Top 8 Habits Of The Top 1% Healthiest Over-50s

10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

Will Harlow, over-50s specialist physio, compiled some stats from over a thousand over-50s clients:

Checklist

The findings:

  1. Consistency: the healthiest individuals practised some kind(s) of health habit daily. Consistency was emphasized as more important than perfection.
  2. Resistance training: 75% of the sample engaged in resistance training for better mobility, strength, and mental health. Not all used gyms; some used household objects like bags of books or resistance bands.
  3. Walking: everyone walked at least 6,000 steps per day, often briskly. Walking speed, not just step count, made a significant difference
  4. Purpose: most participants (bearing in mind that 80% of the total sample were retired) engaged in purposeful activities like volunteering, joining groups, or writing. Having a sense of purpose correlated with longer and healthier lives.
  5. Flexible dieting: participants paid attention to their eating without strictly following specific diets. Portion size discipline and consistency (eating well 90% of the time) were key.
  6. Mobility: they worked on joint stiffness with regular mobility and stretching routines. And, importantly, they do not accept stiffness as inevitable.
  7. Social engagement: they maintained at-least-weekly social contact (e.g. clubs, family meetups, outings). Social isolation, in contrast, was linked to severe health risks like dementia and early death.
  8. Positivity: participants maintained a positive attitude despite hardships, focussing on the things they could control. Broader scientific consensus supports the premise that a positive outlook improves health and longevity.

10almonds note: we’re curious as to how causality was established in some of these, since (for example) it could easily be that someone who is in better health will more readily walk more quickly, meaning that a higher walking speed was not necessarily such a causative factor in good health, but rather a result thereof. Of course, there may also be a degree of two-way causality, but still, we like good science and there seem to be some leaps of logic here that have otherwise gone unacknowledged.

This does not take away from the fact that those eight things are most certainly good things to be doing for one’s health, all the same.

For more on each of these, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to learn more?

You might also like:

The Most Anti Aging Exercise

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • How To Actually Start A Healthy Lifestyle In The New Year
  • Krill Oil vs Fish Oil – Which is Healthier?
    Krill oil trumps fish oil, packing super-antioxidants and heart-healthy phospholipids, with a nod to sustainability.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Menopause can bring increased cholesterol levels and other heart risks. Here’s why and what to do about it

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Menopause is a natural biological process that marks the end of a woman’s reproductive years, typically between 45 and 55. As women approach or experience menopause, common “change of life” concerns include hot flushes, sweats and mood swings, brain fog and fatigue.

    But many women may not be aware of the long-term effects of menopause on the heart and blood vessels that make up the cardiovascular system. Heart disease accounts for 35% of deaths in women each year – more than all cancers combined.

    What should women – and their doctors – know about these risks?

    Hormones protect hearts – until they don’t

    As early as 1976, the Framingham Heart Study reported more than twice the rates of cardiovascular events in postmenopausal than pre-menopausal women of the same age. Early menopause (younger than age 40) also increases heart risk.

    Before menopause, women tend to be protected by their circulating hormones: oestrogen, to a lesser extent progesterone and low levels of testosterone.

    These sex hormones help to relax and dilate blood vessels, reduce inflammation and improve lipid (cholesterol) levels. From the mid-40s, a decline in these hormone levels can contribute to unfavourable changes in cholesterol levels, blood pressure and weight gain – all risk factors for heart disease.

    Speedkingz/Shutterstock

    4 ways hormone changes impact heart risk

    1. Dyslipidaemia– Menopause often involves atherogenic changes – an unhealthy imbalance of lipids in the blood, with higher levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C), dubbed the “bad” cholesterol. There are also reduced levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C) – the “good” cholesterol that helps remove LDL-C from blood. These changes are a major risk factor for heart attack or stroke.

    2. Hypertension – Declines in oestrogen and progesterone levels during menopause contribute to narrowing of the large blood vessels on the heart’s surface, arterial stiffness and raise blood pressure.

    3. Weight gain – Females are born with one to two million eggs, which develop in follicles. By the time they stop ovulating in midlife, fewer than 1,000 remain. This depletion progressively changes fat distribution and storage, from the hips to the waist and abdomen. Increased waist circumference (greater than 80–88 cm) has been reported to contribute to heart risk – though it is not the only factor to consider.

    4. Comorbidities – Changes in body composition, sex hormone decline, increased food consumption, weight gain and sedentary lifestyles impair the body’s ability to effectively use insulin. This increases the risk of developing metabolic syndromes such as type 2 diabetes.

    While risk factors apply to both genders, hypertension, smoking, obesity and type 2 diabetes confer a greater relative risk for heart disease in women.

    So, what can women do?

    Every woman has a different level of baseline cardiovascular and metabolic risk pre-menopause. This is based on their genetics and family history, diet, and lifestyle. But all women can reduce their post-menopause heart risk with:

    • regular moderate intensity exercise such as brisk walking, pushing a lawn mower, riding a bike or water aerobics for 30 minutes, four or five times every week
    • a healthy heart diet with smaller portion sizes (try using a smaller plate or bowl) and more low-calorie, nutrient-rich foods such as vegetables, fruit and whole grains
    • plant sterols (unrefined vegetable oil spreads, nuts, seeds and grains) each day. A review of 14 clinical trials found plant sterols, at doses of at least 2 grams a day, produced an average reduction in serum LDL-C (bad cholesterol) of about 9–14%. This could reduce the risk of heart disease by 25% in two years
    • less unhealthy (saturated or trans) fats and more low-fat protein sources (lean meat, poultry, fish – especially oily fish high in omega-3 fatty acids), legumes and low-fat dairy
    • less high-calorie, high-sodium foods such as processed or fast foods
    • a reduction or cessation of smoking (nicotine or cannabis) and alcohol
    • weight-gain management or prevention.
    Women walking together outdoors with exercise clothes and equipment
    Exercise can reduce post-menopause heart disease risk. Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

    What about hormone therapy medications?

    Hormone therapy remains the most effective means of managing hot flushes and night sweats and is beneficial for slowing the loss of bone mineral density.

    The decision to recommend oestrogen alone or a combination of oestrogen plus progesterone hormone therapy depends on whether a woman has had a hysterectomy or not. The choice also depends on whether the hormone therapy benefit outweighs the woman’s disease risks. Where symptoms are bothersome, hormone therapy has favourable or neutral effects on coronary heart disease risk and medication risks are low for healthy women younger than 60 or within ten years of menopause.

    Depending on the level of stroke or heart risk and the response to lifestyle strategies, some women may also require medication management to control high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol levels. Up until the early 2000s, women were underrepresented in most outcome trials with lipid-lowering medicines.

    The Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration analysed 27 clinical trials of statins (medications commonly prescribed to lower cholesterol) with a total of 174,000 participants, of whom 27% were women. Statins were about as effective in women and men who had similar risk of heart disease in preventing events such as stroke and heart attack.

    Every woman approaching menopause should ask their GP for a 20-minute Heart Health Check to help better understand their risk of a heart attack or stroke and get tailored strategies to reduce it.

    Treasure McGuire, Assistant Director of Pharmacy, Mater Health SEQ in conjoint appointment as Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Bond University and as Associate Professor (Clinical), The University of Queensland

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Share This Post

  • Reishi Mushrooms: Which Benefits Do They Really Have?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Reishi Mushrooms

    Another Monday Research Review, another mushroom! If we keep this up, we’ll have to rename it “Mushroom Monday”.

    But, there’s so much room for things to say, and these are fun guys to write about, as we check the science for any spore’ious claims…

    Why do people take reishi?

    Popular health claims for the reishi mushroom include:

    • Immune health
    • Cardiovascular health
    • Protection against cancer
    • Antioxidant qualities
    • Reduced fatigue and anxiety

    And does the science agree?

    Let’s take a look, claim by claim:

    Immune health

    A lot of research for this has been in vitro (ie, with cell cultures in labs), but promising, for example:

    Immunomodulating Effect of Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi) and Possible Mechanism

    (that is the botanical name for reishi, and the Chinese name for it, by the way)

    That’s not to say there are no human studies though; here it was found to boost T-cell production in stressed athletes:

    Effect of Ganoderma lucidum capsules on T lymphocyte subsets in football players on “living high-training low”

    Cardiovascular health

    Here we found a stack of evidence for statistically insignificant improvements in assorted measures of cardiovascular health, and some studies where reishi did not outperform placebo.

    Because the studies were really not that compelling, instead of taking up room (and your time) with them, we’re going to move onto more compelling, exciting science, such as…

    Protection against cancer

    There’s a lot of high quality research for this, and a lot of good results. The body of evidence here is so large that even back as far as 2005, the question was no longer “does it work” or even “how does it work”, but rather “we need more clinical studies to find the best doses”. Researchers even added:

    ❝At present, lingzhi is a health food supplement to support cancer patients, yet the evidence supporting the potential of direct in vivo anticancer effects should not be underestimated.❞

    ~ Yuen et al.

    Check it out:

    Anticancer effects of Ganoderma lucidum: a review of scientific evidence

    Just so you know we’re not kidding about the weight of evidence, let’s drop a few extra sources:

    By the way, we shortened most of those titles for brevity, but almost all of the continued with “by” followed by a one-liner of how it does it.

    So it’s not a “mysterious action” thing, it’s a “this is a very potent medicine and we know how it works” thing.

    Antioxidant qualities

    Here we literally only found studies to say no change was found, one that found a slight increase of antioxidant levels in urine. It’s worth noting that levels of a given thing (or its metabolites, in the case of some things) in urine are often quite unhelpful regards knowing what’s going on in the body, because we get to measure only what the body lost, not what it gained/kept.

    So again, let’s press on:

    Reduced fatigue and anxiety

    Most of the studies for this that we could find pertained to health-related quality of life for cancer patients specifically, so (while they universally give glowing reports of reishi’s benefits to health and happiness of cancer patients), that’s a confounding factor when it comes to isolating its effects on reduction of fatigue and anxiety in people without cancer.

    Here’s one that looked at it in the case of reduction of fatigue, anxiety, and other factors, in patients without cancer (but with neurathenia), in which they found it was “significantly superior to placebo with respect to the clinical improvement of symptoms”.

    Summary:

    • Reishi mushroom’s anti-cancer properties are very, very clear
    • There is also good science to back immune health claims
    • It also has been found to significantly reduce fatigue and anxiety in unwell patients (we’d love to see more studies on its benefits in otherwise healthy people, though)

    Share This Post

  • Banana Bread vs Bagel – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing banana bread to bagel, we picked the bagel.

    Why?

    Unlike most of the items we compare in this section, which are often “single ingredient” or at least highly standardized, today’s choices are rather dependent on recipe. Certainly, your banana bread and your bagels may not be the same as your neighbor’s. Nevertheless, to compare averages, we’ve gone with the FDA’s Food Central Database for reference values, using the most default average recipes available. Likely you could make either or both of them a little healthier, but as it is, this is how we’ve gone about making it a fair comparison. With that in mind…

    In terms of macros, bagels have more than 2x the protein and about 4x the fiber, while banana bread has slightly higher carbs and about 7x more fat. You may be wondering: are the fats healthy? And the answer is, it could be better, could be worse. The FDA recipe went with margarine rather than butter, which lowered the saturated fat to being only ¼ of the total fat (it would have been higher, had they used butter) whereas bagels have no saturated fat at all—which characteristic is quite integral to bagels, unless you make egg bagels, which is rather a different beast. All in all, the macros category is a clear win for bagels, especially when we consider the carb to fiber ratio.

    In the category of vitamins, bagels have on average more vitamin B1, B3, B5, and B9, while banana bread has on average more of vitamins A and C. A modest win for bagels.

    When it comes to minerals, bagels are the more nutrient dense with more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while banana bread is not higher in any minerals. An obvious and easy win for bagels.

    Closing thoughts: while the micronutrient profile quite possibly differs wildly from one baker to another, something that will probably stay more or less the same regardless is the carb to fiber ratio, and protein to fat. As a result, we’d weight the macros category as the more universally relevant. Bagels won in all categories today, as it happened, but it’s fairly safe to say that, on average, a baker who makes bagels and banana bread with the same levels of conscientiousness for health (or lack thereof) will tend to make bagels that are healthier than banana bread, based on the carb to fiber ratio, and the protein to fat ratio.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • How To Actually Start A Healthy Lifestyle In The New Year
  • Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers – by Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The book does kick off with a section that didn’t age well—he talks of the stress induced globally by the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, and how that kind of thing just doesn’t happen any more. Today, we have much less existentially dangerous stressors!

    However, the fact we went and had another pandemic really only adds weight to the general arguments of the book, rather than detracting.

    We are consistently beset by “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as Shakespeare would put it, and there’s a reason (or twenty) why many people go grocery-shopping with the cortisol levels of someone being hunted for sport.

    So, why don’t zebras get ulcers, as they actually are hunted for food?

    They don’t have rent to pay or a mortgage, they don’t have taxes, or traffic, or a broken washing machine, or a project due in the morning. Their problems come one at a time. They have a useful stress response to a stressful situation (say, being chased by lions), and when the danger is over, they go back to grazing. They have time to recover.

    For us, we are (usually) not being chased by lions. But we have everything else, constantly, around the clock. So, how to fix that?

    Dr. Sapolsky comprehensively describes our physiological responses to stress in quite different terms than many. By reframing stress responses as part of the homeostatic system—trying to get the body back into balance—we find a solution, or rather: ways to help our bodies recover.

    The style is “pop-science” and is very accessible for the lay reader while still clearly coming from a top-level academic who is neck-deep in neuroendocrinological research. Best of both worlds!

    Bottom line: if you try to take very day at a time, but sometimes several days gang up on you at once, and you’d like to learn more about what happens inside you as a result and how to fix that, this book is for you!

    Click here to check out “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” and give yourself a break!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Hanging Exercises For Complete Beginners & Older Adults

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Hanging (not the kind with a gallows) is great for the heath, improving not just strength and mobility, but also—critically—looking after spinal health too. Amanda Raynor explains in this video how this exercise is accessible to anyone (unless you have no arms, in which case, sorry, this one is just not for you—though hanging by your legs will also give similar spinal benefits!).

    Hanging out

    Hanging can be done at home or at a park, with minimal equipment (a bar, a sturdy tree branch, etc).

    Note: the greater the diameter of the bar, the more it will work your grip strength, and/but the harder it will be. So, it’s recommend to start with a narrow-diameter bar first.

    Getting started:

    • Start with a “dead hang”: grip the bar with hands shoulder-width apart, thumb wrapped around.
    • Aim to hang without pulling up; build endurance gradually (10–30 seconds is fine at first).
    • Work up to holding for 60 seconds in three sets as a fitness goal.

    Progression:

    • If unable to hang at all initially, use a chair or stool to support some body weight.
    • Gradually reduce foot support to increase duration of free hanging.
    • Start with 10 seconds, progressing by small increments (e.g: 15, 20, 25 seconds) until reaching 60 seconds.

    Advanced variations:

    • Move the body while hanging (e.g., circles, knee lifts).
    • Experiment with different grips (overhand, underhand) for varied muscle engagement.
    • Try scapular pulls or one-arm hangs for additional challenge and strength-building.

    For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like:

    How To Get Your First Pull-Up

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It – by Gary Taubes

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’ve previously reviewed Taubes’ “The Case Against Sugar“. What does this one bring differently?

    Mostly, it’s a different focus. Unsurprisingly, Taubes’ underlying argument is the same: sugar is the biggest dietary health hazard we face. However, this book looks at it specifically through the lens of weight loss, or avoiding weight gain.

    Taubes argues for low-carb in general; he doesn’t frame it specifically as the ketogenic diet here, but that is what he is advocating. However, he also acknowledges that not all carbs are created equal, and looks at several categories that are relatively better or worse for our insulin response, and thus, fat management.

    If the book has a fault it’s that it does argue a bit too much for eating large quantities of meat, based on Weston Price’s outdated and poorly-conducted research. However, if one chooses to disregard that, the arguments for a low-carb diet for weight management remain strong.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to cut some fat without eating less (or exercising more), this book offers a good, well-explained guide for doing so.

    Click here to check out Why We Get Fat, and manage yours!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: