Three ways to stop age-related muscle loss
Many people find that they’re hitting their stride around age 35. But the body has other ideas. That’s when the gradual loss of muscle mass begins. Folks typically experience a 1% to 2% loss of muscle annually up to age 60, then it accelerates to around 3%. This creates a condition called sarcopenia. And while muscle is lost, folks often substitute fat for muscle mass. That ups the risk for chronic health problems. For example, a recent study found that folks who have excess fat on their arms are 18% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s than folks with low levels of fat in that area!
But you don’t have to accept the slow erosion of your strength and accumulation of excess fat.
1. Get enough protein. A meta-review of studies concluded that older adults should eat more than the recommended amount of protein to counter muscle loss. The researchers suggested a 180-pound man eat 82 grams to 130 grams daily.
2. Do strength training (using resistance bands, your body weight, dumbbells, or weight machines) three to four times weekly.
3. Enjoy high-protein snacks and muscle-building supplements. Nuts, peanut butter, chia seeds and edamame satisfy hunger and help build muscles. Creatine, an amino acid made from arginine, glycine, and methionine, doesn’t build muscle itself, but along with resistance training and a healthy diet, it may offset muscle loss, according to Harvard Medical School.
For more information on staying strong, read Dr. Oz’s blog at iHerb.com/blog, “Dr. Oz’s 9-Step Daily Wellness Routine,” and sign up for the free newsletter at LongevityPlaybook.com.
Spilling the beans … on beans
You may not give a hill of beans about the health benefits of beans — but they stack up to a mountain of good news. Research shows that they improve your heart health by reducing lousy LDL cholesterol levels. For example, one study recently found that folks who eat the most beans reduce their risk of coronary heart disease by 10% compared to those who are bean-deprived. Their benefits don’t stop there. They also lower your risk for developing Type 2 diabetes and they help control blood sugar levels if you have Type 2 diabetes. On top of all that, they reduce your risk for colon cancer. Plus, they taste great!
There are many varieties of beans including soy, black, kidney, lima, navy, pinto, cannellini, fava, Great Northern, gigante, adzuki, and cranberry beans. They all contain protein-building amino acids and anti-inflammatory polyphenols that reduce your risk for a variety of chronic diseases, and they’re loaded with gut-loving fiber that helps strengthen your immune system and protects your brain health. While they do vary in flavor and texture, they all help you feel full faster and have been associated with weight loss.
So, if you want to enjoy them as a spicy side dish or dip, in soups and stews, or added to salads, check out the recipes in Dr. Mike’s “What to Eat When Cookbook” for “Garden Chive Bean Dip,” “Pasta with Ramps and Beans,” and “Southwest Squash & Bean Medley.”
You can tame your sweet tooth
You know you’re eating more added sugar than you should (which in an ideal world is none!). And you’re not alone. The average American takes in 17 teaspoons of added sugars from foods like sweetened beverages and desserts daily! That adds up to 270 calories a day or just under 100,000 extra calories a year. Yikes! No wonder sweet snacking increases your risk for everything from dementia and tooth decay to obesity and all its associated complications.
Taming your sweet tooth should be a priority — and one that you can find joy in, because of how it benefits your health and because of the tasty foods you’ll savor in place of the added sugars.
Step one: Walk for 15 minutes. Researchers found that short walks can reduce cravings for chocolate even in stressful situations. We bet it works for doughnuts and sweet drinks, too. So, next time you crave added sugar, stroll away from the impulse.
Step two: Opt for naturally sweet foods such as cherries, grapes, pineapple, and citrus. In addition to the pleasing flavor, you’ll be getting plenty of disease-fighting vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals. If you just have to have a sweetener, consider allulose, a sugar found in figs and raisins, that is 70% as sweet as sucrose but has only 10% of its calories.
Step three: Keep iced, unsweetened black tea and coffee in your fridge. Take them (or water) with you to work or when you run errands. And for more help, check out iHerb.com’s blog, “Tips for Curbing Sugar Cravings.”
Walk away from your health risks
It’s true, we’re walking-obsessed, and for good reasons. But you may think the benefits are limited to improving balance, leg strength and respiration, along with dispelling stress and managing your blood sugar. Not quite.
Research shows that walking has far-reaching powers to counter even genetic predispositions to poor health! When Harvard University researchers looked at a variety of obesity-promoting genes in more than 12,000 people, they found that those folks who walked briskly for an hour a day slashed the effect of their pound-adding genes in half!
Walking also has been shown to reduce the risk for breast cancer. According to an American Cancer Society study, women who walk seven-plus hours a week have a 14% lower risk of breast cancer than women who only walk for three hours or less.
Walking also eases knee and hip pain by reducing friction between cartilage and strengthening muscles around joints. And walking even 5 to 6 miles a week can help prevent arthritis from setting in.
Walking also boosts your immune system. One study of more than 1,000 people found that walking 20-plus minutes a day, five days a week, reduces folks’ number of sick days from the common cold and other upper respiratory diseases by 43%. And when the participants did get sick, it was less severe and lasted fewer days.
For more tips on walking, check out the free newsletter on LongevityPlaybook.com, and if walking for exercise doesn’t sound like fun, check out Dr. Oz’s blog “Ways to Make Exercise More Enjoyable” at iHerb.com/blog.
How a vegan diet affects aging
Only around 1% of Americans are vegan — avoiding any food product related to animals. So, when researchers came up with the idea of checking out the benefits of avoiding meat and more by looking at 22 sets of twins — one put on a healthy vegan diet, one on a healthy omnivore diet — that offered a pretty good way of assessing the impact.
The eight-week study explored how those two diets turned on or off each twin’s epi-genes, genes that respond to environmental impacts and influence biological aging.
The researchers discovered that a vegan diet makes changes to the molecular markers in genes that determine what time it is along a person’s journey toward older age. In all, they found 12 “clocks” that indicated that the vegans were headed toward a younger RealAge. The meat-eaters just grew older.
Now, you may not opt for a vegan diet — Dr. Mike would never give up omega-3-packing salmon. But you can be guided by this additional evidence that what you eat has a huge impact, very quickly, on how you age. So ditch all red and processed meats, opt for skinless poultry and lots of fatty fish, and seven to nine servings a day of fruits and vegetables. That will switch on your health-promoting epi-genes — and make your jeans fit better, too!
For more tips on nutrition that offers you a longer, healthier life, check out “Dr. Oz’s Personal Supplement Regimen for Optimal Health and Wellness” at iHerb.com/blog and Dr. Mike’s “The Great Age Reboot.”
Dr. Mike Roizen is the founder of www.longevityplaybook.com, and Dr. Mehmet Oz is global advisor to www.iHerb.com, the world’s leading online health store. Roizen and Oz are chief wellness officer emeritus at Cleveland Clinic and professor emeritus at Columbia University, respectively. Together they have written 11 New York Times bestsellers (four No. 1’s).
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