Two more reasons to take care of your health
A healthy lifestyle preserves memory
Copper news based on UCLA Newsroom materials:
Healthy lifestyle choices mean fewer memory complaints, poll by UCLA and Gallup findsA large-scale study conducted by specialists from the University of California (Los Angeles) together with the Gallup Foundation showed that proper nutrition, smoking cessation and regular exercise, among other things, have a positive effect on brain function and can delay the onset of its age-related changes.
Thus, an inverse relationship was found between the degree of adherence to a healthy lifestyle and the frequency of complaints of poor memory in all age groups. The work was published in the June issue of the journal International Psychogeriatrics (Small et al., Healthy behavior and memory self-reports in young, middle-aged, and older adults).
The authors of the study made their conclusions based on the results of a nationwide survey, which was attended by more than 18 and a half thousand Americans aged 18 to 99 years. Respondents had to answer five questions:
- Do you smoke?
- Did you eat right during the day yesterday?
- Have you eaten five or more servings of vegetables and fruits in the last week?
- Have you been exercising for half an hour or longer during the last week?
- Are you experiencing memory problems?
Analysis of the information received showed that adherence to at least one of the factors of a healthy lifestyle reduces the risk of memory impairment by 21 percent in all age groups compared with their complete absence. Among those respondents who reported the presence of two such factors in their lives, the probability of memory problems decreases by 45 percent, three – by 75 percent, more than three – by 111 percent.
The study also revealed patterns that surprised the authors. So, it turned out that a healthy lifestyle is more typical for the age group over 60 years than for middle-aged people (40-59 years) and younger (18-39 years).
70 percent of elderly respondents reported that they adhere to at least one factor of a healthy lifestyle, while among 40-59-year-olds, 61 percent turned out to be such, and 18-39–year-olds - 58 percent.
According to the authors, elderly people tend to change their lifestyle and abandon bad habits on the advice of doctors, as they feel their consequences on their health.
In addition, among younger respondents there was a larger than expected percentage of those who reported poor memory. There were 14 percent of them. The authors associate the identified effect not with early signs of dementia, but with stress caused by multitasking – the need to simultaneously respond to SMS, email, communicate on social networks, and so on.
"The results show the importance of communicating to the minds of young and middle–aged people the importance of a healthy lifestyle, including for memory preservation," said Gary Small, the first author of the article, director of the Center for the Study of Longevity at the University of California.
Smoking and tanning beds age a woman by 10 years
An unhealthy lifestyle can age women's skin for 10 years, as researchers have found. They followed the appearance and life of 585 women from the UK, China and Spain, that is, ladies from different ethnic groups.
It turned out that the real damage caused by tanning beds, smoking, lack of fruit and hydration, in fact, significantly accelerates the aging process of the skin. And this can be traced even after all other factors are taken into account, including nationality or skin type. Researchers have determined that the answer to the question of how old a woman really looks depends on the lifestyle by 33%.
"We already knew that a woman's external age is 50% determined by heredity, but we had no idea how much percent it depends on lifestyle," says study author Dr. Andrew Mace from the UK. – And even experts in the field of skin aging were surprised at what a strong relationship, expressed in percentages and years, exists here. The more a woman smokes, eats poorly or uses tanning beds, the older she becomes outwardly."
All the women who took part in the study were interviewed about how often they moisturize their skin, how they feel about smoking, whether they use sunscreens and go to tanning salons, whether they regularly brush their teeth, etc. Then digital photographs were taken, which determined the external age of the women, that is, the answer to the question was given whether they looked they are younger than their real age, older, or corresponded to it. Then the results were compared with the participants' lifestyle. In general, the ladies who adhered to unhealthy habits looked 10.4 years older than their years.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru05.06.2013