"Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old." - Jonathan Swift, author
There comes a point when the mirror is no longer the amiable companion we used to know.
The mirror has turned accusatory: Apparently overnight, we got old.
What the mirror cannot show is that hundreds of thousands of cells have been failing to function or even have died. That didn't happen overnight, of course. Nor has it been confined to your face, as you might have noticed when you got out of bed that morning and wondered why your knees seemed stiff, if not exactly sore.
So what happens to us as the years pass? Do we have to slow down or have decreased function as we age? Well, no, and yes.
Physical and mental deterioration are normal as we age. The changes are because of decreased cellular efficiency throughout the human body.
Aging "is a life arc of the inter-related and overlapping processes and changes in the body's 100 trillion or so cells that take you from birth to death," says Dr. Robert Palmer, a noted geriatrician.
He adds that it is a one-way arc: "You can slow it, but you can't stop it." Dr. Palmer also likens the eventual failure of our cells to that time when we turn on a light bulb but the filament has burned out.
We see this as the bulb failing at that moment, but the wear and tear on the filament began with the first surge of electricity we sent through it -- or for our cells, essentially it began with birth.The failure of enough cells can have a cascading effect on the efficiency of other parts of the body. Some of this cell failure is genetic. But researchers think that an unhealthy lifestyle and poor diet can seriously affect our musculature and cardiovascular conditioning, thus stressing the body's complex equilibrium.What we do to ourselves over the years, scientists now say, might be responsible for more than 50 percent of our "usual" aging."At 55 or 75 or 95," suggests Dr. Palmer in his book Age Well!, your brain and immune system "are as healthy as your lifestyle habits and the mileage you've put on them. ... Aging itself is not the cause of many age-related conditions: You can get gray hair anytime."Further complicating the physical situation is how our mental and emotional states control our behavior. If we lack social contact through family or friends, we might retreat to the solace of home - and more of a sedentary life.A 20-year study of 17,000 male Harvard University alumni found that exercising the equivalent of a three-mile daily jog "countered the life-shortening effects of cigarette smoking and excess body weight," notes The Mayo Clinic Plan in the section titled "Fitness and Longevity.""We geriatricians used to talk about hitting the downhill slope at 40; thenit was 50. Now we talk about 70. Maybeby the end of this century, that's going to be 80 or 85," Dr. Palmer writes in the book.Originally published by St. Petersburg Times.(c) 2008 Augusta Chronicle, The. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
