or cancer.  It’s easy to see who the enemy of healthy long life is for men (and women too).  Some folks seem to want to hasten poor health instead of delay it.  You can choose to reduce the disability zone to weeks instead of years.  But you have to decide it’s worth it to change long-standing habits and treat yourself better.  You deserve it.

            Antioxidants help slow aging by blocking free radicals.  Free radicals damage cells, causing aging. We can’t live forever, but we can get old later rather than sooner by flooding our cells with anti-aging antioxidants and shunning the cell-wreckers that are easily oxidized like corn and sunflower oils, fried food and excess sugar.  We have set our nutritional standards too low for health and longevity.  Some strategies are so easy:  nutrient rich food and supplements.

            A bright, colorful diet is rich in antioxidants.  Eating a MINIMUM of one quart of fruits and veggies daily – not counting French fries, tomato sauce or iceberg lettuce - will go a long way toward creating a long life.  Your weekly diet should include mostly plants, small amounts of meat, at least 6 oz of fish, whole grains and beans, plus nuts and seeds.  The evidence for the benefits of eating a LOT of fruits and vegetables is overwhelming.  “Scientists may argue about many health issues but everybody agrees that increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables can help prevent heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases” according to the University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter.

            Thousands of studies show nutrient supplements reduce disease, slow aging and chop death risk; yet most media highlight biased studies that fail to find benefits of nutrients.  Even the conservative National Institute on Aging found deaths from any cause cut in half among 10,000 elderly people aged 67-105 from only taking Vitamin C and E supplements.  Ignore those RDA’s- recommended dietary allowances (this author calls them recommended dumb allowances).  They are increasingly irrelevant in the prevention of age-related disease.  For instance, the US RDA for Vitamin C is 60milligrams per day.  UCLA researcher, Dr. James Enstrom said, “A thirty-five year old man who eats foods rich in vitamin C and takes Vitamin C supplements will slash his chances of heart disease two-thirds and live 6.3 years longer,” Dr. Linus Pauling, a two time Nobel Prize winner, declared, “We could add 12-18 years to our lives by taking 3,000 to 12,000 milligrams of Vitamin C daily.”   Even government data on 11,000 Americans found that even a mere 300 mg of Vitamin C daily added 6 years to a mans life and 2 years for a women, even those who were overweight, lacked exercise or had poor diets. Yet, one fourth or more of Americans do not even get the rock bottom daily amount of 60mg of vitamin C needed to prevent scurvy, the amount in a medium orange or ½ cup of raw broccoli. 

            Take a high quality multi-vitamin and mineral supplement.  You don’t need always “mega-vitamin therapy.” You do need vitamins C, D, and E along with the minerals zinc, selenium, chromium and calcium plus magnesium.

            Health care in America is more focused on alleviating symptoms and treating disease, than creating or protecting HEALTH. When health care dollars are used to heal preventable existing disease, we miss the entire wellness approach: PREVENTION.  Exercise daily, eat antioxidant rich foods and take high quality vitamin and mineral supplements.  These are much more vital to your health and longevity than the benefits of cutting cholesterol or lowering fat.  Why not start today?

Eve Prang Plews, a Licensed Nutrition Counselor, has been practicing at her Sarasota clinic, Full Spectrum Health, for 22 years. You may contact her at 941 952-1200 or www.fullspectrumhealth.com.  Her previous articles are available at www.eveplews.com.  Eve’s radio show: No Nonsense Nutrition, airs Mondays at 9 AM on WSLR 96.5 FM, or stream it live at www.wslr.org.