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Body of Information: Promoting healthy outlook on aging

By TOM VALEO
Published November 29, 2005

"Health aging" sounds like a contradiction in terms. There's nothing healthy about the aches and pains (or the more lethal complications) of getting older.

But Dr. Andrew Weil chose Healthy Aging as the title for his most recent book, and in his hands, the words actually seem to belong together.

Weil is no snake-oil salesman peddling promises of long life and glowing health. We already live longer than any other humans in history, he says, and further increases in longevity will require sophisticated tinkering with the genetics of life itself. The best we can hope for, he says, is "compression of morbidity," which means remaining in good health to the end of a long, fulfilling life, and then dying after a brief period of illness.

"The amount of time people would have to spend sick and suffering a poor quality of life would thus be compressed, giving them more years of active life and sparing society the costs of maintaining so many chronically ill old people," he writes. Weil has little patience with those who promise long life through so-called antiaging medicine. "There is no way to stop the clock or reverse the aging process," he says.

Doctors certainly should do everything possible to prevent and treat diseases that become more common with age, so people will remain active and comfortable as they age, but attempts to stop the aging process itself are futile.

Far more important, according to Weil, is "learning to accept the universality and inevitability of aging, understanding both its challenges and promises, and knowing how to keep minds and bodies as healthy as possible as we move through life's successive stages." But how can we preserve our health as our bodies become more susceptible to breakdown?

Weil offers modest, sensible advice. First, don't accelerate the aging process by smoking, drinking to excess or abusing drugs.

Don't gain body fat, which makes the cells more resistant to insulin and promotes diabetes, which also accelerates the aging process.

Get plenty of exercise, but adjust it as you age so you don't damage your joints. As your body ages it becomes more susceptible to inflammation, a process that fights infection but also damages tissues. You can minimize inflammation as you age by adopting a diet rich in fruits and vegetables but low in white carbohydrates, especially sugar, white flour and white rice.

Weil has little patience with those who promise long life through so-called antiaging medicine.

An anti-inflammatory diet also would include less meat, poultry, and other foods of animal origin, according to Weil, and would include more vegetable protein, such as soy foods, beans, lentils, whole grains, seeds and nuts. Finally, stay involved with friends and family. The MacArthur Foundation Study of Aging in America, which followed more than 1,000 well-functioning older people, found that healthy older people engaged in physical activity throughout life, but also were socially active.

These two characteristics, Weil observes, "were more prominent than any particular dietary patterns or the use of dietary supplements."

As for dietary supplements, Weil advocates their use, and even takes some himself, but only in limited quantities. They are vastly overpromoted, he says, by people trying to make money off the widespread fear of aging.

Getting older has advantages, Weil says. Like whiskey, wine, cheese, trees and antiques, humans become richer and more complex the longer they live. Aging can "replace the shallowness and greenness of youth with depth and maturity," he writes. The passing of time, while it causes decline in the physical body, can also "enhance the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of life." The elderly also provide a precious "living link to the past." When he puts it that way, he makes aging sound healthy after all.

Tom Valeo is a freelancer who writes about medical and health issues. Write to him c/o Seniority, the St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, Fl 33731 or e-mail features@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 23, 2005, 13:54:06]