• Mary Ní Lochlainn explores habits that lead to better health in older age.
• She’s incorporating some of these habits into her own life to be as healthy as possible as she gets older.
• She strength trains, takes vitamin D, and does intermittent fasting.

A researcher who studies aging shares what he does to help him survive healthy as you get older.

Mary Ní Lochlainn, a researcher in geriatric medicine at King’s College London, told Business Insider: healthy habits While you’re young, it can help you maintain your health and strength into old age.

“People think, ‘I’ll do all this later,’ but it’s actually much better to be doing it now,” he said, because people are more likely to do it maintaining healthy behaviors their whole lives if they start early.

As people live longer, more products and services are emerging that promise better health and longevity. Some of these, such as buzzing plasma exchange procedurecan cost tens of thousands of dollars. But the habits that 34-year-old Ní Lochlainn thinks are most important for healthy aging aren’t expensive.

Ní Lochlainn, who has a medical degree from Trinity College Dublin and a doctorate in geriatric medicine from Kings College London, shared with BI some of the habits she has incorporated into her own life.

Cardio as well as resistance training

Ní Lochlainn cycles 10 kilometers to and from work every day and takes tennis lessons once a week. resistance training once a week for an hour with a personal trainer.

During aerobic exerciseLike cycling, it’s great for your cardiovascular system “Resistance training is one of the best things you can do for healthy aging,” he said.

We begin to lose muscle mass in our 30s and continue this until old age Helps prevent falls and fragility. He said it’s important to build muscle mass when you’re young so you have less to lose as you get older.

This situation coincides with the research: A study conducted in 2022 by researchers at the National Cancer Institute on 99,713 men and women aged 55 to 74 found that participants resistance training once or twice a week In addition to cardio, mortality rates were 41% lower in sedentary participants over a 7- to 10-year follow-up period.

taking vitamin D

vitamin D It’s important for bone health and osteoporosis prevention, but “it’s one of those things that people forget about until they get older,” Ní Lochlainn said.

In the UK, where he lives, people take vitamin D supplements because they don’t get enough vitamin D. The situation is the same in the USA; One in four Americans doesn’t get enough vitamin D, according to the Office of Dietary Supplements.

The ODS recommends that adults ages 19 to 70 get 15 micrograms of the vitamin each day; This vitamin needs to be obtained from supplements, sun exposure, or foods such as milk, grains and fatty fish.

intermittent fasting

Ní Lochlainn practices intermittent fasting by not eating between dinner and breakfast.

He said the evidence that it helps longevity is “pretty convincing.”

Evidence benefits of intermittent fasting It comes from animal studies that suggest it can extend lifespan in rodents, worms, fish and monkeys, BI previously reported. But while experts think it helps reduce binge eating, there isn’t enough evidence to confirm it extends lifespan for people.