Age Proof: The New Science of Living a Longer and Healthier Life The No 1 International Bestseller - Softcover

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Professor Rose Anne Kenny is an award-winning physician and researcher who has been Head of the academic department of Medical Gerontology at Trinity College Dublin since 2006. She is the founding Principal Investigator of The Irish LongituDinal study on Ageing (TILDA).

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Your attitude keeps you young (or not)

It turns out that the inspirational Instagram quote “Age is not a number” is based on science. Our work and other research confirms that we are indeed as young as we feel. One of our studies showed that people who feel their chronological age are more likely to develop physical frailty and poor brain health than those who claim to feel younger than they are. Older adults with negative perceptions about ageing are likely to die seven and a half years earlier, mostly because of higher rates of heart disease.

Meanwhile, feeling younger than our years - irrespective of whatever diseases or disorders we might have - slows the pace of ageing. How? Because a positive attitude towards getting older changes cell chemicals beneficially, possibly by reducing inflammation (low-grade chronic inflammation, from impaired immune responses, is associated with accelerated ageing and many age-related conditions). Even if we have health problems, attitude dominates.

A unique piece of research - the Nun Study - perfectly illustrates this. The 678 sisters of School Sisters of Notre Dame in the US took part in a longitudinal study, undergoing regular health and psychological tests, plus a post-mortem brain pathology study. (A great advantage was that they lived similar lifestyles.) Broadly, it was found that the nuns who expressed more positive emotions lived on average a decade longer than their less optimistic peers, and were less likely to get dementia. Aged 80, sixty percent of the least happy nuns had died.

But society’s attitudes matter too. Ageism - being forced to retire rather than choosing for oneself for instance - is pernicious and detrimental. A Yale University study showed how perceptions about ageing can change our physiology. Exposure to positive ideas about ageing - eg. words like ‘sage’ - helped participants deal with stress. A barrage of negative stereotypes - eg ‘senile’ - increased stress, prompting higher blood pressure and heart rate. Don’t stand for ageism - it has directly damaging effects on health.

Find your purpose

Having purpose is a psychological strength, key to a contented, longer life. Yet sometimes as we age, we lose sight of this. Families dissipate, we retire, our social life shrinks. So how do we find meaning, even in the most challenging of situations?

Proven effective is nurturing our creativity. I am director of the newly established Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing, at St James’s hospital in Dublin. This clinical and research facility includes a central hub for patients and staff to be creative - through poetry, song, painting and music. Neurological research shows that making art improves not just mood but cognitive function by forming thicker and stronger new connections between brain cells. At the very least, you might visit a gallery - even viewing art has a positive effect.

We can also rediscover purpose by taking on new challenges. Abundant data shows that people who volunteer are less depressed and enjoy better quality of life. For some, religion provides meaning. Overall, religious involvement, belief and spirituality are linked to lower depression and anxiety, better memory, better planning and organising abilities, and longer life - though the social factor may be significant in this too.

Longevity

Supporting this explanation, Harvard researchers recently found that greater friendship and familial bonds independently predict lower concentrations of fibrinogen, a clotting factor in blood, a cause of blood clots and heart attacks, and an indicator of inflammation. The association between fibrinogen and social isolation, conversely, was remarkable - it was as bad as smoking. (Important note: if relationships are strained - whether family, partner, or friend - chronic disease was more likely.)

Brain health

Another Harvard study found that people who enjoyed strong social bonds into their eighties were less likely to succumb to cognitive decline and dementia. The fact that social, mental and physical stimulation through friendships reduce vascular diseases is relevant here too. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart irregularities such as atrial fibrillation in midlife, are all associated with Alzheimer’s in later life. The stress-busting effects of good friendships is another reason these relationships benefit brain health. A higher susceptibility to stress doubles the risk of dementia by triggering chronically high cortisol levels.

A third theory as to why friendships are brain-protective is that mental stimulation provided by social contacts increases the formation of new brain cells, building up capacity or “cognitive reserve” in the area that converts short term memory to long-term memory, the area important for concentration, understanding, awareness, thought, language, and consciousness, and the area governing our sense of smell. So even if people have abnormal proteins in their brain cells (dementia pathology) they don’t show signs of the disease - their reserve capacity enables normal function.

Laughter

We laugh more when we’re with friends - laughter bonds us with others. As well as boosting endorphin levels, laughter is a form of muscular exercise, good for circulation and digestion. Fundamentally, it’s a different way of breathing. We’re using the muscles between our ribs to repeatedly blow air out from the lungs without inhaling. It increases the pressure in the chest by effectively breath-holding and stopping the normal rhythmic flow of air in and out. A good belly laugh provides a workout for the diaphragm, abs, and shoulders - plus the immune system and heart. It’s beneficial at a chemical level because it lowers the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. And low cortisol stabilises blood sugars and insulin, regulates blood pressure, and reduces inflammation. (NB. Even if we anticipate having a laugh, our positive hormonal system kicks in - rising as much as 87 percent. The same expectation muted stress hormones by up to 70 percent. Time to revisit Seinfeld or Father Ted?).

>Why stress is ageing - how we react is key - 7 protective tactics

We all know how stress feels to us - but its medical definition is “the quality of experience, produced through a person-environment transaction that, through either over arousal or under arousal, results in psychological or physiological distress.” Stress has many biological measures - it affects our nervous system, hormones, immune system and metabolic systems. Persistent stress can lead to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, a fast heart rate, heart attacks and strokes. A visible measure of how acute stress can age us is that it can turn hair grey.

Harvard researchers found that stress activates the sympathetic nerves - part of the flight or fight response. Examining the impact of stress on the hair follicle, they found that these nerves, which feed the follicles, release the chemical noradrenaline. The intensity of its release depletes hair pigment - as well as accelerating hair loss. Greying, they concluded, is indicative of the biological effects of stress. (The silver lining - their research lays the groundwork for discovering how stress impacts other tissues and organs - a step towards eventual treatment to halt its adverse impact.) Meantime, these techniques can provide...