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Clean
Living and Spirituality Contribute to Long Life By
Susanne
Rockwell, UC Davis News Service Better
medicine, an emphasis on clean living and spirituality are all
contributing to making older Americans the healthiest humans at their age
in the history of the world, argue two "What
jumps out at you, after reviewing all the studies, is that people who
watch their nutrition, avoid toxins like cigarettes or alcohol in excess,
and who exercise are living long, healthy lives," says
Carolyn
Aldwin, co-author of "Health, Illness and Optimal Aging:
Biological and Psychosocial Perspectives," which was published in
July. Traditionally,
people who study healthy aging have said the key ingredients to a long
life include maintaining good physical health, being active mentally,
having a zest for living, and being integrated into a supportive community
of family and friends with regular social activities. However, an
essential variable not previously recognized in medical models for aging
gracefully is the importance of spirituality, Aldwin and Gilmer say. "We've
also found a huge difference in mental health and well being among people
depending on how they spiritually cope with their own diseases, pain and
losses in later life," Aldwin says. She says this inner strength can
be found through organized religion as well as from meditation and the
spirituality and wisdom gained through a long life. In
the book, Aldwin, a specialist in adult development and aging, and
co-author Diane Gilmer, a public-health nurse and gerontologist, examine a
large array of national studies that have analyzed how aging affects
health and illness. By integrating knowledge of how human psychology and
sociology interact with biology, the authors say their book can help
gerontologists, psychologists and other professionals advise their
patients on how to live happy, healthy, long lives. "We're
finding that people are living a much longer time with fewer
disabilities," Gilmer says. "Thanks to medical advances, we
treat diseases better by helping people adapt more rapidly." "We
found that some people, who have been followed over the past 20 years
starting in midlife, have shown little or no changes in their physical
health -- they really haven't aged very much," Aldwin adds. Members
of the World War II generation, now in their 70s and 80s, are the
beneficiaries of burgeoning medical knowledge gained over the past half
century, Gilmer points out. For instance, unlike the past practice of
keeping people with fractured hips in traction for two weeks, nowadays
doctors urge their patients to be up and moving within 24 hours after
surgery. The patients are discharged to a skilled-nursing home within
three to five days where rehabilitation begins almost immediately. As a
result, people are recovering more quickly with fewer long-term health
problems. Many
in the next younger generation, baby boomers, are also aging better than
people in their age bracket during previous eras, but Gilmer and Aldwin
see a troubling class and educational divide. People with more resources
are able to find the leisure time to exercise regularly, pay for smoking
cessation classes or afford more expensive health treatments, for
instance. "We
also found that a college education was very important to optimal
aging," Aldwin says. College-educated Americans are more
knowledgeable about good health habits and tend to be more motivated to
adopt them. On
the other hand, Americans are experiencing an epidemic of obesity and its
accompanying health issues -- diabetes, heart problems and cancer. All of
these diseases activate the aging process, Aldwin points out. "And,
obesity is linked to social class," Aldwin says. "We predict
that the baby boomers will see an accelerating class difference in how
long they live." In
addition, the baby boomers are in the first generation to experience high
levels of divorce and delayed child-bearing. Divorce often contributes to
breaking down support networks that help people cope with other life
problems. Having children later in life offers higher risks for breast
cancer and hypertension, Gilmer says. In
this major review of health studies, Aldwin and Gilmer found that people's
personalities impact their health. While emotional stability appears to be
protective of health, hostility is as much a risk factor as smoking for
heart disease in people during their 40s, Aldwin says. Anxiety, which can
be associated with the heart suddenly stopping, is also a personality
health risk. The
increase in anxiety over the past two decades may also be a cause for
concern, given the role of anxiety in cardiovascular health. "Highly
anxious women who don't work outside the home have an eight-fold risk of
sudden death," Aldwin says. Regardless
of class, however, all of us are physiologically 10 to 15 years younger
than our parents were at our age, Gilmer and Aldwin say, due to the
dramatic improvement in overall health during the past quarter century. An
expert on stress and coping, Aldwin has been gleaning insights about
optimal aging from two longitudinal studies during her career. Since 1985,
she has worked with the Normative Aging Study in A former nurse practitioner for the elderly, Gilmer studies and teaches about the physical aspects of aging, including chronic diseases and disabilities, as well as about care giving. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
