From food to fitness: How to enjoy living with your body and brain as you age

For many people, age is a concept associated with loss.

Many younger Australians particularly connect ageing with a loss of health, hearing, mental capacity and income. Then there are fluctuations in hormones like testosterone, which trigger hair growth in some niggly places, like the chin and nose, and inhibit it in others, like the scalp.

Yet, the experience of ageing is not fixed and, for older adults, the boundaries of age shift according to how they feel and how well their body and mind functions.

And though there are inevitable changes that happen in our body and mind as we grow older, deterioration and loss are not inevitable.

Ageing is inevitable. So how do we enjoy it as much as possible?Credit: Marija Ercegovac

In fact, often with age comes greater acceptance and happiness, and less stress. Our relationships often deepen and become more satisfying, our social and emotional intelligence tends to improve and, if we stay active, we can significantly improve our quality of life.

But how do we give ourselves the best chance of enjoying our bodies and brains into our older age?

Elevate your fitness ceiling

Being fit for our lives, so we can enjoy the fun stuff – like sex, dancing, hiking in nature, exploring new places on foot, cycling, picking up grandkids – as well as the basic stuff – like standing up from a chair, taking the stairs, carrying groceries and not falling over and breaking our hips – means taking steps to offset natural declines in physical function.

These are primarily driven by a drop in cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle mass and strength, factors which affect mobility and our risk of falls as we age, and can predict lifespan and health span.

Cardiorespiratory fitness – the maximum amount of oxygen we can take in during exercise, as measured by Vo2max – is reflected in how much we huff and puff when we exert ourselves and how long we can engage in an activity. It declines by about 5 per cent in our 30s, 10 per cent in our 40s, 15 per cent in our 50s and 20 per cent in our 60s.

“The primary contributor is decreased physical activity,” explains Dr Angelo Sabag, an accredited exercise physiologist for the University of Sydney’s CPC RPA Health for Life Program.

Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass and function, is also the result of decreased activity, as well as hormonal changes, like natural declines in oestrogen among women during and after menopause and natural declines in testosterone among men, from their 40s.

From their 50s, people begin to lose between 1.5 per cent and 5 per cent of muscle strength a year.Credit: iStock

Our muscle mass and function begins to decline incrementally from our 30s, but from our 50s we begin to lose 1 per cent to 2 per cent of lean body mass a year and between 1.5 per cent and 5 per cent of muscle strength a year.

By maintaining our lean muscle we can also minimise the decline in cardiac output, which is a function of heart rate and stroke volume (the amount of blood pumped with every beat). Cardiac ouput is key for Vo2max and, therefore, cardiorespiratory fitness.

This is why we need both regular aerobic and strength-based exercise to keep our bodies feeling and acting youthful.

How to keep fit as you age

• Aim for a minimum of 30 minutes a day of moderate-intensity exercise, such as fast walking, jogging, swimming, cycling or dancing, five days a week.
• Get your heart rate up with short, hard bursts of activity or try high-intensity interval training (HIIT). An example is six rounds of high-intensity cycling or running for 20 seconds to one minute, with equivalent rest periods in between.
• Do strength training, using weighted equipment or body weight, at least twice a week. Progressive resistance training (PRT), in which the challenge is increased as strength improves, may even reverse the effects of sarcopenia.
• Incorporate squats or variations (sit to stand), which can lead to great functional improvements because they are transferable to our daily life, like being able to get up off a chair, and are a compound exercise, meaning they use multiple joints.
• Deadlifts – lifting a weight from the ground to the hips, with bent knees and a straight back – significantly engage our leg and back muscles.
• Balance is also essential to prevent falls, and while the single leg test – standing on one leg for at least 10 seconds – is used to examine balance, incorporating single leg stances into training can also help.

The key: Mix up your activities – incorporating strength, endurance, speed and balance – as much as you can. Starting aerobic and strength training at any stage of life will have profound effects on our health, but the sooner we start, the higher our fitness ceiling.

Chew the protein and eat your way to healthy ageing

Our nutrient needs change dramatically through life. But they have to, says Clare Collins, a professor of nutrition and dietetics at the University of Newcastle and director for research in the School of Health Sciences.

We generally double our birth weight in the first six months of life, using about a third of the energy we consume just to grow, and then triple it by the time we’re one. But it’s not a trajectory we can continue.

An extra 25 per cent of protein equates to an extra egg or two a day.Credit: iStock

By the age of 20, we no longer use energy to grow, but instead to fuel our body’s essential functions and ability to perform physical and mental tasks. By our 30s, and again in our 50s, our energy needs decrease, while our nutrient needs increase (The amounts of micro- and macronutrients differ by age and sometimes sex. You can find out yours using this free calculator).

Our need for protein increases by as much as 25 per cent from our 50s to preserve muscle tissue as we age and offset the risk of sarcopenia.

The key micronutrients (the vitamins and minerals in food) we need more of with age are calcium, vitamin D and vitamin B12.

We need calcium and vitamin D to make strong bones and prevent osteoporosis, which affects almost one in five of women and about one in 20 men aged 50.

Few Australians meet the requirements for calcium, and women’s need jumps by about 300 milligrams in their 50s to offset the hormone-induced bone loss of between 10 and 20 per cent in the years following menopause.

Men’s requirements increase by the same amount, but not until in their 70s.

Vitamin B12 is important to offset physiological changes that happen with age and to prevent anaemia, says Collins.

Sometime in our 50s, 60s or 70s (it’s highly variable) our taste buds start to age, which can diminish our sense of taste and enjoyment of food. Our digestive system starts to age too and our sphincter, around the top of our stomach, isn’t as good at keeping the stomach contents in, meaning reflux becomes more common.

Medication can slow down the production of stomach acid, but we need stomach acid to help absorb vitamin B12. This means that we’re more susceptible to anaemia, which becomes increasingly common after the age of 65.

Any nutritional deficiencies, which often present first as constipation, high blood pressure, high blood sugar or ulcers, are confounded by poor dental condition, says Collins. “Having really good nutrition as you age is about your oral health. It’s because you need about 20 teeth to be able to chew your food really well.”

And chewing really well does several things: it makes the nutrients in food more available, improves digestion, stimulates hormones associated with making us feel more full and is a predictor of cognitive function as you age.

“There are a few reasons for that,” Collins says. “One is because when you chew, the blood flows to your brain, and the other one is because when you chew, it actually stimulates your hippocampus, which is associated with memory and learning.”

How to eat for longevity

• An extra 25 per cent of protein equates to an extra egg or two a day; a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter; a cup cooked of quinoa, oats or beans; or half a cup of Greek yoghurt.
• Get more calcium by consuming a tub of yoghurt; a glass of milk; more green leafy vegetables; canned fish with their bones, like salmon, sardines or anchovies; and nuts such as Brazil nuts and almonds.
• Sunlight is the best way to get our vitamin D hit, but vitamin D is also contained in foods like mushrooms, liver, eggs and oysters.
• Vitamin B12 is found in fish, meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products, as well as nutritional yeast and fortified milks, breads and cereals.
• Apart from iron and B12, for which animal sources are better, we can get all our vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients by eating as much variety of plant foods as we can. This is the best way, Collins says, we can support our insulin and glucose responses, as well as the anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory pathways in our bodies.

The key: Variety may be the spice of life, but it is also key in healthy ageing and ensuring we meet our body’s nutrient requirements. Just make sure you chew properly, get your protein (and sunlight) fix and visit the dentist regularly.

The game-changing skincare ingredients and treatments

A reflection of our inner health (our emotional state, sleep quality, diet, substance use and physical activity levels all affect the quality of our skin), our body’s largest organ is also its most exposed, meaning our skin is particularly susceptible to our external environment, including the sun and air pollution.

The health of our skin as we age, however, can also affect our internal health. Skin hydration levels peak around the age of 40 and, in our 50s, epidermal pH, hydration and the permeability barrier start to deteriorate. Along with sun-damaged skin, this can cause the release inflammatory cytokines which enter the blood stream and may contribute to systemic inflammation and the development of age-associated chronic disorders, including atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and even Alzheimer’s disease.

Looking after our skin as we age, then, is part aesthetics, part essential for healthy ageing.

Research suggests that by applying moisturiser daily, we can largely offset the changes in hydration and permeability.

Melbourne-based dermatologist Dr Shammi Theesan suggests using a moisturiser or serum containing niacinamide, a form of vitamin B3, because it’s a broad, strong antioxidant. “It will help replenish damaged cells from sun damage and pollution.”

In our 40s and 50s, when skin cell renewal slows to 64 days instead of 28, our skin cells are drier and not as resilient. Our skin’s ability to repair itself also declines and, each year, we start to lose about 1 per cent of our elastin and collagen (natural proteins in the skin which keep it looking firm, supple and wrinkle-free).

With natural skin ageing and sun damage more visible, Theesan recommends using a moisturiser with retinol (vitamin A) at night (along with a vitamin B3 moisturiser in the day): “This will help with plumping and boosting our fibroblasts [cells that synthesise collagen], which will then give you more elastin, more collagen.”

Applying sunscreen daily can help minimise damage to skin.Credit: iStock

In our 60s, adding a vitamin C serum to our skincare routine can promote collagen production and brighten the skin. A sharp decline in oestrogen levels (we have oestrogen receptors on our skin) means drier skin, so a humectant moisturiser, which traps our natural moisture, can help to protect the skin’s barrier. This means looking for ingredients like glycerin and ceramides, and hyaluronic acid.

By applying sunscreen daily – and by using other forms of sun protection – we can also minimise the damage to our skin, and the inflammatory activity that it mobilises.

Theesan suggests using an SPF50 that is tinted or has rich iron oxide or zinc or “visible light protection”. Visible light is a deeply penetrating waveband of solar radiation.

“UVA and UVB are the basics of anti-ageing,” explains Theesan, the founder of ODE Dermatology. “And definitely very important from a skin cancer perspective, but we know almost 80 per cent of the sun rays is visible light. That’s going to give deeper penetration [and make] ageing worse and pigmentation worse.”

Beyond moisturiser and sun protection, Theesan suggests using a lactic acid or AHAs to help with skin cell renewal, which naturally gets slower over time, while supplementing with marine collagen powder may slow the breakdown of collagen in the face.

For people who want to go further, some cosmetic options are “game-changers for ageing”, at least for the aesthetics of ageing. Theesan says broad band light (BBL) therapy can reduce the appearance of sun spots and pigmentation; bioremodelling injections of hyaluronic acid induce natural volumisation in the skin (but come with risks); radiofrequency treatments stimulate the production of collagen and elastin; high-intensity electromagnetic stimulation tones the muscles in the face; and polynucleotide injections, which use cells from salmon testes, improve skin elasticity, thickness, wrinkles, hydration, pore size and pigmentation by improving micro-circulation in the skin cells and change the skin at a cellular level.

“It [polynucleotide injections] doesn’t have the filler complication risk,” says Theesan, adding she’d like to see longer-term data. “But, for now, it looks promising and relatively safe.”

It’s nice to have technology available, she adds, but topically caring for our skin and looking after our internal wellness is what creates healthy skin. Gut health is important for skin health, sleep quality affects skin function, and resistance training not only builds our muscle and bone, it promotes dermal thickness, meaning our skin is healthier.

The best beauty treatments for ageing

• Support your skin from the inside and the out by considering the ingredients you put in your body and on your skin.
• Improve your gut health with probiotics – which contain good bacteria – like some cheeses (cheddar, Parmesan, Swiss, Gruyere), yoghurt, kimchi, miso, kraut and kombucha as well as prebiotics – which feed the good bacteria – like whole grains, bananas, greens, onions, garlic, soybeans and artichokes.
• Moisturise twice a day and use sun protection to minimise inflammation in the skin and the rest of the body.
• Active ingredients in your skincare like retinol, vitamin B3 and C and lactic acid can elevate your skincare routine.
• Light treatment and cosmetic treatments can dramatically change the appearance of ageing skin.
• Exercise your way to stronger skin by doing at least two resistance sessions each week. That could involve weights, body weight exercises like push-ups and pull-ups, yoga or Pilates classes.

The key: Looking after the health of our skin as we age is as significant for our overall health as it is for our vanity. We can protect our skin by paying attention to what we put in and on our bodies.

Build new tracks to bolster your brain

Changes in our body as we age are often obvious, but there are just as many changes occurring inside our brains, albeit subtly. We start losing brain cells in our 20s, and our brains start to shrink a little each year, from our 30s. With this, our processing speed – the ability to understand, respond to and recall information – slows.

“On the other hand, people often improve vocabulary, decision-making capacity and organisational skills,” says Professor Henry Brodaty, co-director of UNSW’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing.

We have a couple of billion nerve cells in our brain, which have branches that communicate with each other, setting up different networks.

“They’re moving all the time and sending up branches and withdrawing branches and so forth,” Brodaty says. “So it’s a very dynamic process.”

With memory, for instance, when we do something repeatedly, the pathways of nerves talking to each other become more entrenched. “It’s like digging a track. And so it becomes deeper, and it works more quickly.”

One 2011 study found that although the hippocampus (the short-term memory centre) typically shrinks with age, aerobic exercise could not only prevent the shrinkage, it could create growth. A separate study of London taxi drivers, known for spending four years memorising 25,000 streets in the bustling city, found their hippocampus also grew during the rigorous training program.

All physical activity reduces your dementia risk, according to experts.Credit: iStock

While there are different ways to train the same part of the brain, different parts are responsible for the various functions we have as humans and require different kinds of stimulus and care to stay healthy. Brodaty recalls a female patient who had severe dementia and could not talk but could still play Mozart beautifully.

The good news is there is a lot we can do about some of the less appealing brain changes that come with age, including what Brodaty refers to as the “the greatest fear of older people”, dementia.

The risk of dementia doubles every five years after the age of 60. The condition affects about 10 per cent of people over the age of 65, but about 40 per cent of dementia cases may be prevented through lifestyle changes.

During sleep, for instance, we clear away the build-up of toxic amyloid protein that dementia is associated with, Brodaty says.

High blood pressure increases the risk of vascular dementia because it damages blood vessels, causing them to get stiffer and thicker, which can affect blood flow and oxygen to the brain. We can manage blood pressure through regular exercise, a plant-based diet of minimally processed foods, quitting smoking and limiting salt and alcohol.

Staying mentally engaged by nurturing relationships and learning new, challenging tasks is another way of keeping our brains youthful.

For Brodaty, who is in his 70s, it is also key to a meaningful and satisfying life.

“I’m married, I have a good relationship. I have got kids, I love being with the grandkids, I like my work … And I’m involved, do a lot of policy things with government committees. And I think I’m very privileged to have that. It gives me purpose in life, and it’s fulfilling. Having purpose in life is a big one.”

How to care for your brain as you age

• Prioritising sleep is an important part of reducing the risk of dementia.
• Keep your blood pressure down by limiting salt intake, doing regular exercise, managing your weight and getting your blood pressure checked at least once a year from your 30s and every six months from your 50s.
• Quit smoking as along with toxins which cause inflammation and damage the cells, it also harms the blood vessels affecting oxygen and blood flow to the brain.
• Prioritise good quality relationships, which reduce our stress, improve our cognitive reserve and can halve the risk of dementia. “Social health is as important as psychological and physical health,” Brodaty says. “And having someone you can confide in.”
• All physical activity, including gardening or walking, can reduce dementia risk, but Brodaty says the best effects come from regularly raising a sweat – swim, dance, cycle, run – and doing strength training. 
• Research published in 2024 found dementia risk could be mitigated if people with hearing loss use hearing aids. Hearing loss can increase cognitive load and lead to social isolation, both risk factors for dementia.
• A diet rich in plant-based foods and healthy fats supports brain function and may prevent decline via anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, and improved cellular metabolism and gut microbiota.
• Other factors that harm brain health include excessive alcohol consumption and air pollution, while practising new and challenging activities is protective.

The key: If we take a holistic approach to looking after our brain’s health, we can enjoy health well into our later lives.

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.