Here's how to maintain your health and fitness as you get older. Photo / 123rf
Here's how to maintain your health and fitness as you get older. Photo / 123rf
Britain is getting older by the day. According to the most recent census, the number of over-65s in England and Wales numbered more than 11 million in 2021, up from 9.2 million in 2011.
People in the UK now live to 82 on average, which many would call a good age. With a healthy lifestyle, however, this is a mark that can easily be surpassed. When the last census was taken in 2021, there were almost 14,000 centenarians in England and Wales.
“Our adult teeth are only designed to last for about 30 to 40 years due to evolution because at no other point in human history were people regularly surpassing this life span,” says Dr Ben Atkins, former president of the Oral Health Foundation and a Manchester-based dentist. “People may be living for longer these days but our teeth aren’t any more robust.”
A lifetime of sugar, tannins and acid will inevitably do your teeth some damage by the time you reach later life, Atkins says, but with the advent of fluoride toothpaste in the 1970s, he expects most current midlifers to keep a full set of teeth well into their 80s or even 90s.
“In midlife you might need to consider replacing any fillings you got in your younger years to keep your teeth strong and healthy, as your bite may well have changed over the years,” he suggests. “Veneers and crowns, on the other hand, are remarkably durable and with good care can easily last a lifetime.”
Invest in some dental electronics
Consider ditching your manual toothbrush. “Everyone should be using an electric toothbrush,” says Atkins. “I can see the difference in my clients who do compared with those who don’t, just by looking.
“If you don’t get on with the first one you use, keep trying different brands,” he adds. “It can be expensive upfront but you will forever thank yourself if you pick one up as soon as you can.”
An air flosser is also well worth investing in, he says, as “somewhere between 70 to 80 per cent of tooth decay starts between the teeth.” Air flossers clean between your teeth using a high-speed stream of air and a small amount of water, which can be much quicker than traditional flossing as well as easier for those with mobility problems. These tools retail from around £70 ($141) online and can be especially effective for prolonging the life of your crowns and veneers, Atkins adds.
Consider swapping to an electric toothbrush. Photo / 123RF
Make smart sugar swaps
For dental care, you needn’t cut out sweets entirely as a few simple swaps can save you from developing cavities. “Try sugar-free chewing gum to refresh your breath,” Atkins says, “and for those particularly concerned about the impact of their diet on their teeth, swigging some mouthwash after lunch is a good way to keep things in check.”
“The main concern with eating sugar in later life is around developing type 2 diabetes,” says Dr Duane Mellor, head of nutrition at Aston Medical School. “If you’ve got a family history of type 2 diabetes, it’s crucial to watch your sugar intake from midlife onwards.”
You don’t need to impose a total ban on sugar though. It’s enough simply to reduce your intake, and the best way to do that is by continuing to eat the things you love in smaller amounts.
“If diabetes hasn’t become a problem by your 70s or 80s, then you should feel free to enjoy the things you like,” Mellor says. The key to doing that in moderation is to avoid snacking at random, instead sticking to a small amount of what you’re craving after a nutritious meal to make sure you feel satisfied.
“Just start by having a healthy meal packed with nutrient-dense vegetables and meat, then top it off with a smaller amount of icecream or cake, or whatever else it is that you fancy, so that you’re still putting good nutrition first.”
Look after what keeps you moving
Joints are the unsung heroes of the body, allowing your bones to move and bear your weight to get you around the world throughout your life. They decline in health from your 30s onwards, however, says Ashley James, assistant director of practice and development at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists.
“After you leave your 20s, your muscle mass decreases by somewhere between 3 and 8 per cent every year,” says James, which leaves your joints more vulnerable to wear and tear as our muscles absorb the impact on our joints from exercise and everyday life.
“Your bone density also decreases at a similar rate from around the same time, so it’s a double whammy on your ankles, knees and elbows.” Conditions like osteoporosis that result from low bone density often cause joint pain.
Make a few small changes to your lifestyle, however, and there is no reason to let your joints derail your life and independence, James says.
“Many people know that they should try and get in around 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, but this largely refers to our aerobic fitness,” says James. “What many people do not know is that it’s also recommended by the NHS that everyone should do strength-building exercises at least twice a week.”
That needn’t mean hitting the gym or lifting heavy weights, however. “Squats and push-ups are both examples of exercises that build strength and keep your joints in good shape, but that require no special equipment,” he says.
“You could do 10 squats while you wait for the kettle to boil, or even just sit down and get back up again twice when you’re getting off the sofa. Or if you’d rather, try going up and down the stairs an extra time when you’re moving around at home, or do some press-ups against the counter before and after you finish washing the dishes.” These body-weight exercises will help you to build or maintain muscle, keeping strain off your joints.
Keeping fit will help your joint health. Photo / 123RF
Don’t be afraid of a little midlife weight gain
“Our bones have a sort of honeycomb structure. As we age, the holes in the honeycomb get bigger and the outer shell gets weaker, which can lead to problems like osteoporosis over time. By our 70s, around half of us will be at an increased risk of fractures,” says Sarah Leyland, clinical adviser at the Royal Osteoporosis Society. “We should really be thinking of our bones as living organs, not just these dead bits of wood that carry us around,” she explains.
It might sound counterintuitive, but being a bit overweight in our 60s or 70s is actually far better for our bones than weighing too little, Leyland says. “One reason for this is the simple fact that fat gives you more padding should you have a fall,” says Leyland, pointing to the huge number of people who suffer hip fractures – more than 70,000 in the UK every year.
“Another reason, however, is that oestrogen regulates your bone turnover, and fat produces oestrogen in both women and men, in turn supporting the health of your bones.”
“Jogging is great for your bones as it keeps the muscles pulling on them,” says Leyland. “But if that sounds like a bit too much for you to tackle, try breaking out into a ‘jog walk’ next time you go on a stroll to increase your heart rate and push up the impact of your exercise.”
Jogging and strength training are excellent for your co-ordination as they put your eyes, hands and feet to work at the same time. Our co-ordination skills tend to worsen as we age, leading to clumsiness and falls. Swimming and cycling are similarly effective in reducing your chance of suffering a fall, Leyland says, keeping your bones in better shape for longer.
It's important to stay up-to-date with your eye tests. Photo / Unsplash
Be proactive about eye tests
In the majority of cases, looking after your health in general is enough to keep your eyes in good shape, says Nigel Best, Specsavers’ senior optometrist and clinical spokesman. The key to getting the most out of your sight is to be proactive about scans and tests, he says.
“Between the ages of about 18 and 40, your vision should remain fairly stable,” Best says. “Past 40, the lenses in your eyes begin to change shape and thicken, making your vision less clear. That’s because of dehydration within parts of the lens and a build-up of proteins and lipids, both of which make it harder to see.
“Blurred vision that’s distance-dependent like this is just a fact of getting old, however,” he says. “But if you’re realising that everything is slightly blurred, that colours look less vibrant or that you’re struggling to see at night, you may be developing cataracts.”
Even this is no reason to panic, says Best, as if we’re fortunate to live into our 80s or 90s, we will almost certainly develop cataracts in one or both eyes. Getting them seen-to early, however, is important as that slight blur could make it more likely that you will trip over things or have an accident while driving.
“Don’t be complacent and assume there’s nothing to be done about your worsening vision,” Best warns. Left for too long, that frustrating blur could well become something a lot more serious.
Stopping smoking is a good way to delay the onset of cataracts, as smoking increases the amount of free radicals in your eyes, which causes a deposit to form on the lens. Developing cataracts at some point is almost inevitable, however, Best says, and fortunately they are easy to correct. Cataracts can be removed in a simple operation where the cloudy natural lens is replaced with a plastic disc.
Eat your way to healthy eyes
Conditions like glaucoma and macular dystrophy are much more concerning, Best says. Glaucoma, a common disease in which the eye’s optic nerve is damaged and cannot relay vision-related information to the brain, can cause blindness.
Glaucoma is an often inconspicuous condition that does not reveal itself until an advanced stage of deterioration is reached, at which point there’s no way to reverse any vision loss that has already occurred. If caught before it causes vision loss – which can take several years – you can preserve your sight using eye drops, medicines or surgery.
“By the time you notice it yourself, which is usually because of loss to your peripheral vision, glaucoma is much harder to treat. The only way to pick it up in its early stages is through a routine eye examination, which you should try and book in every two years,” says Best.
Macular degeneration, which affects the centre of your vision, is best averted by quitting smoking, which increases your risk of this disease by a factor of three according to Best, as cigarette smoke reduces the amount of oxygen reaching the blood vessels that supply your retina.
“If you’re a non-smoker, the best thing you can do to avoid this disease is eat foods that are high in antioxidants, like leafy green vegetables,” Best says, as macular degeneration has been linked to low levels of the carotenoid lutein, an antioxidant sometimes known as “the eye vitamin”. Kale, spinach, pak choi and spring greens all count.
Eating your greens will help reduce macular degeneration. Photo / 123RF
Keep feeding your gut-friendly fungi
Over the last few years, research has revealed just how much the health of your gut can impact your quality of life. A healthy gut is a diverse gut, according to Sam Treadway, chief scientific officer at The Functional Gut Clinic.
“As we age, the gut tends to get less diverse and its walls also become thinner and more permeable, meaning that pathogens and toxins in your gut can leak out to the rest of your body and cause knock-on effects,” he notes.
“Lots of things over the course of your life can impact your gut’s health – from the food you eat and how often you take antibiotics to whether you’ve had a C-section.”
One recent study of people aged over 80 found there was a correlation between the uniqueness of participants’ gut bacteria and the chance that they would live for at least another four years. Another has shown that a less diverse gut microbiome can make us more frail.
Taking care of your gut as you age, therefore, means putting in the effort to keep your gut microbiome as diverse as possible. One way to do that is by consuming probiotics and prebiotics, Treadway says, either through probiotics sold on the market or by incorporating fermented foods into your diet.
“Probiotics are things that help keep your gut diverse as they contain live microbes that add to its ecosystem when you consume them,” says Treadway. “These can be probiotics sold as such in health shops, but fermented foods like kimchi, kefir and sauerkraut can also do the job.
“If you are going to buy a specific probiotic supplement, make sure you know which strain you are getting, and go on Google to see if there is any research to support its efficacy,” he says. “Don’t just go for any old probiotic product as this probably will not do you as much good.”
Prebiotics, on the other hand, are fuel for the good bacteria that’s already in your gut. The good news is that many of the things you like to eat could well be classed as prebiotics.
“Root vegetables, grains, nuts and olive oil are all effective prebiotics,” Treadway says.
Eat like a Greek
“A Mediterranean diet is typically the best for your gut as it includes a large amount of those prebiotic ingredients,” says Treadway. The Mediterranean diet has long been touted as a life-prolonging way to eat, including grains, fruit, vegetables, beans, fish and heart-healthy oils.
And if that isn’t quite your bag? “Just try to focus on eating somewhere between 25 and 30 different fibre sources in the course of a week,” Treadway says. This may not be as difficult as it sounds: a salad containing lettuce, tomatoes, nuts, olive oil and onion would give you five of the fibre sources you need.
More than this, however, it’s the “social aspects” of the Mediterranean diet that can really make people live longer, claims nutritionist Dr Duane Mellor.
“Those components in the Mediterranean diet are certainly great for your health, but what’s really important is how people in that region treat food,” Mellor explains. “Greeks, for example, eat in a very social way, always with friends and family, and that added socialisation helps to keep them mentally as well as physically fit.
“Then there’s the fact that most people in the Mediterranean buy fresh produce and prepare it themselves, without many processed foods in the mix,” he adds. These are principles that can be applied to any sort of diet you like, Mellor says.
“For example, one study found that the Nordic diet, which is mostly made up of root vegetables and fish without much red meat, was only as healthy as the Mediterranean diet when it was treated in that same way and eaten socially.”
Look out for polyphenols
Polyphenols are antioxidant compounds found in many plant foods that help your body to metabolise the things you eat. “Any fresh fruits or vegetables with lots of colour will contain polyphenols,” Treadway says, “including berries and bright green vegetables. But you’ll be pleased to hear that dark chocolate and red wine both contain polyphenols too.”
There is no standard guidance as to how many polyphenols people should eat, but one study found that eating around 500 milligrams of polyphenols a day was enough to significantly reduce gut inflammation (that’s about two handfuls of blueberries, for example).
Blueberries are rich in polyphenols. Photo / 123RF
Up your protein intake
We’re all used to hearing that we should be eating more protein, but in later life the importance of this really can’t be overstated, Mellor says.
“The amount of protein you need as you get past 65 actually increases because you need it to maintain your muscle mass, given that you likely can’t exercise in the way you used to,” he explains.
This doesn’t mean wolfing down heaps of chicken with your dinner every night, however. “For those in later life, eating protein in small amounts over the course of the day is really much better for you, as it helps to keep your energy levels stable,” he says.
“You should aim to eat around 0.3 grams of protein for each kilogram of body weight with each of your three meals a day,” he adds. For an adult weighing 75kg, that would mean making sure that all of your meals contain at least 22.5g of protein, about equivalent to three large eggs or a can of tuna.
Pick up a new hobby
It’s easy to forget that your brain is an organ like any other and that it needs careful attention to function well, says Barbara Sahakian, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. When it comes to keeping your brain ticking over, most important of all is to build up cognitive reserve, Sahakian says – that’s the brain’s level of resistance to damage and disease, and unlike our IQ, it’s something that’s very much in our hands to change.
“Older people are often fantastic at ‘pattern recognising’, or applying past experience to new problems, but what they find harder is learning new things,” Sahakian says. While an older employee could know exactly the right way to close an important business deal, it might be more difficult for them to learn how to use new computer systems that are completely unfamiliar, for example.
“Cognitive reserve is all about helping you be a lifelong learner, and building it up can ward off dementia, as well as leave you in a better position if you develop a mental illness or experience brain damage.”
The best way to do this is to pick up new hobbies and skills that you enjoy, Sahakian says. In one study of more than 450 over-75s who were tracked by researchers, people who played board games and musical instruments were less likely to develop dementia after five years, as were those who took up dancing. Another study explored how speaking a second language can delay the progression of dementia symptoms by up to five years, compared with people diagnosed with dementia who only speak one language.
Playing board games can help you ward off dementia. Photo / 123rf
Practise using your memory
“It’s similarly important to keep your hippocampus active to reduce the risk that you will develop dementia,” Sahakian says. The hippocampus is the area of the brain that’s associated with episodic memory, or memory of events, which allows you to track things like where your car keys are or remember what you had for dinner last night. The hippocampus is also the first part of the brain to be attacked by Alzheimer’s disease.
The hippocampus can be decreased in size by 25 per cent in people with Alzheimer’s, but a shrinking hippocampus has also been linked to normal signs of cognitive decline in healthy older people, such as forgetfulness or needing longer to think things through.
On the other hand, London taxi drivers who have passed “the knowledge” – which involves memorising the names of 25,000 streets and 100,000 landmarks – are shown to have much larger hippocampi than the rest of the population (though researchers speculated that this may come at a cost to new spatial memories). You needn’t try to complete such a task yourself, but to keep your hippocampus at its strongest it must be exercised, Sahakian says.
“Chess is great for working out your hippocampus,” she explains, “as are a lot of the memory games you can download onto your phone.” MindPal and CogniFit are both good apps for brain training.
