Most people want to be healthier, but often our motivations for doing so are based on superficial, short-term goals, like fitting into a tight pair of trousers for a party. Once that goal has passed, we slouch back into poorer health – but perhaps we would look after ourselves better if we acknowledged that the lifestyle choices we make today, right this minute, can have ripple effects that influence health and well-being many decades down the track.
Take Alzheimer’s disease. Because it is a condition of old age, many people don’t start worrying about it until at least their mid-60s. At that point, they may start doing brain-training games to try to stave it off. But the wheels of Alzheimer’s disease might have already started turning long before then.
Rather than originating in the brain late in life, there are more and more clues that Alzheimer’s is triggered by persistent inflammation in “peripheral” organs like the skin, lungs or gut during midlife, around age 45 to 60. Inflammation caused by eczema, cold sores, pneumonia, gum disease, gut infections, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and many other things seems to increase the risk of getting Alzheimer’s later on in those with genetic susceptibilities – and they can all be addressed today, not in old age.
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The wheels of Alzheimer’s disease may start turning long before old age
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Frailty is another classic “old age” condition marked by weaker strength and less mental and physical resilience. But there is growing appreciation that it, too, can start much earlier.
This rethinking of “old age” conditions should encourage us to lay down healthy habits at least by midlife as insurance for the future. Some of the things already known to ward off Alzheimer’s disease and frailty include regular exercise, good teeth-brushing habits and active social lives. Getting vaccines against shingles, flu or tuberculosis around the age of 50 also seems to be protective against Alzheimer’s.
This midlife tune-up is worth doing. If nothing else, it will hopefully ensure you are mentally sharp enough at 90 to remember wearing that fabulous outfit at your 50th birthday party.