As the New Year’s resolutions are usually forgotten by the end of January, here are some lifestyle changes, which, if incorporated into your 2017 lifestyle, will help you feel healthier by the end of the year. I stress, they are not a resolution, but a lifestyle change.
Exercise in life is vital. Taking up moderate exercise in mid-life (around the age of 49) could pay dividends later on, by helping you maintain good mental faculties, such as cognition and memory, when you reach old age.
Moderate exercise means something a bit more strenuous than walking, but not much more, say researchers at the University of Helsinki, who tracked the health of more than 3,000 twins in a 25-year study.
In fact, those who had exercised intensely had no better cognitive abilities when they were 75+ than those whose exercise was gentler. However, both these groups had better mental faculties in old age than those who did no exercise at all, say researchers.
Lack of exercise is one of the risk factors for dementia in old age, along with obesity and diabetes, and has previously been demonstrated in animal studies.
If you want to lose weight, and you may do after the excesses of Christmas, then drinking a little more water every day could help shed the pounds. People who drink just one extra glass of water each day eat fewer calories, saturated fat, sugar, sodium and cholesterol, a new study has found.
Drinking up to three extra glasses of water a day could mean you consume 205 fewer calories and 235mg less sodium, say researchers who reviewed the dietary habits of more than 18,000 American adults.
However, even increasing the amount of water you drink by just one per cent could help you lose weight, say researchers from the University of Illinois. Apparently, it doesn’t seem to matter where you get the water from, whether a bottle, the tap or a drinking fountain.
On average, people in the study were drinking around 4.2 cups of water a day. Although unsweetened black tea, herbal tea and coffee were not counted as sources of plain water, their water content was included in the calculations (J. Hum. Nutr. Diet, 2016).
Increasing the amount of water you drink by just one per cent could help you lose weight
The Mediterranean diet has always been hailed as the best one to follow. Now, if you’ve got a heart condition, you are twice as likely to stay alive by eating this type of diet – one that is rich in fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, fish and oils. The research states that you are twice as likely to stay alive than if you were taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.
The diet reduces your chances of premature death by as much as 37 per cent, while the drug lowers the risk by only 18 per cent. Those who followed the Mediterranean diet every day are the least likely to die prematurely if they have got a heart condition. A major new study is one of the first to test the protective effects of this diet on people with chronic heart problems. Most studies have looked at the benefits in healthy people.
In the new study, researchers from the IRCCS Mediterranean Neurological Institute in Pozzilli, Italy, monitored the health of 1,200 people with cardiovascular disease. Over the seven-year study, 208 people died. However, those who followed the diet closely were 37 per cent less likely to die prematurely from any cause than those who never, or rarely, followed the diet.
The best protective effects came from eating fresh vegetables, fish, fruit, nuts and mono-unsaturated fatty acids or olive oil. In other words, the chief components of the Mediterranean diet, said lead researcher Giovanni de Gaetano.
There are three lifestyle changes you can make, when you are younger, to reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in later life. They are not becoming overweight, exercising regularly and eating a healthy diet. All three can protect brain function, say researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles.
These three are good lifestyle habits, if adopted during middle age, and can protect against the abnormal protein build-ups that can affect memory and mental functioning.
The researchers tested 44 adults, aged 40 to 85, who had suffered memory problems, but hadn’t been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. Their diets, exercise levels, body mass index and other lifestyle factors were recorded before having a PET (positron emission tomography) brain scan to look for two types of protein which are thought to be associated with Alzheimer’s.
While there is no clear proof of a cause- and-effect relationship, the researchers found a ‘moderate, but significant’ difference between people who had healthier lifestyles and those who didn’t, including brain protein deposits.
Those who regularly exercises and were normal weight had fewer plaque deposits and tangles, as did those who ate a healthy diet, specifically the Mediterranean diet (Am. J. Geriatr. Pscychiatry, 2016).
May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year.
kathrynmborg@yahoo.com