Eating a healthy diet can fix several common health concerns as you age like energy level, mood and balance.
A healthy diet is key to the healthy aging of your body and mind, according to Consumer Reports on Health. Additionally, it can help you ward off chronic diseases such as hearth disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.
Improving energy levels and mood
A healthy diet can help remedy numerous conditions (many of which become more common with age)—such as your balance and mood.
When the weather turns cold and days get shorter, we often turn to comfort foods which tend to be made mostly of refined carbohydrates, sugar, and fat. That combination may leave us feeling physically tired and emotionally cranky.
“When you eat simple, refined carbs, you get a quick increase of energy for about 20 or 30 minutes, and then a quick decrease,” says Lauri Wright, PhD, associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. “Those spikes and dips in energy are also bad for your mood because when your energy comes crashing down, your mood can crash too.”
Whole grains, such as brown rice and quinoa, work in the opposite way. “They release energy gradually and then gradually decrease over the course of 3 to 4 hours,” Wright says.
Getting adequate vitamin D may also be helpful for boosting your mood. Older adults may be prone to a deficiency, in part because the ability to produce D from sunlight declines with age. A 2018 study of almost 4,000 adults 50 and older in Ireland found that those with vitamin D deficiency (defined in this study as blood levels lower than 30 nanomoles per liter) were more likely to develop depression.
Improving balance
Your balance tends to get worse as you age, but one common cause is sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss). You can help your muscles stay strong by getting enough protein.
“The proteins in your muscles are constantly being broken down,” says Roger Fielding, PhD, associate director of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. “If you aren’t consuming enough protein in your diet, the breakdown exceeds synthesis and you have a loss of muscle mass.” And without strong muscles to support your joints, your balance may suffer, leaving you at greater risk of falling.
On average, older adults should aim for at least 0.6 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day—about 90 grams for someone who weighs 150 pounds. Make sure to spread it evenly among meals. “It’s important to deliver protein to your muscles throughout the day,” Fielding says. And be sure to get a mix of animal (lean meats, fish, dairy) and plant (beans, nuts, soy) sources.
Plant foods also contain antioxidants and polyphenols that can help reduce inflammation. “Increases in inflammatory compounds can have potent effects on muscle loss,” Fielding says. In one study in The Journal of Nutrition, older men and women with adequate blood levels of antioxidant vitamin C had an average of 1.6 percent and 3.4 percent greater muscle mass, respectively, than those with lower levels.
Healthy eating
Eating lots of high-quality plant foods and eating low amounts of animal-based foods, refined grains, added sugars, processed foods and unhealthy fats is good for your heart health. A plant-based diet can improve cholesterol and lower blood pressure. It also helps to protect against oxidative damage and to reduce inflammation.
Research has linked ultra processed foods to a higher risk for obesity, heart disease, and cancer. Some processing is relatively benign and even enhances healthy properties. But generally speaking, the farther your food gets from its original “whole” version, the more process and less good it becomes for you.
Research shows that our lifestyle choices — the foods we eat, the chemicals we are exposed to, how active we choose to be, even our mindset — can actually alter our health at the level of the gene.
Positive input = healthy gene expression.#epigenetics #optimalhealth #health pic.twitter.com/k2uYSGPHsh
— Lori Shemek, PhD (@LoriShemek) October 27, 2020
Healthy eating plan
What matters most is following a healthy eating plan. In one 2018 study involving more than 81,000 women, those whose diets most closely matched one of three heart-healthy eating patterns—alternate Mediterranean, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), and 2010 Alternative Healthy Eating Index—had a lower risk of developing chronic diseases over the 22-year study period.
To make it simple, at each meal fill half your plate with fruits and veggies (but limit starchy ones, such as potatoes). The other half should be made up of whole grains and plant-based protein, such as tofu, lentils, or nuts, most days, with modest amounts of fish, lean meat, and poultry less often.
References:
- https://www.consumerreports.org/healthy-eating/anti-aging-diet-moves/?EXTKEY=YSOCIAL_FB&fbclid=IwAR0LIDLQ73gonTqiiBcqMigeysuA1otE9VwXMvvrysCDHoJuIyelJuky0e4
- https://www.consumerreports.org/nutrition-healthy-eating/what-is-a-processed-food/
- https://www.consumerreports.org/packaged-processed-foods/processed-foods-are-bad-for-weight-loss/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29071481/