“Life is beautiful, and longer every day. Part two”. was originally pubished on Sep 13 2019, but now has a video version. You can watch the available videos in the Vlog section, or directly in my Youtube Channel https://youtu.be/f4XhOCb_8YM
As we learned in my blog last week “Life is beautiful and every day it is getting longer. Part one” We humans get to live longer and longer thanks to technological and medicine advances. This means that for the first time the demography of the western world is changing and instead of having a pyramid with lots of babies and children in the bottom and a few elderly at the top we are now beginning to have an inverse pyramid because as we are getting older in the western world we are also having fewer children and the children we have, have a better chance of getting older. This means, as we saw in last week’s blog that we have to think of a new way to plan for the future and invest in research and design for our society. How do we help the growing older generation keep healthy and find cures for chronic diseases and pains? How do we guide financially to finance decades of long retirements? The time has come to stop the “hand-wringing” about productivity falling and infirmity rising, we need to change the course, both biologically and socially, of long life” (Time Magazine) And the article continues by suggesting that we may have to work longer to pay for our extra 20 to 30 years of life and this way maybe parents could get more time at home with their young children. And saying that if we invest in the physical and mental health and well being of the older generation we may get to a point where we can see that as an opportunity and not as a crisis for humanity. And as I learned by reading the Time Magazine issue on the Science of living longer, science is very close to inventing pills or being able to pluck out the ageing cells, just as we pluck out grey hair or to give us blood infusions of younger blood. This research, which is far from finished, will not make us live forever, for the time being, but it will make those extra 20-30 years better for us.
However, there is still lots we can do ourselves to keep healthier longer and the advice is still the same: don’t smoke, drink lots of water, exercise, use sun cream, sunglasses and eat healthily. As it is put in Time Magazine, nobody wakes up in a 90-year-old body without the warning signs:
- At 18 the stretchiness of our skin declines by 1% per year. You can slow the process by not smoking, eating well and wearing titanium or zinc sunscreen everyday even if you are inside.
- At 30 lung function begins to decline by 1% a year. The antidote is…….. exercise.
- At 35 our bone mass declines with 1% a year, and yes you are right: exercise is the antidote for that one too.
- At 40 it is loss of muscle and fat gain and the only way to avoid this is….. exercise.
- At 50 our kidney function begins to decline, you may not notice it at first but the best thing to do is to drink plenty of water and since thirst declines with age you may have to remind yourself.
- At 60 you begin to absorb fewer nutrients.
- At 70 you will begin to see age-related decline in your brain speeding up, however activity that engages and stimulates you helps.
(Time Magazine)
Find this depressing? What if you look at it differently? What if you find it reassuring that you can do something to slow down these processes? Isn’t it good to know that, you are not just a victim of your genes? Next week I will go through the chapter of the best foods for you, and wellness practices, which can also add health to your life, or life to your health, whichever way you see it. The fact is that we are getting older and it is also our responsibility to enjoy better health during those extra years. Research is doing its part to help us, now we also need a health system that supports us and treats us instead of just drugging us to disguise the symptoms.
I hope you are as happy as you want to be and remember it is free to be nice.
Best wishes
Ivalo
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Amazon link to the magazine, if you want to read the complete text.