Supernutrition #1: Use a Rainbow Plate to turbocharge your anti-ageing strategy

Supernutrition to lower your biological age doesn’t come from a single faddish ‘superfood’, but from a diet packed with the multiple beneficial nutrients that reduce inflamm-aging, promote immunity and reduce dementia and cancer risk.

YES! you can influence these outcomes by your food choices: in fact, it is absolutely the best way [alongside daily exercise]. The key dietary components to achieve this are adequate protein intake, lots of polyphenols and flavonoids, an appropriate choice of oils and fats and attention to trace element and vitamin content. Polyphenols and flavonoids are the chemicals in food that do the anticancer/ anti-inflammatory work.

Exercise - The New You

Yes you have ‘January Good Intentions’ to do more exercise! But how do you put this into the overall context of keeping your biological age well below your actual years?

Well the simple answer is ‘just get moving’ but it needs to be well thought out to get the maximum benefit for the time and effort involved. Here are 5 things to think about.

1. Prioritise consistency and being energetic

The trouble with exercise is that it has to be a regular thing to be beneficial. So first, be consistent -  move in some way, every day of the week. Moving can be anything you like eg walking, swimming, cycling, roller skating, dancing, playing tennis, doing a yoga sequence or a quick body weight workout just to name a few options.

Blow me down with a feather- where did all that muscle go?

You know the story: “Mum’s got a bit frail… Dad has difficulty getting up the stairs, now … my folks don’t seem to be able to do much for themselves these days, it’s very sad to see”

This is frailty – a combination of loss of muscle [sarcopaenia] and loss of strength [dynopaenia] that causes adverse outcomes, eg difficulties in all activities of daily living, likelihood of osteoporosis and falls, also meaning higher risk of hospitalisation, a longer hospital length of stay and risk of re-admission if there is an illness. The final consequences are loss of independence and death sooner than might be expected. The good news is you can prevent it or recover from it.

Body Composition, not Body Weight

You may think being on top of age means being weight obsessed. But in reality, it is the quality of what your body consists of that is important in terms of limiting ageing.

The key is having a sense of how much muscle [positive] you have and how much central fat [potentially damaging] you have gained.

So the number on the scale is less important  as long as you are travelling in the right direction.

Sleep Basics: New ideas on treatment for insomnia

The definition of 'Chronic' Insomnia is 3 nights poor sleep per week persisting for 3 months. It means problems in initiating sleep, or staying asleep, or returning to sleep after waking early in the morning. 

This effects 10-15% of men and women over 50, affects most women at menopause and continues after that if they are not on HRT. It affects some individuals chronically for many years, with severe health consequences.

Inflammation and CVD

Everyone understands that there is a  connection between ‘cholesterol’ and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and that it is the pattern of all the blood ‘lipoproteins’ not just the total cholesterol that determines the risk. 

Some of us have been mislead into thinking that dietary fat intake increases cholesterol. In fact most of our cholesterol is manufactured in the liver not eaten and eating good fats is beneficial. Abnormal blood lipids are a sign, mainly, of disordered carbohydrate metabolism and the dietary requirement is limiting sugar and refined carbohydrate intake. 

How old do you feel, Box-fresh or Antique Roadshow?

My message is simple

You can slow the negative aspects of ageing and have a good quality of life right up until you die – if you do what has to be done! So where are you on the slippery slope, now?

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