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What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

lifespanbook.com

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Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#31

Post by strikelaserclaw »

lqet wrote: post #10

Anecdotally, most of my family members who actively tried to stay healthy died relatively early (< 70 years). Those who didn't usually lived to be at least 85. My grandfather, who never did any type of sports, ate meat every day, who came home after worked and watched TV until bedtime and who drank 1-2 liters of cider per day after retirement died at 92 and was completely healthy up until a few hours before his death…

same with my grandfather, drank a lot everyday and died at 82. My other grandfather died at 60 of a sudden heart attack, he was the model of a "good husband, father, community member and, responsible citizen", i sometimes think the stress that is caused by living such a clean life was what killed him.

Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#32

Post by dekhn »

avgDev wrote: post #15

This is survivorship bias at its finest. What his father is experiencing is luck mixed with good genetics. Plus, additional support of good diet and exercise. Yes, we all can control our diets and exercise. However, we cannot control the medication that we take, which carry side effects. We cannot control what is in our food, we cannot control the air we breath, we cannot control cancer and hundreds other diseases. T…

There is ample evidence in medical research that diet (to the extent that people have control over what they eat) has huge impacts on quality of life at high ages.

All of this is about taking actions that reduce risk statistically. None of this is about a magic action that will prevent all disease.

Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#33

Post by ejb999 »

My grandfather is 88, he has definitely slowed down quite a bit lately, but his recipe for a long-life was 2-3 packs of cigarettes a day, alcoholic for most of his adult life, rarely slept more than 4 hours a day and I never ever, saw him eat a vegetable or break a sweat from exercise in my entire life.

I figure if I got just some of those genes, and since I never smoked, not an alcoholic and eat pretty well, I should live to be 150 or so - either that or he will be a pall-bearer at my funeral.

Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#34

Post by abdusco »

ejb999 wrote: post #33

My grandfather is 88, he has definitely slowed down quite a bit lately, but his recipe for a long-life was 2-3 packs of cigarettes a day, alcoholic for most of his adult life, rarely slept more than 4 hours a day and I never ever, saw him eat a vegetable or break a sweat from exercise in my entire life. I figure if I got just some of those genes, and since I never smoked, not an alcoholic and eat pretty well, I shoul…

> pallbearer (n): a person helping to carry or officially escorting a coffin at a funeral.

TIL. As a non-native speaker, I've never seen it written and always heard it like "pole bearer", which kinda makes sense: horizontal poles under a coffin.

Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#36

Post by nradov »

avgDev wrote: post #15

This is survivorship bias at its finest. What his father is experiencing is luck mixed with good genetics. Plus, additional support of good diet and exercise. Yes, we all can control our diets and exercise. However, we cannot control the medication that we take, which carry side effects. We cannot control what is in our food, we cannot control the air we breath, we cannot control cancer and hundreds other diseases. T…

We can control much of the medication that we take. Sometimes medications are absolutely necessary, and we have to accept the negative side effects in order to prevent death or serious symptoms. But too often medications are used as a "patch" to treat chronic conditions that would be better addressed over the long term with lifestyle changes. For example, some fraction of chronic depression cases can be treated effectively with frequent exercise and sunlight exposure instead of SSRIs. I am not trying to discourage anyone from seeking allopathic medical treatment but it's worth investigating all the options.

Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#37

Post by pj_mukh »

lqet wrote: post #10

Anecdotally, most of my family members who actively tried to stay healthy died relatively early (< 70 years). Those who didn't usually lived to be at least 85. My grandfather, who never did any type of sports, ate meat every day, who came home after worked and watched TV until bedtime and who drank 1-2 liters of cider per day after retirement died at 92 and was completely healthy up until a few hours before his death…

There's been an explosion of startups doing personalized health measurements. Is there one trying to figure out how to optimize aging for you?

Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#38

Post by jfabre »

perth wrote: post #19
lqet wrote: post #10

Anecdotally, most of my family members who actively tried to stay healthy died relatively early (< 70 years). Those who didn't usually lived to be at least 85. My grandfather, who never did any type of sports, ate meat every day, who came home after worked and watched TV until bedtime and who drank 1-2 liters of cider per day after retirement died at 92 and was completely healthy up until a few hours before his death…

Funnily enough the “ate meat every day” part might be the key. Red meat boosts testosterone and testosterone plays a big role in mens health, especially as they age and experience the natural drop in testosterone levels.

People literally think that eating meat is unhealthy nowadays. While they don't restrain themselves on carbs and sugar whatsoever. Then you wonder why people are so confused and think being healthy is like winning a lottery ticket.

Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#39

Post by nradov »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #30
mandeepj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, we cannot control the medication that we take, which carry side effects. >We cannot control what is in our food, we cannot control the air we breath, we cannot control cancer and hundreds other diseases. Seriously? The answer to all of the above - Yes, we can!

No, it really isn't. "Control your medication" might leave you dead if you are diabetic or leave you hearing voices if your meds control a psychiatric condition. In the same vein, you don't really get a choice in most cancers. Sure, you can do things like never smoke tobacco, but you might just be an 8-year-old with bone cancer. And lots of other afflictions and diseases are similar in this manner, much like you prob…

Most patients with type-2 diabetes can reduce or even eliminate their need for medication through lifestyle changes.

https://www.virtahealth.com/research

Re: What does my 80 year old father do to stay healthy?

#40

Post by suryong »

What we really need is robust treatments that either slow down the ageing process or reverse it to some extent. There is some promising research relating to both slowing and reversing. The current approach where we treat age related disease as individual things will never really work out in the long term

One thing right now that is available is rapamycin which basically improves health span and lifespan for every animal it is given, won't make you live to 150 but will probably reduce risk of disease.

I am considering starting rapamycin myself as my mom was diagnosed with ALS few months ago (doesn't seem strictly genetic as her mom and dad lived relatively long and didn't get that disease), so I might have some risk genes..

World where people live to 90-100 and where increasing amount have dementia or other age related disease won't be a nice place

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