Effect of Exercise and Diet in Your 60’s and 70’s

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Seniors/fit | (0) Comments

I think a lot of people wonder about this… Can people who are already in their senior years make a significant change to their health and well being by adopting a healthy eating and exercise program that late in life. Well, the answer is yes, and it is backed up by research from Cornell Medical College.

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A reader wrote us asking if it’s really worth it for older people to change their eating habits for the better.

Indeed it is. People in their 60s, 70s, and beyond can benefit from improving the way they eat, as detailed in a review in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Dr. Richard S. Rivlin, a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

Two insidious effects of aging are the loss of muscle and the weakening of bone. Alone and together, these can restrict mobility, limit the ability to carry out everyday tasks, make breathing difficult by distorting the size and shape of the rib cage, and cause falls. Improving nutrition and getting more exercise can halt or slow the loss of muscle and bone. Other benefits include:

• A healthier heart. Switching to a better diet and exercising can lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Older folks gain more from lowering their blood pressure than younger people do. Among those who already have heart disease, lowering cholesterol can reduce the risk of having a heart attack by 50%.
• Protection against cancer. Early detection and action are clearly the keys to fighting cancer, but two large studies indicate that a healthy diet and exercise are essential, too.

As Dr. Rivlin points out, there is no one-size-fits-all recommendation for what constitutes healthy eating among older people. Some need to focus on eating less, others on eating more. Seeing a nutritionist can help you devise a plan that’s right for you.

Making positive changes can’t erase a lifetime of triple cheeseburgers, chips, and inactivity. But it can set you on a new track that will help you through the years ahead.

… From MSN Health