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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?

#61

Post by outworlder »

neogodless wrote: post #25

If you work backwards from what kills people, you can theoretically work out what will improve your chances. In the elderly, heart disease and a rapid decline in health after a broken hip are high on the list of events that lead to death. So keeping the cardiovascular system healthy, and strengthening the muscles that support balance and reduce injuries make sense. Strength training and a sufficient, consistent amoun…

> broken hip

> and strengthening the muscles that support balance and reduce injuries make sense.

Unclear how stronger muscles prevent broken hips. It's the bone that breaks.

I've read a comment from a nurse that was pretty interesting. She said that people say that 'someone fell and broke a hip'. While in reality it the more common scenario is: 'someone's hip broke, and due to that, they fell'.

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

#62

Post by cma »

nradov wrote: post #41
cma wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise doesn't really improve lifespan in rats, beyond enough to not be completely sedentary.

Most of us are more concerned with improving healthspan rather than lifespan. And I think those rat studies are mostly useless. Lab rats live in nice safe flat cages where they don't have to worry about falling down the stairs and breaking a hip. Whereas sarcopenia is a huge risk for elderly humans.

> And I think those rat studies are mostly useless.

There are some studies on dogs without many results. Sedentary is bad, but exercise beyond that doesn't seem to boost lifespan in most (any?) mammals. Maybe humans are different, we are the best endurance runners of all animals and one of the few that cool by sweat.

Re: healthspan there is injury risk from exercise too but if it really prevents hip injuries that well that is a good point. Intense exercise definitely seems to be important for astronauts, but also is sort of just barely getting to the level of sedentary on earth and I think they still lose bone density.

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

#63

Post by outworlder »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #11
bovermyer wrote: post #2

This is inspiring. I think tonight I'll go for a bike ride instead of drinking and playing video games.

Last summer I bought my 80-year-old father a bicycle. Just a few weeks later, his doctor said, "last time I saw you, you were pre-diabetic, now your readings look great. Whatever you're doing, keep doing that." Unfortunately he didn't keep up, kept complaining about the seat being uncomfortable… what I eventually figured out is, he was riding in boxer shorts >_<

There is a variety of seats, some are truly uncomfortable for people.

I am not sure how it works for a 80 year old, but if I spend a long time without riding, I'll be uncomfortable too (for a couple of days after the ride too). I don't know exactly what adapts, but it stops after some time.

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

#64

Post by outworlder »

eesmith wrote: post #45
awillen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly wrong as it relates to the post you're responding to. This one data point is going to get him to engage in a behavior that's healthier than the one he otherwise would've been engaged in, which is clearly good. Thus, the data point is useful! Not everything his to be a double blind study showing significant effects to be useful.

> behavior that's healthier You presume it's healthier. Suppose that 99.99% of the 80+ year-olds who try this end up breaking their leg, getting a heart attack, etc., and this one data point is from the 0.01% which benefits. Likely not - but that's why we have double blind studies.

We _know_ it's 'healthier' than drinking and playing video games.

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

#65

Post by outworlder »

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.

> Red meat boosts testosterone

Citation needed?

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

#66

Post by VLM »

cma wrote: post #26
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…

Exercise doesn't really improve lifespan in rats, beyond enough to not be completely sedentary.

I skimmed the first five articles Google found, they seem to disagree.

All five were less than 40 years old

All of them showed "somewhat less than 10%" longer lives for the rats and spun that same number in varying ways from "almost no difference" to "considerable lifespan extension" depending, I think, on how much the authors hate rats.

All the studies showed dramatically increased healthspans and much lower decline in rat-performance and quality-of-rat-life thru the rat's lifespan. Or rephrased there wasn't much difference in performance between young exercise rats and young non-exercise rats but a huge difference in performance between old exercise rats and old non-exercise rats. Clearly, if I were a rat, and I dodge traps until I'm old, I'd prefer being an exercise rat. I question how well this study transfers to humans as there's obvious staggering difference in performance between young lazy humans and young "gym rats" (LOL at that pun). I would theorize a bored rat running on a wheel is vastly less motivated than a highly motivated human weight lifter or similar gym user, and that should result in much better QoL for old human "gym-rats". Anecdotal evidence seems to strongly confirm...

The studies all seemed to agree that exercise did not increase maximal lifespan very much if at all.

Depending on which side of the axe you'd prefer to grind, the articles seem to summarize to some variation on "some rats that don't exercise die young" vs "rats on average live about five percent longer if they exercise". Aside from the side issue where some studies report 5% as not much different and others report 5% as a dramatic increase depending, as I stated, on how much the author hates rats. It's literally the same shape graph in all five separate studies, its just selecting the conclusion you'd like to describe that graph.

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

#67

Post by brianwawok »

outworlder wrote: post #59
brianwawok wrote: post #16

> His resting heart rate is just below 60 beats per minute. The steps pushed it up to 155 beats per minute. (His maximum heart rate should be 220 minus his age, 80. That’s only 140 beats per minute — far below what he is capable of!) Sorry, that's not how this works. 220 - age is a very crude and not very good guess at the heart rate for a population. It is not YOUR max heart rate, and your max heart rate being highe…

> On the other hand, resting heart rate of under 60 is good. Under 50 is likely better. At which point does that becomes bradycardia and a sign of a health problem? My understanding is that, unless you are an athlete, your resting heart rate won't be that low (as in, < 50)

Right, I think it depends on activity level.

Couch potatoe and 45? You may have a health problem.

Cardio athlete and 45? Likely means you are in good shape.

My own resting heart rate varies from low 40s when I am in good shape (trained for a marathon) to near 60 when I am not (currently recovering from having a newborn).

I did need an EKG once, and the dr raised an eyebrow at my heart rate, but upon hearing I was a runner he was fine again.

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

#68

Post by Bellamy »

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…

You should definitely Google "lifestyle medicine".

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

#69

Post by 1e-9 »

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…

I agree that the father appears lucky to have avoided issues such as debilitating disease due to random genetic mutation. Even the father acknowledges that "lots of good luck" was involved. The article does not appear to overstate the significance of this single example.

Anecdotes are not useless. They can be inspirational and they can help illuminate possibilities and methods that are otherwise opaque in large-sample statistics. Anecdotes that are consistent with our best scientific understanding are powerful ways of communicating knowledge and providing inspiration for change to those who don't have the ability or inclination to evaluate the studies. In this case, the father is doing several things that large studies tell us are beneficial to health. These unmentioned studies suggest that the father has probably improved his quality of life. Most people I know are far more motivated by such anecdotes than they are by credible statistical analysis.

I disagree with your list of uncontrollable variables. All of them are largely controllable. Much of the medication consumed today is either outright unnecessary or can be reduced with lifestyle changes. You can control the air you breath by controlling where you live and when/where you are most active. You can lower your risk of cancer and many other diseases by lifestyle and environmental changes. The fact that complete control and certainty are impossible is no reason for inaction.

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

#70

Post by BossingAround »

outworlder wrote: post #58
BossingAround wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say what's in your food is controllable if you live on a farm. Outside of that, it gets very difficult without scanning barcodes, looking up specific items in a database, and periodically doing lab analyses. There's the "control your food" as in "don't eat fast food" and there's the "control your food" as in "does this fish have high mercury in it?"

Sure, some food may have contaminants. Fish is a good example. You might have to choose, for instance, farmed salmon instead of wild. Pesticides may be a factor. Microplastics are going to make this a more annoying problem. But far more important is to control _what_ you eat. A tomato is a tomato. But ketchup is not a tomato. You may get health issues from contaminants, maybe. But you _will_ have health issues due to…

Absolutely. I was more thinking about "was this tomato grown with pesticides? If so, which ones? What health impacts does it have?"

And if you think pesticides is a small issue, "was this chicken/cow/turkey/... loaded with antibiotics?"

Of course, as I said, eating less processed food is a very simple yet effective choice, but beyond that, it sadly seems to get very murky very fast.

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