Middle-age tuneup

'It's not too late. The tricks for a long, healthy life — don't smoke, eat right and exercise — are well-known. But putting that into practice often seems so daunting that people don't even try, and by their 50s, many baby boomers figure that the damage has been done anyway. Researchers and doctors increasingly agree, however, that even modest changes in middle age and later can have a dramatic impact on health and longevity — that people over 50 can benefit from what effectively amounts to a tuneup. A recent study funded by the National Institutes of Health, for example, showed that participants, who had a mean age of 51 and were at high risk of developing diabetes, were able to slash their risk by half through modest weight loss and exercise.

Advice here highlights risk factors that often arise in middle age — such as vitamin deficiencies, marital tension, even gum disease — and can have a surprising impact on health. Others are efforts to simplify complex health guidelines — on diet or exercise, for example — into tasks that can be done reflexively, from the two vitamins that nearly every boomer should take to three key weight-bearing exercises that can be done anywhere.'

from DESERTENEWS.COM