It's -really- NEVER too late for harvesting the benefits of a healthy lifestyle!

By Dr. Franco

Even from early age, we have a natural tendency to disregard changes in lifestyle under the perspective of a limited or self-limiting time horizon, perhaps driven by the will to avoid the potential efforts involved. Following the same approach -oriented towards the avoidance of efforts- when we consider ourselves young we delay changes and decisions trying to postpone them to a later age that when it arrives we then think it is too late. In the case of following a healthy lifestyle as the pathway to achieve healthy ageing there is never a case for being too early or too late.

Being a sine qua non of life, ageing starts from the moment we are conceived and stops only with a full cease of our bodily functions (i.e. we are deceased). It is therefore logical to consider that any decision, choice or habit that we undertake along our life course would affect how we age and feel. Following a healthy lifestyle has been associated with a different number of benefits among different populations at all stages of life benefiting children and elderly alike.

Furthermore, the benefits of following a healthy lifestyle are not only reserved to people that are currently healthy. As presented by researchers from the VA Medical Center in Durham (NC) in a recent publication in the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) benefits of a healthy lifestyle can also be seen among elderly long-term cancer survivors. Their study evaluated whether providing information on the components of a healthy lifestyle through telephone counselling and mailed print material would ameliorate or even stop functional decline among older overweight cancer survivors.
The authors found after 12 months that those receiving information about following a healthy lifestyle, experienced a substantial amelioration of their functional decline and an improvement in quality of life compared to those that did not receive the information.

Perhaps following a healthy lifestyle imply certain efforts that to many may appear a great burden, nevertheless the efforts are greatly compensated and it is never too late to invest in the bank of the healthy lifestyle. Healthy ageing will be just one of the rewards.


Reference:
Morey MC, Snyder DC, Sloane R, Cohen HJ, Peterson B, Hartman TJ, Miller P, Mitchell DC, Demark-Wahnefried W. Effects of home-based diet and exercise on functional outcomes among older, overweight long-term cancer survivors: RENEW: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2009 May 13;301(18):1883-91