One of the Most Dangerous Myths About Aging
Apparently, there's a website solely devoted to hating "Grandpa Joe"...
If that name rings a bell, it comes from a character in the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Specifically, he's the main protagonist Charlie's grandfather, and the duo journey through a magical chocolate factory.
You might remember him as an old, white-haired man who had resigned himself to being an invalid for 20 years... only to finally get out his bed when his grandson finds the "golden ticket" that scored them access to the factory. (It's one of the reasons why the website and even members of a Reddit subreddit named r/grandpajoehate brand him as an opportunist.)
Selfishness aside, you might recall from either watching the movie – or reading Roald Dahl's book that the movie was adapted from (called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) – how the seemingly frail senior suddenly leaps out of bed.
Now, some of you might think that sort of feat hardly happens in real life...
Namely, you might think that being less physically active is a natural part of getting older.
And you might follow that thought with, "So what's the point of exercising this late in life?"
This way of thinking is dangerous.
And it's a surefire way to drive you to an early grave.
So today, I want to hammer this message home:
It doesn't matter how old you are. It's never too late to start being physically active.
Physical activity is one of the best things you can do for your body. Settling into lethargy is the wrong approach.
Even if you didn't get a head start in your earlier decades, starting later in life will still reward you with a bounty of health benefits.
But first, know that for most of us, a biological timer starts ticking down once we hit our 30s.
That's around when we start losing muscle mass, bit by bit.
This may vary from person to person. But some estimates suggest we lose as much as 5% of our muscle mass every decade after age 30. That rate of decay picks up more speed for seniors – typically around ages 65 for women and 70 for men, respectively.
By age 80, the loss can amount to nearly 30% of total muscle mass. Also at that age, up to half of people will have sarcopenia, which is this age-related muscle loss.
Losing muscle leaves you weakened and more easily tired. You might be winded from picking up that gallon of milk or bag of groceries. That's all part of a condition known as frailty.
Frailty is a decline in function and capability across multiple body systems. It makes you vulnerable to terrible outcomes like falls, injury, disability, hospitalization, and early death.
What's more, if this frailty leads you to injure yourself in a fall, it could lead to even more lost muscle in a vicious cycle.
To figure out your functional strength reserve, I recommend a simple 30-second test...
It's called "sit to stand." And unless you already have mobility problems, it gives you a good idea of your lower-body strength, your risk of suffering such issues in old age, and even your fall risk. (If you're injured, wait until you're back on your feet before testing.)
Here's what you do...
- Sit up straight on a chair with your feet flat on the ground.
- Grab each shoulder with the opposite hand, crossing your arms.
- For 30 seconds, stand up and sit back down as many times as you can. If you're halfway standing when 30 seconds are up, you can count that as a stand... But you score a 0 if you have to use your arms to stand.
Here's a general idea from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of how older adults should score in each age group:
If you didn't meet your metric, there's good news...
It's not too late.
In a 2023 study from Preventive Medicine, researchers looked at health and behavior data from 22,463 Chinese adults aged 80 and up...
The research team divided them into four classifications: staying active, changing from inactive to more active, changing from being active to inactive, and staying inactive.
The results showed that participants in the first two groups lived longer than those who stayed sedentary.
Remember, that's talking about folks who didn't make this change until their 80s.
Of course, the earlier, the better. A 2019 JAMA Network Open study looked at data on more than 300,000 AARP members... It found that folks who started their fitness journeys in their 40s and 50s had a 32% to 35% lower mortality rate than older folks who remained or reverted back to being inactive. That's comparable to the 29% to 35% lower risk among folks who began exercising in early adulthood.
You can defeat frailty and muscle loss through a process called muscular hypertrophy.
Our bodies are constantly creating and destroying muscle cells. A balance between those processes yields stable muscle mass. But muscle hypertrophy – the phenomenon that results in bigger muscles – happens when the rate of protein building tops the rate of protein breakdown.
In our bodies, chemical signals in the form of hormones like testosterone and other growth-boosting substances can help launch the hypertrophic process.
Another way to switch on this protein synthesis is through mechanical signals. And those mechanical signals come from muscle contraction via... you guessed it... exercise.
A sedentary lifestyle simply does not provide enough stress stimuli to ramp up the synthesis. If the rate of muscle-protein breakdown overtakes the rate of synthesis, your muscle fibers start shrinking and wasting. That's muscle atrophy.
To tip the scales in favor of synthesis, you need to challenge your muscles with resistance training, also known as strength training. You must do it regularly. And you must eat enough protein for your body to build muscles.
Not only can resistance training help you avoid the pitfalls of frailty, but it will also reduce your stress, help you get better sleep, and improve your blood-sugar control.
To read more about frailty – as well as to get my favorite muscle-strengthening move that requires no equipment and hardly any space – check out last month's issue of Retirement Millionaire. (You can sign up for a trial run for my monthly newsletter here if you're not a subscriber.)
What We're Reading...
- Avoiding frailty as we age.
- Something different: Say "no" to Grandpa Joe.
Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
September 12, 2024