Stay Healthy to 100
A Top Yale Doctor’s Prescription for Living Better Longer
Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Sherwin B. Nuland, MD, clinical professor of surgery at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches bioethics and clinical medicine. He won a National Book Award for How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter. His newest book is The Art of Aging: A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-Being (both from Random House).
A century ago, the average life expectancy in America was 47 years. Although many of us today can expect to live about twice as long, we still tend to regard aging as a disease over which we have limited control and one that robs us of independence and satisfaction.
Sherwin Nuland, MD, thinks that’s changing. The 76-year-old surgeon and award-winning author believes that we’re in a transformational period that’s altering our conception of what growing older means. This transformation is fueled by baby boomers, who are determined to age with more vigor than their parents, plus stunning research that suggests that the human body can remain active well into its 90s. Bottom Line/Personal asked Dr. Nuland how
we all can stay healthy and active longer…
In your new book, you refer to aging as an “art.” Why?
Because no matter how old you get, you still have a surprisingly wide variety of choices to shape and create the kind of life you want. It’s not inevitable that seniors must get weaker each year. That kind of thinking actually contributes to one’s decline because you don’t take actions that can invigorate you.
As a doctor, I’ve had the opportunity to visit many nursing homes. I was stunned by how many people could have avoided being there. They weren’t suffering from any disease, just simple physical frailty—they were not strong enough to function on their own. The fact is, if you take a person in his/her 80s and put him on a supervised strengthening program of resistance training and weights, you can double his strength in six weeks.
So strength training is the key?
While walking and proper diet are helpful, the key to staying out of a nursing home is physical strength, especially in your upper body and spine. Strength training improves coordination and greatly reduces the chances of a slip-and-fall, which is often the event that leads to losing one’s independence.
Moreover, you can benefit from strength training no matter what age you start. I had never lifted a weight until I was 68 years old. Now I do exercises to build muscle mass three times a week, for an hour each time.
But getting older still means that we can’t do everything we used to. How can we deal with these limitations?
People who age well view limitations as the realistic circumstances of their life—not as a punishment or burden. You’ve performed this kind of attitude adjustment at earlier stages in your life. For instance, when your children were born, your personal freedoms were curtailed, but you still were able to uncover rich opportunities for satisfaction.
Several years ago, I met Dr. Michael DeBakey, the internationally acclaimed cardiac surgeon who performed the first successful coronary artery bypass graft in 1964. DeBakey, now 99, operated regularly until he was 90, when he could no longer meet the rigorous demands of performing surgery. I would have thought hanging up his scalpel would have been devastating, but DeBakey saw it as an exciting opportunity, allowing him more time to focus on other activities that he could derive pleasure from, such as fund-raising for Baylor College of Medicine, where he served as chancellor.
But what if you’re not a famous, multimillionaire heart surgeon with lots of interesting opportunities?
No matter what your position or financial situation, creativity and curiosity are the keys to vitality in old age. By that I mean you get up every morning looking forward to something. You engage in pursuits that make you feel better after they’re completed, such as volunteering…working in a garden…learning a foreign language…taking your grandchildren on a trip.
Are you saying that we can keep our brains from aging?
The brain is the only organ that determines how it ages. The more you stimulate it—and by that I mean engaging in mental activities that absorb you—the more plasticity you develop, increasing the number of synaptic connections between cells.
What is the best way to deal with illness and grief—for instance, if you have a heart attack or a spouse dies?
After I published my book on dying, a woman named Miriam wrote to me and we became friends. Miriam had survived both ovarian and bowel cancer as a young woman. It wasn’t until age 55 that she met the love of her life and got married. The marriage lasted for more than 14 years. Then her husband developed Alzheimer’s and died. It would have been easy for Miriam to slip into the role of an emotionally crippled widow, but she resolved that her husband’s memory would become a source of strength. Miriam became a writer, touching readers with her serene essays about braiding rugs, cooking, faith and adjusting to getting older.
To age well is to always keep moving forward emotionally and reaching out.
Reaching out for what?
For mutual caring and connectedness with other people. Ultimately, meaningful relationships are the answer to everything in old age. If you devote yourself to doing for others, it will oxygenate your own self-confidence and motivation. Creating deep relationships brings you peace.
What is ahead for aging?
Advances in fighting osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer will enable many of us to live to age 100 with fewer limitations. We’ll only suffer a severe decline in our health shortly before our natural death.
Reprinted with the permission of:
Boardroom Inc. and Bottom Line Publications, Inc.
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