I want to start my column in this new section in the Bangor Daily News, called Next, with some wellness-based advice on healthy aging. Some of this advice will agree with the standard recommendations; some of it will be quite different.
Exercise is essential to a healthy lifestyle. I advise my patients to get at least a half-hour of exercise per day; even if it is just a walk, the benefits are great. If you find exercise painful, and have not tried it already, get some treatment. And I’m not talking about swallowing a handful of ibuprofen beforehand — I mean some real treatment, such as chiropractic, physical therapy, massage or acupuncture.
Controlling stress and maintaining human connections in your life are important. Take the time to connect with others. There also are programs where exercise is combined with socializing; in Bangor, FUSION:Bangor is a good resource, especially for younger people.
Eat whole, natural foods. Diet is one area where I strongly disagree with the mainstream recommendations. Avoid low-fat diets at all costs! They are unnatural and require eating large amounts of processed foods. In most low-fat foods, the fats are replaced with sugars or some synthetic sweetener; this has been shown to increase weight gain, inflammation levels in the body, even diabetes.
Our bodies need fats to stay healthy, but not processed hydrogenated fats, “vegetable oils” or fried foods. We need the fats that are naturally present in minimally processed, real food. Especially avoid “nonfoods” — soda, chips, ice cream, pastries, etc.
Minimize medication use, especially long-term. Drugs are a mainstay of the medical approach to preventing chronic diseases; for example, statins and “baby aspirin” are commonly used to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. But this approach is not without a downside. Statins are known to cause diabetes, and according to the medical website The NNT, the risk of developing diabetes from them is one in 100 — coincidentally, about equal to the likelihood of getting any benefit from the drug.
They also undo some of the benefits of exercise. One study in the American Journal of Cardiology found that marathoners on a statin showed more signs of muscle damage — including to the heart itself — than those not on the drug. Statins increase muscle damage from exercise.
The authors stated, “In conclusion, our results show that statins increase exercise-related muscle injury.” And this is not a rare side effect; the risk of muscle pain and damage from statins is one in 10!
The FDA recently changed its recommendations on using aspirin to prevent strokes and heart disease (unless there is an underlying disease such as atrial fibrillation); it appears the risks of stomach bleeding far exceed any slight benefit gained by the drug.
Remember that most drugs act as toxins in the body — they interfere with normal function. In doing so, they may ease the symptoms or slow the progression of a disease, but not without a price. They should be a last resort, not the first line of treatment. Using a toxin to prevent a disease does not sound like the best treatment approach, and few things will age a person faster than being on multiple meds.
There are natural ways to reduce stroke and heart attack risk that are far safer — and more effective — than relying on drugs. For example, a large study of 31,400 Swedish women showed a 50 percent reduction in strokes for those women whose lifestyles included five elements of a healthy lifestyle: a healthy diet, moderate alcohol intake, regular exercise, not smoking and a healthy weight.
When you have a nonemergency health care problem, start with wellness care. Our current system is fantastic at treating acute problems and injuries. If you are having a stroke or heart attack, get to a hospital! But it is not as effective at treating chronic lifestyle-related problems. This is where wellness care really shines — using natural treatments to improve health, without adding to the toxic burdens in our bodies. If this approach does not work, then it is time to go on to more aggressive therapies.
In conclusion, there are two ways you can approach healthy aging — by improving your health with a wellness-based program, or by attacking diseases with meds and unnatural diets. The longer I am in health care, and the more I see the outcomes of these two approaches in the lives of my patients, the stronger my belief in wellness becomes.
Dr. Michael Noonan practices chiropractic, chiropractic acupuncture and other wellness therapies in Old Town. He can be reached at noonanchiropractic@gmail.com.