Keeping body weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure under control, ensuring a good night’s sleep and a healthy diet, doing regular physical activity and, for those who smoke, giving up the habit of cigarettes: those who follow these habits, they assure scholars, promotes heart health which, in turn, can reduce the speed of aging.
Whether we like it or not, we all have to age. But the way we age is nothing more than the result of how we have lived. Our chronological age can, in fact, be very different from the biological one, which are the years we actually show. And which, within the limits of human nature, we can keep under control, slowing down the speed of aging and keeping us younger and healthier.
Scientists have identified 8 behaviors that can slow down the rate of biological aging: keep body weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure under control, ensure a good night’s sleep and a healthy diet, do regular physical activity and, for those who smoke, abandon the cigarette habit. Those who follow these habits, the scholars assure, promote the well-being of the heart, which, in turn, can reduce the speed of biological aging up to six years.
To reach this conclusion, scholars have evaluated data from over 6,500 adults (average age 47 years), measuring participants’ biological age through analysis of metabolism, organ function, and levels of inflammation.
The analysis led to the definition of “Life’s Essential 8”, the eight modifiable behaviors that predispose to better heart health, including four related to lifestyle and four health indicators. Having a higher Life’s Essential 8 score means having good cardiovascular health, which is associated with a biological age approximately six years younger. The study findings were presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) 2023 Scientific Sessions Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“Greater adherence to all Life’s Essential 8 parameters and improved cardiovascular health can slow down the body’s aging process and bring many benefits over the years – said Nour Makarem, senior author of the study and assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City – . We found that greater cardiovascular health is associated with slowed biological aging, as measured by biological age.”
In conclusion, the eight actions, which fall within the parameters of the Life’s Essential 8 of the AHA and which can slow down the aging process, are:
– Follow a healthy diet
– Be more active
– Stop smoking
– Sleep well
– Maintain a healthy weight
– Control cholesterol
– Pay attention to blood sugar levels
– Keep blood pressure under control
Based on these parameters, the researchers also found a “dose-dependent” association, that is to say that as the number of key points pursued increases, the better the heart health and, consequently, the greater the reduction in biological aging. “These results help us understand the link between chronological age and biological age and how following healthy lifestyle habits can help us live longer – added Donald Lloyd-Jones, president of the Life’s Essential 8 writing group –. We all want to live longer and, more importantly, we all want to live healthier for longer so that we can truly enjoy our existence and have a good quality of life for as many years as possible.”