Breakfast with the Centenarians

Active ageing

is defined as ‘the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age’. These three realms – physical well-being, mental health and being part of a cohesive community – are essential at any stage of life, but even more so in our latter years.

Alzheimer

Research is currently concerned with finding effective prevention strategies. We have already touched on the importance of the cognitive reserve, namely the skills and knowledge we acquire over the course of a lifetime, not just in early childhood.

With a greater cognitive reserve, we are better able to stave off degenerative brain changes.

Studying, learning, understanding, travelling, visiting a museum or an exhibition, reading – these can all help to build up a crucial resistance to diseases which cause damage to the brain. Making changes to the cultural component of our lifestyles can therefore have a positive effect on cognitive health; and with this in mind, scientists have long been investigating which other aspects of our lifestyles might be adapted to similar effect.

Diet

The consumption of meat and mature cheeses, rich in AGEs (advanced glycation end products), has come under attack because, according to a study carried out on large patient cohorts, these foods are a risk factor in the development of Alzheimer’s. AGEs are the result of sugars combining with protein or fat. They are a normal feature of ageing, but are also introduced into the body through diet (meat cooked at high temperatures, fried food, processed grains, cheeses). AGEs are reported to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s through multiple mechanisms – increased cellular inflammation, neurodegeneration and oxidative stress. The study recommends Mediterranean and Japanese diets, which reduce the build-up of AGEs due to lower meat content and use of a wide variety of vegetables and grains. Precooked foods or ready meals, in which AGEs regularly occur within additives to enhance colour and flavour, are to be avoided.

Foods to be included in a healthy diet are fish, white meat and olive oil, as well as plenty of fibre-rich fruit and vegetables and preferably wholewheat grains. Foods to avoid or limit are precooked foods that contain AGEs – not only because of their reported link to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s, but also because of their typically high glycaemic indexes, which result in a rapid increase in blood sugar levels – something we should try to avoid.

Mindful that the human body is 60 per cent water, we should also aim to drink at least one and a half litres of fluids a day, because dehydration can be a serious problem. Thirst diminishes with age, so we tend to drink less as we get older, making the risk of acute dehydration during the hotter months even greater. By drinking more, this can be avoided easily.

It has been shown that eating fewer calories, without malnutrition, is linked to increased life expectancy in both humans and primates, and this can be explained by genes ‘switching’ to energy-saving mode when food is scarce.

Exercise

In a recent study, known as the Northern Manhattan Study, 876 participants of an average age of 71, with ten years of formal education, were given a set of neuropsychological texts to examine their memories, and then were tested again five years later. The participants who reported doing little to no exercise at the beginning of the study performed worse on the neuropsychological tests at the repeat examination, compared with those who reported regular physical activity at the beginning. Exercise therefore seems to be just as important as diet and cultural pursuits in the overall ‘normal’ ageing process, as well as for those with dementia-related complications. And, like diet and cultural habits, physical activity can be modified, does not require medication, and can reap benefits that extend to other age-related conditions.

Art

It can probably alleviate or lessen cognitive decline. Playing a musical instrument can protect the brain from developing dementia, even in individuals who pick up an instrument late in life. Reading music, and processing and executing the notes on a musical score, forces us to use numerous different areas and functions of the brain. In a study recently published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, participants aged 70 who had completed at least nine years of musical studies were compared with a group of non-musicians of the same age, on a series of neuropsychological tests. The musicians scored higher on working memory, which is a component of short-term memory. Music was also seen to have a protective effect in subjects who learned to play an instrument after age 65, regardless of their level. Modern neuroimaging techniques have been able to identify changes in the brain structures of musicians. Certain areas are noticeably larger than non-musicians, particularly the thick band of nerve fibres that connects the right and left hemispheres and which transfers visual, auditory and tactile information between the two, coordinating movement and language. The scene in Paolo Sorrentino’s film Youth in which Michael Caine (playing a retired conductor and composer) conducts a field of cows becomes all the more poignant when we discover that the character’s wife, the soprano for whom the piece was originally written and whose presence is like a constant shadow throughout the film, is in a Venice hospital with dementia. In the film, Sorrentino suggests time is not measured in years but in how much we can remember. We can be as active and creative on the cusp of our eighties as we can be passive and uninspired in our twenties.

Childcare benefits…

The Berlin Aging Study followed more than 500 people over a period of twenty years, from 1989 to 2009. The participants were all aged over 70. From the data obtained, the researchers saw a marked improvement in the health of active grandparents, and their risk of dying was one-third lower than that of grandparents who did not provide any childcare. Half of the grandparents who cared for grandchildren were still alive ten years after the initial interview, while half of the participants who did not help others died within five years. Such caregiving is useful for society, and also has benefits for an individual’s health and longevity.

Before bed time

Listening to a favourite tune about half an hour before bed can actually make it easier to fall asleep, as well as to stay asleep for the whole night, thereby eliminating the need for sleeping pills. Intense intellectual activity or strenuous physical exercise, on the other hand, are not recommended last thing at night – with the notable exception of love-making, which has been proven to make us live longer.