THE ANTI AGING CRAZE: HOW NUTRITION AND FITNESS ACTUALLY PLAY A ROLE IN AGE PREVENTION AND HEALTHY AGING
We live in a society obsessed with eternal youth. The pressure starts early, with ads and messages telling us we need to “fight aging” before wrinkles and gray hairs even think about making an appearance. And while this pressure is not unique to women alone, anyone identifying as a woman most likely feels the pressure at a greater intensity, and starting at a younger age.
The massive “anti-aging” industry capitalizes on our fears of looking older, feeling less confident, or even losing purpose; it rakes in billions by selling us dubious elixirs and procedures to “erase” signs of aging.
But our pursuit of eternal youth is impossible. We cannot prevent nor reverse the aging process, because aging is natural.
As consumers, we must learn to separate misleading marketing from real science regarding aging and longevity.
I believe it’s ok to have goals of looking and feeling good in our bodies, and that any aesthetic pursuits don’t need to be shamed. I also think it’s essential to ask ourselves this question:
What do we actually want when we think about preventing aging?
Are we only thinking about fewer fine lines and wrinkles? Are we referring to better blood work or feeling more confident in our bodies?
Understanding what we want out of life as we age can help us align our habits with what will actually get us there. It can also remind us that this multi-billion dollar industry - the procedures, the face creams, and the tik-toks -- may be a distraction from our real goals.
Delve deeper into this topic in this podcast episode:
WHAT DOES HEALTHY AGING ACTUALLY MEAN?
Rather than endless (and expensive) attempts to turn back time, a more feasible approach is accepting we will age while focusing on feeling good at every life stage. While there is so much uncertainty and quackery around “age prevention” methods, we actually know what can help us age healthily and promote longevity, yet we overlook it again and again in search of more exciting and dramatic fixes.
Healthy aging is the process of maintaining good health and functional ability during older age. This is aging free of chronic disease and disability, literally aging in good health.
Longevity is our lifespan, the length of time spent alive. Longevity is dependent on socioeconomic status, sex, and lifestyle. Some of that we can’t change, some of it we can. The average person in the US lives to be 79, but when we think in the context of healthy aging, how long we live sure doesn’t matter as much if we’re not living well. Our healthspan is the idea of our length of life spent living in good health.
“ANTI AGING” NUTRITION?
In terms of our nutrition, we can promote healthy aging and longevity with a balanced diet, avoiding weight cycling which leads to an increased risk of chronic health conditions, eating lots of whole foods as they’re high in antioxidants and polyphenols (something we’ve touched on in past episodes), not smoking, and monitoring alcohol intake.
While there is no shortage of supplements out there claiming to support longevity, we only know of a few that have evidence to support this pursuit of healthy aging and longevity (see sources here)
There is interesting preliminary research that shows that cocoa extract can “provide benefits for longevity by increasing blood flow and oxygenation in the brain.”
Another supplement that is of most interest for healthy aging is protein powder for sarcopenia – or loss of muscle mass and strength. As we know, that’s more related to adequate protein intake overall, but if a protein shake can help you get there, that works! Certain B vitamins have also been found to reduce cognitive decline.
What is both exciting and boring is that the dietary recommendations that support healthy aging and longevity are the ones we already know. There’s no secret diet hiding the solution to longevity; it’s consistency in habits that we already do our best to practice or are working on building.
MOVEMENT FOR “AGE PREVENTION?”
Exercise is about as close as we can get to “slowing the effects of aging” because it truly helps us reduce the risk of chronic disease. We’re looking at benefits such as:
-Positive cognitive changes
-Improved heart function
-Better strength, balance, and mobility
-And literally making our bodies more adaptable to the physiological stress of aging’
These benefits come from regular exercise over time, which is why movement is important throughout all stages of life.
When we look at the literature on exercise and age, much of it boils down to exercise – both cardiovascular and resistance training – increasing telomere length. Our telomeres are cellular structures that project our chromosomes from degrading; as we age, telomeres shorten. Yet exercise can not just reduce this shortening, but lengthen telomeres!
When we talk about exercise, we’re not talking about just cardiorespiratory benefits, or more muscle mass, or more bone density, or better balance and mobility -- we’re also talking about positive changes at a cellular level.
WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?
We can get enough sleep. We can loop back to this podcast episode for the myriad of reasons sleep impacts longevity: from brain functioning to hormone regulation to disease prevention. We can manage stress. We can wear sunscreen! Sun exposure is great (hello Vitamin D!) but sun damage accelerates skin aging and sunscreen protects against this UV damage. We can stimulate our brains via conversations, socialization, and other cognitive engagement.
It is no secret that sleep and stress management and protein intake are far more boring suggestions than an anti-aging detox protocol or some face mask from an infomercial. But they are what moves the dial most on how we manage our health as we age.
So, rather than feeling any shame for buying into the many “anti-aging” treatments and products backed by billions of dollars of marketing, how can we redirect some of our energy, resources, money, and time to thinking about those things that actually help us live a long and healthful life?
I’m not suggesting we fully dismiss our aesthetic goals, ditch our skin care, and boycott beauty brands. Rather, can we assess our ideas of how we want to age, and focus on what is going to impact our longevity most?
Aging is an absolute privilege. And if we focus on our healthspan and longevity – if we think more about proven self care methods and less about the anti-aging hype – we’re setting ourselves up for a lot of amazing years ahead.
The HTF podcast is just one of many avenues in which I share health and nutrition education. You can find more episodes here on Apple Podcasts or here on Spotify, or check out other free resources such as free guides, guest podcast interviews, and more blog posts on our Resources page.