The Future is Now: You Can Control How Well You Age
June 1, 2001 -- Most people dread the thought of aging, fearful that their bodies and minds will break down, like old cars. But now, new research suggests that much like regular oil changes and high-test gasoline, the choices you make when you're younger -- even into middle age -- can help insure a much smoother ride into old age.
An unprecedented study that followed two groups of boys from adolescence to old age shows that many of the factors that determine whether you will have healthy and successful senior years are in your hands long before you start graying.
And they're the same things your mother nagged you about: Not smoking, not drinking to excess, eating right, having a good marriage, and getting an education.
The report appears in the June edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Study author Kenneth Mukamal, MD, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, tells WebMD the results should be a source of comfort and encouragement.
"We have this sense that there isn't much we can do about our aging," he tells WebMD. "But it looks like a lot of the things we do right in middle age will help us as we get into later years of life. In particular, the things we already knew we were supposed to do seem to be controlling a lot of successful aging."
"Evidence like ours suggests that even if people have failed to care for themselves as ideally as possible, and even if they have been underprivileged, there is still an opportunity to rectify those things and have them make a difference," says Mukamal. "Even if, at age 20 or 30, men were not acting in ways to stay healthy, if they are doing so at age 50 it will help later on."
Mukamal and George Vaillant, MD, of the department of psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, drew their findings from a study begun in 1940 of a group of 724 Harvard students and disadvantaged inner-city youth. Both groups were followed for 60 years or until death; included in the final statistics were 237 of the former college students and 332 of the inner-city youth.
The Future is Now: You Can Control How Well You Age
June 1, 2001 -- Most people dread the thought of aging, fearful that their bodies and minds will break down, like old cars. But now, new research suggests that much like regular oil changes and high-test gasoline, the choices you make when you're younger -- even into middle age -- can help insure a much smoother ride into old age.
An unprecedented study that followed two groups of boys from adolescence to old age shows that many of the factors that determine whether you will have healthy and successful senior years are in your hands long before you start graying.
And they're the same things your mother nagged you about: Not smoking, not drinking to excess, eating right, having a good marriage, and getting an education.
The report appears in the June edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Study author Kenneth Mukamal, MD, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, tells WebMD the results should be a source of comfort and encouragement.
"We have this sense that there isn't much we can do about our aging," he tells WebMD. "But it looks like a lot of the things we do right in middle age will help us as we get into later years of life. In particular, the things we already knew we were supposed to do seem to be controlling a lot of successful aging."
"Evidence like ours suggests that even if people have failed to care for themselves as ideally as possible, and even if they have been underprivileged, there is still an opportunity to rectify those things and have them make a difference," says Mukamal. "Even if, at age 20 or 30, men were not acting in ways to stay healthy, if they are doing so at age 50 it will help later on."
Mukamal and George Vaillant, MD, of the department of psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, drew their findings from a study begun in 1940 of a group of 724 Harvard students and disadvantaged inner-city youth. Both groups were followed for 60 years or until death; included in the final statistics were 237 of the former college students and 332 of the inner-city youth.