In health news, MountainView Regional Medical Center recently launched an “Enjoy the Ride: Navigating a Longer, Healthier Life” educational email series.Dr. Kate Nixon, an Osteopathic Physician at MountainView, talked about the series with Scott Brocato.They also discussed health longevity, and how to improve one’s healthspan.
Scott Brocato:
Dr. Nixon, in health terms, what is longevity, and at what age should one be concerned about it?
Dr. Kate Nixon:
Honestly, I think we should be concerned in all phases of life, because prevention is so much easier than trying to correct years and decades of bad habits and their consequences. It's, you know, the old adage: the ounce of prevention's worth the pound of cure. So I think we need to start early. But we can start at any age, taking steps toward the right direction of helping to give you a better quality of life in your later years and possibly increasing your lifespan too.
Scott Brocato:
According to the CDC, Americans' average lifespan is longer than ever, 74.8 years for men, 80 for women. But Americans' health span, or how long a person is healthy and free of disease, is decreasing. Baby boomers, like me, were singled out as more likely than their parents to have certain diseases. What do you think are some of the reasons for that?
Dr. Kate Nixon:
I think a lot of it has to do with our habits.
So there's a new board certification, a new specialty out there called Lifestyle Medicine, and I am currently working on a board certification in that. And in the curriculum, there are six pillars that they talk about, and diet and exercise are two of them. And those are the ones that get the most attention, I think, in studies and in these discussions. But the other pillars include stress management, quality of sleep, avoiding risky substances, and important relationships and interactions. And so I think the reason we're seeing so many chronic diseases now has to do with the obesity epidemic. I do. And we have more obese people than ever. 63% of our calories in America come from ultra-processed foods, and that was not the case in prior generations. When you look in the 80s and 1970s and earlier, obesity was not like it is today. It's absolutely skyrocketed. And that's why I think we have so many chronic diseases and we have so many issues with lack of mobility and lack of quality of life in our later years.
Scott Brocato:
What are some of the things one can do to improve one's health span?
Dr. Kate Nixon:
That's a really good question. So I'd like to start with movement and exercise. And really, the recommendations are 150 minutes a week. So you could do a 30-minute walk after dinner, five days a week, Monday through Friday, and you got it, check the box. But if you're not anywhere near there, anything you do in addition to what you're doing today is a win. So even if we can just start with a 5- or 10-minute walk, we're good. Just doing a little bit more than you're doing now in those baby steps.
Exercise has been shown to decrease incidence of Alzheimer's, which is not something you think of. You don't think of the cognitive benefits and the mental health benefits from exercise. It also helps with depression and anxiety. So we can really improve a lot of things with just moving our bodies. And so if you're there and you can do a more strenuous workout, I think lifting weights and doing aerobic exercise, they're both good.
So other things we can do are going to be diet, obviously. I think reducing the amount of ultra-processed food is really important. Eating whole foods, the way that they're provided in nature, both plants and animal foods, the less processed, the better.
Scott Brocato:
Talk about the e-mail series, “Enjoy the Ride, Navigating a Longer, Healthier Life.” It just kicked off.
Dr. Kate Nixon:
So if you go to mountainviewregional.com, you'll see the link right on the beginning page and you can click the button. It'll take you right there where you can sign in and you can join this e-mail series. It is over 12 days in September. It's a road trip-themed e-mail providing important information about brain, vision, hearing, heart, kidney, liver, gut, musculoskeletal and sleep health. So we're going to map the body in the articles. We'll explain which conditions are most prevalent as we age, providing ways to prevent those diseases and describe how making healthy choices can impact longevity later in life. So at the end of the series, you'll get a free download to remind you of all these tips. And each e-mail is going to offer an opportunity to win some health-related prizes. So it's going to be really fun.
