ALL of us would like to live a healthy life for as long as possible and many tend to assume that life expectancy is largely determined by genetics.
However, although there’s no denying that genes do play a role, it’s actually not as key as your lifestyle and diet.
As you get older, your risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia and other diseases grow exponentially higher – but is it possible to slash the risk?
According to computational biologist and science writer Andrew Steele, there are five ways to boost your health and slow down the ageing process – and you can start with just five minutes a day.
Brushing your teeth
We all know that brushing our gnashers is essential for keeping those pearly whites sparkling – and maintaining a good oral hygiene.
But turns out, this everyday step can also slow down the ageing process.
The guru, who advised to brush and floss your teeth twice a day, explained: ”The first studies that came out were in the 90s and they showed that the people who had better oral health tended to get less heart disease.
”If you’ve got gum disease, bacteria in your mouth causing tooth decay then that is a fight that your immune system can never quite win,” Andrew told Davina McCall on Begin Again with Davina McCall podcast.
”It’s constantly fizzing and buzzing with inflammation happening in your mouth – and that we know can have an impact throughout your body. It can increase the risk of heart attack, for example.”
Inflammation is a protective response by your body’s immune system.
It is how the body normally reacts to injury, disease, or infection from bacteria or viruses. That acute response is needed for healing.
Researchers have learned that as we age, the body develops increased inflammation that does not go away.
This chronic inflammation is believed to accelerate the ageing process and contribute to various health conditions, including:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Arthritis (including rheumatoid arthritis)
- Cancer
- Heart disease
- Type 2 diabetes.
Good night’s sleep
Successful ageing starts with a good night’s sleep – but how many hours should you really be aiming for?
According to the expert, people will see the most benefits when they go for seven to eight hours every night – which many of us are guilty of not getting.
Recent study also suggested that poor sleep quality in your 40s can affect your brain health later in life, Healthline reported.
“Whether through the clearing of debris, […] or providing down-time to various systems, the quantity and quality of sleep have profound physiologic impacts that impact our day to day thinking, memory, and mood as well as our long-term risk of cognitive decline and dementia,” said Scott Kaiser, the director of Geriatric Cognitive Health for the Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center.
”There’s even evidence that if you look into the brain of people with dementia, you can find bacteria that cause gum disease.”
Don’t bother with supplements
Another less conventional tip which may surprise many is to not bother with supplements, the expert said.
”As a healthy person, you don’t need to mega-dose on vitamin D.
”If your doctor has recommended that you’re deficient in something, then take it – it’s absolutely important,” he emphasised.
”But a lot of vitamin supplements are based on an old hypothesis on ageing science […].
”The way that we make energy is we get food, we essentially burn it with the oxygen in the air. So, you eat your food and the sugar in the food, the oxygen in the air then burns that sugar – and that’s how you produce energy.
”Now, because oxygen is a really reactive chemical, sometimes the mitochondria (organelles in cells that produce energy) that are doing this reaction [….], sometimes they fumble the oxygen molecule effectively and they create free radical.”
Free radicals are unstable atoms that can damage cells, causing illness and ageing.
Free radicals are linked to ageing and a host of diseases, but little is known about their role in human health, or how to prevent them from making people sick.
Although for years it was widely assumed that free radicals are ”bad”, Andrew debunked this theory.
How much exercise should you do and when?
There are guidelines issued by the NHS and the Government regarding how much exercise people should do each day.
People should be active daily, and avoid sitting for long periods.
The NHS recommends an adults – those aged 19 to 64 – should aim for 150 minutes of “moderate intensity activity” a week.
This works out to 21 minutes a day, or 30 minutes five days a week.
Or, they could do 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, which could be less than 11 minutes per day or 25 minutes three days a week.
Adults should also aim to do strength exercises twice a week, at least.
Examples of moderate-intensity activities include brisk walking, water aerobics, riding a bike, dancing, doubles tennis, pushing a lawn mower, hiking or rollerblading.
Examples of vigorous activities include running, swimming, riding a bike fast or on hills, walking up the stairs, sports, like football, rugby, netball and hockey, skipping, aerobics, gymnastics or martial arts.
Things like lifting heavy weights, sprinting up hills, spin classes or circuit training are considered very vigorous.
What time should you exercise?
Getting exercise into your day, no matter what time is a good idea.
But you may want to be more selective depending on your goal.
A 2023 US study on 5,285 middle-aged adults showed exercising between 7 and 9 am was the best time if you’re looking to lose weight.
Researchers found that early-bird gym goers had a lower body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference than those working out later.
A 2022 study led by Prof Paul J Arciero, Skidmore College, New York, found that the optimal time of day to get your kit on might differ according to your gender.
Prof Arciero said women wanting to lose fat around their belly and hips would do better to hit the gym in the morning, but those seeking to gain upper body strength or simply improve their mood might see more results from evening exercise.
The results were the opposite for men.
If you struggle to get to sleep, it’s been found that exercise in the morning may help, but exercise in the evening may help you to stay asleep.
Exercise, generally, can improve sleep quality.
”We thought they were bad and this was for a long time a leading theory of ageing.
”The theory was that maybe you can have a lot of these free radicals, it can increase the speed of this damage and that would increase the rate at which you age.”
He went on, basing his comments on more recent studies done in the 2000s.
”It’s one of those things that is not surprising in hindsight. Life has been breathing oxygen for about a billion years – and that means we’ve got mechanisms to deal with these free radicals.
”And actually, our body uses them [free radicals] for things. So, the mitochondria – they are the powerplant of the cell. But they also talk to the other parts of your cell.
”And one of the ways they talk is using free radicals.”
The pro also added that there are immune cells called neutrophils – a type of white blood cell that help the body fight infection and heal injuries.
”If you have a bacterial infection, the neutrophils rush to the place where the bacteria are and spray these free radicals over them – and kill the bacteria.
”They’re using the fact that free radicals are damaging – but to your advantage.
”So if you take some vitamin C supplement, it mops up these free radicals and it’s quite likely that your body will produce more free radicals to compensate for the fact – cause it still needs them.”
Quit smoking
It may sound obvious but one of the key things that could lead to a longer life is giving up smoking.
”If you quit smoking when you’re 30 or before 30, you basically get all of the years back.
”It’s not quite as good as if you had never smoked before, but it’s more or less there.
”Even when you are in your 60s, you will still get quite a few years back.
”That level of inflammation that comes along with smoking cigarettes after a few months starts to subside – and you gradually revert back to the biology of someone who’s never smoked in their life.”
Inflammation is a protective response by your body’s immune system.
While the pro noted that vaping wasn’t as dangerous as smoking and there isn’t enough data at the moment to prove the opposite, it’s certainly a habit that’s causing damage.
”No matter how late you’re thinking of quitting, it is never too late.”
Keeping active
Getting more exercise is great not just for a mental health boost but also staying physically fit, with cardio working wonders for your heart.
There’s also no need to spend long hours at the gym – according to the expert, you can significantly improve your health just by exercising 15 to 20 minutes a day.
”We’ve seen that strength training is super important too […], especially as you get older.”
Strength training, also known as resistance training or weight training, is a type of exercise that uses resistance to build strength.
Examples of strength training include squats, push-ups, and chin-ups, and even using resistance bands – that will both improve your strength but also keep your body toned.
”Again, it’s never too late to start. I found a study of 90-somethings where they gave them a strength-training programme.
”And over the course of a few weeks they got stronger, they could walk further and faster.
”No step is too small. If you’re sedentary and you never get up from the couch all day, you drive your car to work, sit at the desk all day, drive home and have a TV dinner – if you just walk for five minutes a day, you’ve already increased your health.
”As you start doing more exercise when you get to 25 to 30 minutes average of moderate to vigorous exercise, the benefits really start flying off.”
