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Harvard Heart Letter | March 2008
Heart Beat
It’s never too late for healthy eating and exercise
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:
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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%.
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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.
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