Annabel and I read hundreds of research articles each month to keep up to date with the latest findings on healthy longevity. We’ve learned to decode the different methodologies to understand which are the most meaningful, and relevant, to The Age-Well Project. There’s such a broad span of research methods, from investigating the insides of…
HOW TO AGE HAPPILY IN 2020
Happy New Year from The Age-Well Project! We hope that you’re looking at the year, and the decade, ahead with optimism. Optimism is a great tool for health and happiness. Research published last summer assessed the optimism levels of almost 70,000 people in the US. It found that the most optimistic individuals lived between…
THREE SIMPLE BOOSTS FOR GUT HEALTH
Are you good to your gut? We do hope so. The link between gut health and longevity is key to our Age-Well Project, so we’re excited about THREE new pieces of research providing simple ways to boost both. A quick refresher: when we say ‘gut health’ we mean the variety, quality and quantity of our…
COFFEE AND YOUR HEALTH: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
This is me, about to take – I kid you not – my first sip of coffee in 20 years. I gave up when living in California in 1999 (my body was a temple, and all that). The withdrawal symptoms were so debilitating (like a 10-day flu bug) I vowed never to go back. But…..20…
ENHANCING MEMORY, AND AN ICE CREAM TO HELP YOU SLEEP!
Why did nobody tell me that midlife would be a constant battle to get enough sleep?! I took sleep for granted until I had children, but since then it’s been a scarce commodity. The broken nights of early parenthood have given way to the broken nights of middle age, menopause and beyond. A steady stream…
HOW TO BE HAPPY: GET HEALTHY, GET MARRIED AND GO OUT FOR DINNER
It turns out – as if we didn’t know – that health really is wealth. A report on personal wellbeing published by the ONS (Office of National Statistics) this week reveals we rate good health as the key to happiness. What the research doesn’t answer is what comes first: do we feel good because we…
IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY BY WALKING BACKWARDS, THROWING PARTIES AND OTHER THINGS BESIDES…
One of the questions we’re often asked is: How can I improve my memory? Few of us beyond mid-life can claim to have a perfect in-our-twenties memory. But is this natural ageing or can we do something about it? After I hit my head on a London pavement and cracked my skull, my memory disappeared…
EAT MORE MUSHROOMS: ITALIAN MUSHROOM SALAD
A study in last month’s Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease had me googling frenziedly for several hours. Could I really reduce my chances of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by 50% merely from eating a few more mushrooms? There are moments when I’m quite sure I already have mild cognitive impairment (MCI, defined as the stage between…
When to start reducing dementia risk? Now!
Core to our Age-Well Project is understanding that the more we do to reduce our risk of age-related degenerative disease now, in our 50s, the better. Many diseases of old age take root in mid-life: for a healthy, happy old age we need to tackle our future wellbeing now. So we were fascinated to…
DO YOU KNOW HOW TO REDUCE DEMENTIA RISK?
We all fear dementia, yet half of us can’t identify any of the key risk factors, according to new research. Alzheimer’s Research UK wants us all to be clear on the six risk factors for dementia: Heavy drinking Genetics Smoking High blood pressure Depression Diabetes And we also need to know that physical exercise is…