A doctor’s advice for long life

Warner Wellness, 2007

ISBN-10: 0-446-52650-9, 260 pages.

DR SANJAY GUPTA is best-known as the health correspondent for CNN. In this book, he focuses on a particular aspect of medical health: what the individual can do to live as long as possible.

Although good genes are a boon to longevity, researchers have calculated that DNA really accounts for only 30 percent of our maximum lifespan. The rest is really a matter of lifestyle and environment.

Gupta summarises as follows: “How much can we do to alter out life expectancies? The short answer is plenty . . . For example, eating well is important, no doubt, but eating less might actually give you more years of life.

All books will tell you to exercise, but it is the right type of activity, including upper body resistance training (no, not the StairMaster for 60 minutes) that will be of most benefit in the long run . . . Getting enough sleep at night and challenging your brain during the day in addition to socialising and maintaining hobbies all appear to be keys to a longer life.”

Easy to say, but not easy to do for most people. Gupta observes that most people reach their physical peak between 20 and 30 and begin a steady decline after that. By 70, they have lost 40 percent of our maximum breathing capacity, muscle and bone mass have declined, body fat has increased, and sight and hearing have gotten worse.

He is citing American figures, but the figures are probably the same or worse for Trinidad and Tobago – after all, our life expectancy is 68 years for men and 72 years for women, while the US life expectancy is 75 years for men and 80 for women.

Gupta’s book is divided into ten chapters, and covers the most up-to-date research on diet, vitamin supplements, exercise, mental sharpness, and psychological factors that increase longevity.

Regular exercise, especially strength training — ie weights — can reverse most of the effects listed above. In respect to diet, Gupta emphasises that restricting calorie intake causes your body to activate mechanisms which induce repairs at the cellular level – which makes sense given the uncertain environment human beings evolved in.

In this regard, he recommends a large breakfast, not so much because it’s the most important meal of the day, but because “eating more calories earlier in the day appears to reduce the number of calories consumed overall.” In respect to specifics, Gupta notes the benefits of red wine, green tea, coffee, and turmeric – so go right ahead and eat that curry chicken.

The mind-body relationship is also important to living a healthy old age. “Physical fitness can have a profound effect on your cognitive abilities later in life, and your mental outlook could have a profound effect on your long-term physical health.” Not only are more educated persons less likely to have Alzheimer’s, but they are also more likely to be less vulnerable to brain injury in accidents involving head trauma.

Perhaps most encouraging is what happens if we do live past threescore and ten. “While the process of aging certainly does continue, the incidence of age-related diseases starts to slow way down,” writes Gupta. “The incidence of cancer, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s disease becomes increasingly lower. It is almost as if our bodies and minds realise that if they can get this far along, they could potentially go much longer and achieve a sort of immortality, which is the endgame of chasing life.”

Chasing Life is available at The Reader’s Bookshop and Nigel Khan Bookstores.