Eight measures that can slow ageing by up to six years - healthy sleep and regular exercise may slow pace of body’s biological ageing

[lankisterguy]

The Guardian : theguardian.com/science/202...

Scientists name eight measures that can slow ageing by up to six years

Measures including healthy sleep and regular exercise may slow pace of body’s biological ageing

Andrew Gregory Health editor @andrewgregory Mon 6 Nov 2023 05.04 EST

Scientists have named eight health measures that can slow the body’s ageing process by six years.

Keeping body weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure in check while maintaining healthy sleep and eating regimes, doing regular physical activity and not smoking may slow the ageing process by around six years, US experts say.

A study suggests that following these measures promotes good heart health, which in turn may slow the pace of biological ageing by up to six years.

The findings, based on data from more than 6,500 adults with an average age of 47, are being presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions conference in Philadelphia.

Researchers said people with the best cardiovascular health were about six years younger biologically – the pace at which they have aged for every year alive – than their actual age.

“These findings help us understand the link between chronological age and biological age and how following healthy lifestyle habits can help us live longer,” said Donald Lloyd-Jones, the chair of the writing group for Life’s Essential 8, the AHA’s health assessment tool.

“Everyone wants to live longer, yet more importantly, we want to live healthier longer so we can really enjoy and have good quality of life for as many years as possible,” said Lloyd-Jones, a past volunteer president of the AHA.

Life’s Essential 8 aims to define heart health based on four modifiable lifestyle measures and four modifiable health markers.

To measure a person’s phenotypic, or biological, age the researchers checked their metabolism, organ function and inflammation.

Phenotypic age acceleration is the difference between one’s biological age and actual age, with higher values indicating faster biological ageing.

After accounting for social, economic and demographic factors, researchers said having the highest Life’s Essential 8 score – which means having good cardiovascular health – was associated with a biological age of about six years younger.

The senior study author Nour Makarem, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman school of public health at Columbia University Irving Medical Centre, in New York City, said: “We found that higher cardiovascular health is associated with decelerated biological ageing, as measured by phenotypic age.

“We also found a dose-dependent association – as heart health goes up, biological ageing goes down.”

For example, the average actual age of those with good heart health was 41, yet their average biological age was 36; and the average actual age of those who had poor cardiovascular health was 53, though their average biological age was 57.

Makarem said: “Greater adherence to all Life’s Essential 8 metrics and improving your cardiovascular health can slow down your body’s ageing process and have a lot of benefits down the line.”

The eight health measures named by the American Heart Association:

Eat a healthy diet

Be more active

Quit smoking

Get healthy sleep

Maintain a healthy weight

Control cholesterol

Watch blood sugar

Manage blood pressure

[Snakeoil]

Huh? Bit late for that stuff now. I did all of that and more for decades. Then I got CLL. Now I just do whatever is fun 😁

[Deilginis]

probably still holds true for those of us with chronic illnesses. The better our lifestyles, the better (hopefully!) we are

[AussieNeil Administrator]

I've just finished reading "Outlive" by Dr Peter Attia. It's a very readable book and the author agrees with those recommendations, while making much of maintaining your core strength for resiliency and also maintaining muscle mass through appropriate exercise and eating sufficient protein. He argues that official nutrition guidelines are inadequate in this regard, particularly for those on a plant based diet, where you need to eat even more protein than if you gain it from animal sources.

Dr Eric Topol has just published (6 Nov 2023) an article Towards an Optimal Diet, Now and in the Future open.substack.com/pub/erict...

In that article, he links to a couple of his reviews of Dr Attia's Outlive book as well as some other recent publications.

"In aggregate, several recent publications, two very popular books, and a new, large $189 million NIH clinical trial, may help to provide an objective basis for what we should eat to be and stay healthy. This could someday even lead to precision nutrition—the individualized diet that aligns best with each person’s multiple layers of data (such as metabolism, microbiome, physiology and genetics). I’ve read, written about, and interviewed the authors of the 2 books (Peter Attia’s here and here, Chris Van Tulleken here). In this edition of Ground Truths, I’m going to review a bit of what we know now about healthy and unhealthy food, and where we may be headed."

Dr Attia argues that we need to be proactive to ensure that we can maximise our chances of being able to keep doing what we enjoy in our final decades, rather than struggling with increasingly poor health. His number one recommendation? - be more active. healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

Neil

[neurodervish in reply to AussieNeil]

Thanks Neil. That sentence in the opening paragraph: "A systematic assessment across 195 countries concluded that a poor diet is linked to 22 per cent of all deaths, which accounts for more deaths globally than tobacco, cancer, hypertension or any other medical condition or health risk," really makes me question why nutrition isn't taught more in medical school.

[kablea]

I tend to exercise very hard so this is an interesting subject. I recently read 'Adventures in Running and Ageing' by Philip Jones. Nothing academic in the book but the fact that we oldies eat too little protein leaps out. The typical 1 g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight appears far too low. This is because our age means we become very inefficient at utilising protein. However, balancing your protein needs with the amount of exercise you do is complex. At 77 I am aware that my muscle mass has declined significantly. Consequently, I eat more protein utilising cow's milk, eggs, meat and cottage cheese. Eating more would prove difficult in that I still need to put calories in my diet for running, walking and gardening. Eating wholemeal, home baked bread, with toppings, provides the calories. The upshot is that my wife and I have recently added a 30 g glass of milk whey (the bodybuilder favourite) to our daily intake. That adds an easy 23 g of first class protein in a simple drink. We will try this for two months and measure the impact. My protein intake is now in excess of 100 g per day, well in excess of 66 g to tally with my bodyweight.

[Smakwater]

These are the same things that my Mom told me when I was younger. She also told me the same thing that the Covid19 research doctor at the NIH lab told me about minimizing virus consequence.

In addition to maintaining good health as you describe:

Wash hands with soap-Cover a cough-Stay away from crowds- Keep yourself and your surroundings clean and If you are sick, stay away from others until you are not.

It would seem that there has not been much change in illness prevention theory, however, there has been a multitude of efficacious and tolerable treatment discovery.

Always good to be reminded about beneficial and effective behaviors.

JM