Originally published March 2 2005
Older people have healthiest lifestyles; report may give insights into elusive fountain of youth
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A recent study indicates that older people tend to eat better and be more spiritual than their middle-aged counterparts. And that leads the researchers to conclude that living a healthy lifestyle may just be the simple key to living a long life. Among the more surprising of the results is that middle-aged women appear to be the most sedentary of all demographics, the researchers say.
- In the early 1500s the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon searched what is now Florida seeking a magical fountain of youth that Indians had told him would restore youth to aging people.
- His search, of course, ended in failure.
- Efforts to combat aging and the diseases often accompanying it did not end with Ponce de Leon.
- A distinguished group of gerobiologists (biologists specializing in aging research) analyzed these claims.
- The best available "fountain" gained attention in 1979 when it was estimated that 50 percent of adult deaths in the United States were the result of unhealthy lifestyles and behaviors.
- Since then, health professionals have emphasized the importance for people of all ages to engage in health-promoting behaviors, such as regular exercising and eating nutritious foods.
- The subscales are spiritual growth, interpersonal relations, nutrition, physical activity, health responsibility, and stress management.
- The older group scored significantly higher than the young or middle-aged group on health responsibility and nutrition, and higher than the young group but not the middle-age group for interpersonal relations.
- The older group's physical activity scores were significantly lower than those for the young group, but significantly higher than those for the middle-age group.
- For the total participants the association between scores on each subscale and self-reported health was statistically significant, and did not differ among the age groups.
- What is surprising is that many middle-aged adults appear to live even more sedentary lives.
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