How to improve your healthspan: Five areas to focus on to age well

The secret to ageing well and prolonging something called your healthspan can be broken down into five key areas. This is what you need to know.

It’s not just how long we live, but how well.

The rest of your life will fall into one of two groupings – health or ill-health.

This understanding helps explain the emergence of “healthspan”, as opposed to lifespan, as a key measure to aspire to.

Professor Julie Pasco of Deakin University is at the forefront of research into how to lengthen it and become the person in their 70s, 80s or 90s who’s still alert, independent, social and active.

“Longevity is just the age you live to, but healthspan is the age you stay healthy to,” she explained.

Her team has been tracking the population in the Barwon region in Victoria since the 1990s to work out how we can age better.

Although it initially focused on osteoporosis, it now also looks at muscle loss, frailty, cognitive decline, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis and mental health.

Professor Pasco said it was “exciting” to be a part of and highlighted five key domains that are central to us keeping on living our best life for as long as possible.

1 VITALITY

 Professor Pasco described this as “comparable to your vital reserve”. It’s made up of a combination of factors such as nutritional status, muscle strength (including your hand grip), maintaining a healthy weight and fitness – or simply not getting too fatigued when doing everyday tasks.

Louise Dobbins shows how hand grip is important as we get older. Picture: Alan Barber

“So this would come down to doing physical activity, but specifically strength training like push-ups, weights or exercise bands to increase resistance and improve muscle strength,” she said.

She said we also needed to include nutritious foods.

Accredited Practising Dietitian Elise Den from OnCore Nutrition said this could be achieved by a balanced approach to eating that included variety. “Making sure we are having a good balance of carbohydrates, fats and protein in each of our main meals supports our brain health, energy levels and physical functioning,” she said. But Associate Professor Lindsay Wu, who runs the Laboratory for Ageing Research at UNSW, noted animal studies had shown limiting protein and focusing on eating lots of vegetables could help prolong life.

Anne Fairbairn grows a vegie patch. Picture: Alan Barber

But he warned as you got older it could be worth increasing protein intake to avoid losing muscle mass.

2 COGNITION

Another key area is memory, language, attention and orientation, Professor Pasco says.

“We need to be prioritising doing puzzles, reading and playing a musical instrument to maintain our cognition, which can be kept alive by challenging your mental abilities,” she said.

David Fursland uses his mind to solve real-life puzzles all the time because he loves fixing things. Picture: Alan Barber

She said that by making this a priority – especially as we enter the age closer to retirement – we can reduce our risk of dementia.

3 PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING

The next time you question whether you should go out to that party, or skip that family get-together, think again.

It sounds simple, but all the experts stressed that an easy and simple way to live a longer, healthier life was to spend time with others.

“Being social, connected and keeping stress levels down are my key tips for improving this domain,” Professor Pasco said.

Associate Professor Hassan Vally, from Deakin University’s Institute for Health Transformation, said it was commonly overlooked in western society, despite its importance.

“We can get hung up on ­biology, but as human beings we’re more than just a bag of chemicals and biochemical processes,” he said.

Being social was wired into our brains ­because humans needed to be in tribes in primitive times to survive.

David Fursland, Anne Fairbairn and Louise Dobbins are all retirees that prioritise being social. Picture: Alan Barber

Something as simple as having a friendly chat with an elderly neighbour could make a world of difference to them, he said.

Ms Den said we just had to look at the French paradox to see how being social made a difference.

“It’s really interesting, the French people consume a diet that contains red wine, butter, cheese and croissants regularly and for a lot of them their health profile is good and a large part of that is thought to be because of how they eat socially and their way of life,” she said.

4 LOCOMOTION

 No, it’s not putting on Kylie Minogue’s famous pop hit.

Simply, this is the ability to stay mobile and do everyday activities that keep us independent. Professor Pasco said an important part of this was balance.

So if you aren’t into yoga, then even simply standing on one foot while brushing your teeth each night can help boost your healthspan.

“Another really important part of this is keeping your walking speed up, so you can still cross the road with traffic lights,” she said.

She said limiting your sitting time was also a good idea.

“Get up every hour,” she said.

5 SENSORY ABILITY

 Professor Pasco said the last domain involved keeping the hearing and vision sharp.

She noted that unmanaged hearing loss increased the risk of dementia. “Hearing difficulties can have devastating ­effects on people if it’s not ­addressed,” she said.

Take good care of your eyes and go see an optometrist rather than ignore any changes in your vision, she added.

“Use your glasses and seek medical advice if cataracts affect your vision, because good sensory capabilities are vital for lifestyle and independence.”

How we improve our healthspan

These three retirees are all doing the right things to boost their healthspan.

Louise Dobbins, about to turn 68, said she believed it was important to make the most of the extra time she had left.

“You need to make it fun and not laborious,” was her advice, saying she loved adult ballet and pilates.

The Geelong resident also recently completed the four-day Three Capes self-guided hike in Tasmania with her daughter and future son-in-law.

Anne Fairbairn, David Fursland and Louise Dobbins are part of the Geelong Osteoporosis Study. Picture: Alan Barber

“The best thing about it was doing it with them, they had my back as I was quite anxious about it,” she said.

Anne Fairbairn, 71, said she had a vegie patch and enjoyed crosswords and Sudoku daily.

“When I retired I wondered what I was going to do, so I joined a gym – that achieved two functions, being fitness and the social aspect of it,” she said.

Meanwhile David Fursland, 62, said: “I exercise and I eat pretty well, I love playing cards and enjoy fixing things like motors – so real life puzzles. My wife also loves jigsaw puzzles.”

Originally published as How to improve your healthspan: Five areas to focus on to age well