AgeLess: Take Control of Your Age and Stay Youthful for Life

Book by Schneider MD Edward L Miles Elizabeth

CHAPTER 1

AGELESS

AS THE DEAN of the nation's only School of Gerontology, I am devoted to increasing health and vitality through aging research and education. For three decades, I've participated in a radical shift in our understanding of the aging process. While scientists once thought that the secret to longevity was to choose healthy grandparents who lived to a ripe old age-- not an easy proposition--we now have the evidence to prove that it's not all in your genes. In fact, your daily actions and attitudes are the strongest influence on how well you age, via specific biochemical and neurological effects on your biological clock. This means that the ability to increase your health and longevity is in your hands.

Leading these advances was the landmark MacArthur Foundation Study of Successful Aging, a pivotal investigation that changed how we view the aging process. I was part of the MacArthur research team, which looked at data from the Swedish Twin Study. The study followed 20,000 identical and nonidentical twins, raised together and apart, for over 40 years--an ideal situation for studying genetic and environmental factors for health and disease. We specifically focused on how much genes and the environment each contributed to how well people aged.

The results were astounding. We found that while genes can play an important role in health during the early decades of life, from there on out (most of adulthood) your behaviors and lifestyle account for a full 70 percent of how well you age. In other words, genetic influences on your longevity diminish substantially as you move down life's path. Your own behaviors take their place.

The MacArthur study went on to identify the top habits of highly successful agers. As one example, we found that people who stayed the most mentally sharp exercised more, achieved higher levels of education, and had better self-efficacy--belief in one's ability to organize and execute actions to achieve specific goals. Similar blueprints emerged for the many aspects of aging--or more aptly, aging less.

AgeLess living is a comprehensive concept. Following from the MacArthur study and the wealth of other good research now available, I've grounded this book not just on a single theory of aging, destined to pass into history with the next trend, but on an integrated model that covers every aspect of your daily life that influences the aging process. From what you eat and how well you sleep to the type and length of your exercise routine, weight management issues, how you cope with stress, and your hormonal profile, you can acquire the AgeLess practices that will enable you to live longer with more zest and vitality. This book will show you how.

Take Control of Your Age

We all age differently. If you've ever been to a high school or college reunion, you've seen the proof up close. The prom king might look decades older than the calendar says, while the formerly mousy math whiz radiates youthful vitality and dances the night away. Though the chronological clock ticks at the same rate for all of us, everyone's biological clock has its own speed. To a great extent, you can control that rate. Though you can't stop aging, as some people and products might claim, you can age less.

The essential part of ourselves, whether you call it soul, self, or spirit, is ageless. This ageless self enables us to identify with the youthful protagonists in coming-of-age films and books because, internally, we feel eternally young. This book offers you tools to minimize the toll of time and maximize the correspondence between your ageless self and the face that meets the world. By adopting AgeLess principles, you can increase your vitality today, prevent or postpone the diseases of aging, and add healthy years to your time on earth.

Live Well to Age Well

The goal of an AgeLess lifestyle is a longer healthspan, my term for the healthy and active part of lifespan. Aging is a lifelong process: Soon after conception, as the human embryo grows, certain cells start to age and die. As our lives grow longer, so does the drama of age. At present, it is not possible to stop or reverse aging. If you're alive, you're getting older, and anyone who claims otherwise is misleading you. However, you can significantly slow the age-related processes that clog arteries and raise blood pressure, impair sugar metabolism, turn firm muscles to flab, sap energy, weaken and wrinkle the skin, and attack memory and mental functions. AgeLess habits can alter the course of countless biological reactions to help prevent many of the disorders and diseases associated with aging: heart disease, stroke, adult-onset diabetes, most cancers, disability, memory loss, and more. They can also address the myriad cosmetic concerns that mount with the years--weight gain, wrinkles, sagging flesh, and fading glow. In short, the way you live can largely determine your youthfulness today and how long and healthy your later life will be. An AgeLess lifestyle can optimize your chance of becoming a centenarian and still having plenty of juice left when you get there.

My own grandparents were AgeLess role models for me. Though I knew them for 40 years, I never saw these two dynamos grow old. Their joie de vivre communicated an agelessness that would one day become the elixir that I now offer to all of you. My grandmother lived life to the fullest throughout her eighties, doing her own housekeeping and shopping, cooking for her grandchildren, running out to have fun with her friends at the senior center, and still having time left over to volunteer at the local nursing home. My grandfather was equally active, managing his apartment building and playing vigorously with his grandchildren. He never lost his energy or gusto for life.

During my medical training, I didn't understand what the doctors meant when they discussed old age in a negative way. These vital, engaged, and energetic people were proof to me that aging didn't mean the inevitable decline that my medical teachers described. My grandparents inspired me to make the study of aging my life's work.

We live at a time of unprecedented opportunity to maximize our AgeLess potential. In the United States, average life expectancy at birth has increased from 49 years in 1900 to over 77 today. Most readers of this book will make it to age 85, and many of you have a good shot at celebrating your 100th birthday. But with current trends, half of our future 85-year- olds will need help with simple daily tasks due to age-related infirmities acquired along the way. Which will you be--independent, vigorous, and active, or needy, disabled, and sick? Now is the time to decide.

Healthspan Matters at Any Age

This is an all-ages book. If you don't think aging less is your concern yet, you're in good company. Ethel Percy Andrus, a dedicated educator a few decades ago, couldn't be bothered with aging or its negative stereotypes until she unexpectedly received her retirement notice from the Los Angeles Unified School District. One of the first women high school principals during the Depression and after, Ethel rejected the district's measly fixed $100 monthly pension and instead took a step that would transform the face of aging in America. Ethel cofounded AARP to lead the battle for the right of people of all ages to enjoy life to its peak potential.

AARP is now one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the world, 35 million members strong and regularly ranked the nation's leading lobbying group. Since Ethel Andrus was an educator committed to the empowering nature of knowledge, it was fitting that the AARP should decide to found a research center in her name to study the science of aging. They chose the University of Southern California as the site and invited the association's members to contribute to the center's construction and endowment. The response was astonishing. The state-of-the-art Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center was built with contributions from more than 400,000 private citizens, most of them retired, setting a world record for the most individual contributions toward the construction of a single nonreligious building.

Le Troisieme Age

The French have a wonderful term for the golden years: le troisieme age, or the third age. After youth and middle age comes this time, which can be tough if you're unprepared but sweet if you've planned ahead. Age less today to make the third age your best life stage.

Why such enthusiasm and generosity from people whom others assumed to be more interested in retirement than in new discoveries? My experience as a gerontologist shows that once you get to the so-called golden years, whether you find them to be golden or instead see rust spots everywhere and wish you could do it all over again, you realize just how important the length of your healthspan is. The idea of improving prospects for long, independent lives was so moving to these donors that they opened their hearts and wallets to help make it happen. They acted on what they knew firsthand to be a top priority for realizing their own dreams and desires: having the knowledge they needed to optimize their age potential. Though society didn't have a dream for them--or worse, expected them to be invisible--the spark of life in each was fanned by this woman's determination to make a difference to the core definition of longevity.

Today I head up the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center at The University of Southern California, where Ethel's legacy has inspired me to write this book to bring all the benefits of scientific knowledge about aging to people everywhere. Ethel, whose savings were wiped out by the Depression, once said, "What I have saved is lost, what I have spent is gone, but what I have given to other people is mine forever." Now, I would like to offer you the gift of a longer healthspan.

The benefits of aging less extend across the lifespan. If you're in your thirties or forties, you'll be glad to hear that now, the very time you start to get concerned about the first gray hairs, a "senior moment" memory lapse, or extra £ds you swear you didn't earn, can be the most effective moment to adopt strategies for aging less. Those of you in your fifties and sixties can see rapid improvements to health and vitality by making those changes to arrest or slow many of the conditions associated with age. To seniors, I offer a rejuvenating program that's easy and affordable so your golden years can live up to your dreams. For readers in your twenties, remember that controlling your healthspan is as important as making good choices for your career, personal relationships, and your portfolio. Just as financial experts advise that you begin planning for retirement as soon as you finish college, your investment in longevity today can yield great benefits far into the future.

Many Americans alive today have the opportunity to see a century of good living if they start now. You can use our Longevity Quotient Plan to lengthen your healthspan, and the earlier you start the greater improvement you can make. So, no matter what your current age or genetic background, age less by living well each day to promote:

Longer healthspan

Optimal heart health, bone mass, and digestion

Energy, stamina, and strength

Youthful appearance and healthy body weight

Better cognition and memory

Improved mood and optimism

Satisfying sex

Money saved on health care and antiaging products

Fewer sick days

Sound sleep

Clear vision

Enhanced performance

A life-embracing mind-set

Independence and vitality far into the future

What would you add to this list? How do you envision your third age? Who are the role models in your life who seem to transcend aging? Use these questions as your compass and begin to chart your AgeLess healthspan today.

Discover Your Longevity Quotient--and Change It

Will you be playing tennis on your 85th birthday or struggling to get out of a chair at 60? Should you expect your energy and sex drive to fizzle by age 45 or will you hit middle age with body and mind in their prime?

To help you measure your healthspan--and change it--I've developed a measurement I call the longevity quotient (LQ). You're probably already familiar with this sort of assessment in the form of the intelligence quotient (IQ) test, which was introduced by Dr. William Louis Stern in 1912 to predict how an individual will perform in comparison to the population on various cognitive tasks. Likewise, I've developed my LQ quizzes to size up your habits to help assess the length and quality of your healthspan in six key areas.

The Six-Point LQ Plan to Increase Your Healthspan

The habits that can help you age less fall into six categories.

1. Nutrition

2. Exercise

3. Weight management

4. Sleep

5. Engagement with life

6. Hormone replacement

The LQ quizzes provided in the upcoming chapters can help you to see where you're on track for a long, vigorous life and where you have room to improve. If you score 100 percent on all the quizzes, congratulations! Hand this book to someone who can use it. For the rest of you (and that's most of us), a true assessment of your current situation is critical to prioritizing your personal longevity plan, so be honest with yourself: Stick with what is rather than what you wish would be. Use photocopies of the quizzes if you're reluctant to commit your secrets to these pages. If you prefer, you can complete the LQ quizzes online at www.longevityquotient.com. These interactive versions handle all the calculations for you.

As they say on the radio when they try out the emergency broadcast system, the LQ is "only a test." The results don't cast your future in stone; in fact, quite the opposite. With these tests and the six-point LQ plan, you can take control of your future--perhaps for the first time--and decide for yourself how to increase your healthspan. Seeing is believing, and your LQ score can provide the framework you need to start aging less today.

As you total up your LQ in each area, focus on the big picture. How do you feel about your score? Is it surprising? Reassuring? Disconcerting? First, remember that this number is designed to help you chart your course; it's not a judgment of your worth, intent, or intelligence. More importantly, whether the number you see on the page is high, low, or in between, the key fact is that your longevity quotient can change for the better, if you begin implementing the LQ plan. And your longevity quotient is cumulative; every day you spend following your LQ plan is money in the bank. You are investing in your present and future--so the sooner you start, the higher your lifelong LQ will be.

Heed the New Rules of Aging Less

I've spent 30 years fielding questions about how to live a long and healthy life. As befits my Jewish heritage, I've freely dispensed solicited and unsolicited advice to just about anyone who has asked. What's amazing is how much the answers have changed over the course of my career.