Posts tagged with "Physical activity"

The outlook is good: By 2033, age 90 will be the new 40

May 26, 2023

The creators of a new program that aims to “reboot” your biological age say that, within a decade, people who live into their 90s could feel as if they are in their 40s, thanks to rapid advances in the longevity field, reports Newsweek.

The program and accompanying app, which launched last September, were developed by Great Age Reboot, led by Dr. Michael Roizen, chief wellness officer emeritus at the Cleveland Clinic, and by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Corey Bridges.

The aim of the program and app is to encourage users to develop healthy habits that will help reduce their physiological age—enabling them to feel younger than their calendar age.

“The goal of the program is to enable you to stay younger and stay on top of discoveries in the longevity field while not being misled,” Roizen, who is a best-selling author, told Newsweek. “The aim is to help you avoid doing things that aren’t healthy and to help you consistently do things that are healthy.

“Sometime in the next ten years, we think you’re going to be able to—because of the exponential advances in 14 areas of aging mechanism research—reboot yourself; so that if 60 is now the new 40, 90 will be the new 40,” he said.

Among the 14 areas of research that Roizen is particularly excited about is a technique called therapeutic plasma exchange, which involves removing blood plasma and exchanging it with donated blood products. In one notable study, this technique was shown to slow down several aspects of cognitive decline in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. In animal studies, it has been shown to reverse skin, pancreas, muscle, and cardiovascular aging.

In developing the app, the Great Age Reboot team analyzed thousands of scientific papers to help create the content, which includes short videos and articles, brain games, and other activities. Each user’s experience is customized to that person, and the app even includes a feature that enables physicians to monitor the progress of their patients.

“What we’re doing is building on Mike’s life mission,” Bridges told Newsweek. “It’s not about extending your life, so you have 30 more years in the nursing home. It’s about giving you 30 more years in your prime so you can do whatever it is that you love, whatever it is that fuels you.”

He continued: “The app is interactive in the sense that it learns about your progress, learns what your starting point is, listens to you about what you want to focus on in a prioritized way to turn back the clock. It seeks to inform and inspire you.”

The app focuses on improving habits in several major areas of life that research has shown are key to longevity, such as stress management, diet, physical activity, sleep and brain health.

When it comes to stress management, the most important thing, according to Roizen, is having “posse and purpose”—i.e., cultivating friends and having a purpose.

In terms of nutrition, Roizen said, “food is a relationship, so you should only eat food you love but that also loves you back.”

He continued: “And with that, eating in the right time, the right amount and doing five days every quarter of decreased food intake. So, five days of 750-calorie-intake resets your aging markers to a younger self—every one of them that we know of.”

other major component of the app’s focus is physical activity, which has been shown to make a difference in how long and well you live. Key activities include cardiovascular workouts, resistance training, and jumping, as well as walking, according to Roizen.

“There is validation in the 10,000 steps a day [goal],” he said. “It’s the inflection point on chronic disease development. Although it was developed by a Japanese pedometer maker, it actually has valid data.”

When it comes to brain wellness, Roizen said, there are more than 30 things you can do to slow your rate of brain aging, such as playing speed of processing games or consuming a tablespoon and a half of olive oil every day.

“And with that goes the component of sleep—getting rid of brain waste as you sleep longer and better,” Roizen said.

The longevity expert also pointed to several supplements that have been shown in randomized, controlled trials to have a benefit on physiological aging. One example of this is phosphocreatine.

“Phosphocreatine is used by young people to build muscle,” Roizen said. “It’s very rarely used by the elderly. But it’s been shown in randomized, controlled trials to not only build muscle in the elderly and help prevent the decrease in muscle mass as you get older but also to improve brain functioning.”

Subscriptions for the Reboot Your Age app cost $34.95 per month or $299.95 annually. You can try before you buy with a free ten-day trial.

Research contact: @Newsweek

Move over, Americans: Europeans are way fitter!

July 9 ,2018

Most of us do not have the lithe, athletic “body beautiful” that we see on the covers of fitness magazines; but our anatomy gets us where we’re going every day, without too much huffing and puffing—so we assume we are in “good enough” shape.

Some of us even manage to go the gym for an hour or two a week, or to jog around the high school track. We assume that counts as physical fitness.

But we are wrong, according to the findings of an international study conducted in England, the Netherlands, and the United States, and published in April in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. In fact, the researchers found that most people do not objectively assess their level of physical activity.

For purposes of the study—which was fielded among 540 respondents from the United States; 748, from the Netherlands; and 248, from England –participants first reported their perceived level of activity during a specific week using a five-point scale, where answers range from inactive to very active. Then, researchers measured their actual level of activity using a fitness-tracking device worn on the respondent’s wrist.

Who miscalculates the most? In particular, U.S. respondents assumed that they are as active as their European counterparts, and older people believed that they have the same level of activity as young people.

For lead author Arie Kapteyn of the University of Southern California, the differences in how people perceive their fitness reflect their culture and environment. “People in different countries or … different age groups can [see] vastly different [meanings in] the same survey questions,” said Kapteyn, who is the executive director of the Center for Economic and Social Research at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

On the whole, however, Americans demonstrated less physical fitness than subjects from the other two countries. Most Americans, for instance, rely heavily on cars, while the Dutch usually walk or ride bicycles to get to work or run errands.

Overall, respondents from the Netherlands and England believe they have a “moderately active” lifestyle. Participants from the United States, on the other hand, swing heavily to the extremes—with their reports indicating that they were “very active” or “very inactive.”

Older people also over-reported their level of physical activity: Fully 60% of older participants in the U.S. have a more inactive lifestyle than they initially reported; with 42% among the same Dutch age group; and 32%among U.K. respondents.

“Individuals in different age groups simply have different standards of what it means to be physically active,” Kapteyn explained of the results. “They adjust their standards based on their circumstances, including their age.”

The gaps between self-reported data and data from a wearable device highlight a gap in measuring fitness levels. Self-evaluations tend to be inaccurate, Kapteyn added, since they can be interpreted differently by people, depending on their age group and geographic region.

“With the wide availability of low-cost activity tracking devices, we have the potential to make future studies more reliable,” she added.

Indeed, the American College of Sports Medicine said, in December 2016, that wearable technology would be the top fitness trend for 2017 and the near future.

For its own study ACSM surveyed health and fitness professionals worldwide and came up with five “standout” fitness trends for the next couple of years. Among them were:

  1. Wearable technology: Activity trackers, smartwatches, heart rate monitors, and GPS tracking devices;
  2. Body-weight training: Not limited to just push-ups and pull-ups, this trend allows people to get “back to basics” with fitness;
  3. High-intensity interval training: HIIT involves a circuit of short bursts of activity, followed by a short period of rest or recovery (performed in less than 30 minutes);
  4. Educated trainers: Professionals certified through programs accredited by the appropriate authorities; and
  5. Strength training: Rated as an essential part of a complete exercise program (along with aerobic exercise and flexibility) for all physical activity levels and genders.

Research contact: kapteyn@usc.edu