Aging fast
-— Proverbs 23:30 The Holy Bible, King James Version A
N Associated Press (AP) article caught my eye early this week and I echo it today. It’s not something esoteric. In fact, we know these already and maybe we just need to be reminded. Lindsey Tanner’s “Bad Habits age you by 12 Years, study suggests” highlights and my thoughts follow.
So okay, to age fast (to feel 62, when you’re just 50!), just combine the following habits:
• Smoking.
• Drinking excessively.
• Inactivity.
• Poor diet.
Smoking. Unless you’re a lawyer for tobacco companies, you will agree with the accepted connection between smoking and chronic illness that includes cancer, usually of the respiratory system. Now if cancer doesn’t get you, chronic smoking damages your lungs anyway, leading to emphysema (smoker’s cough) and eventually obstructed lungs.
Too much drinking. When the commercial ends with “Drink Moderately,” what does it mean exactly? Safe alcohol consumption is about two drinks a day for men and one drink a day for women. One drink is a 12-ounce bottle of beer, a one 5-ounce glass of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits. The salutary effects of alcohol begin in these amounts. In theory, alcohol changes the blood chemistry to reduce the risk of blood clots in heart vessels. But for most of us who drink too much anyway, we destroy the liver and the brain. An alcoholic eventually becomes a social pariah and becomes unproductive.
Inactivity. This is merely a demonstration of Newton’s First Law of Motion that states: A body at rest tends to stay at rest (and conversely), a body in motion tends to stay in motion. We all know the feeling of having cocooned in our favorite seat, with the remote, chips, and drinks on hand. It really will take an earthquake to make us get up. The only problem is that the human body was not designed to recline indefinitely. It was made to move. Studies reveal that as little as two days of complete bed rest inactivates muscles into atrophy.
Poor Diet. Generally, a “poor” diet is: Too much meat (specifically processed meats like hotdogs and sausages), too much starch – as rice, bread, or potatoes, and a lack of vegetables and fruits. Most of our traditional Filipino foods are laden with fat and calories. You only need to think of lechon, kare-kare, menudo and sisig, and adobo. To reverse aging, do these: Stop smoking, exercise, limit drinking (alcohol) and improve your diet (less meat, more fish, vegetables and fruit, less starch and refined sugar).