Have You Tried to Give Up Smoking?

You probably need to be over 70 to appreciate Sherwin B Nuland’s book, The Art of Aging but it does contain a novel tactic to help people give up smoking. (The Art of Aging: A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-Being)

As a doctor, Nuland finds he has more success persuading people to quit by appealing to their vanity than he does by warning them about their health.

When he meets a smoker for the first time he asks them why they smoke so much and they ask him how he can tell. He explains they look 10 years older than their age would suggest.

He can recognize a heavy smoker by the lines on their face which are impossible to miss in women over 50 when you know what to look for and a bit harder to detect in men. Apparently, thin lines appear at the corners of the mouth and gradually stretch to the area below the nostrils, eventually reaching the cheeks and corners of the eyes.

Getting people to realize that smoking makes them look older may be an effective way to help people give up smoking.

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In ‘Calculating Your Life Expectancy’ I said my mom thinks she’s living on borrowed time. I couldn’t get her to understand that life expectancy increases as we get older and that her life expectancy is 91.5 years.

She may even be in the 50% of her age group who live longer than that, especially as she gave birth at 39 and a significant number of women who live to be 100 gave birth when they were around 40.

The newspapers she reads say life expectancy is 80 or 81 and I couldn’t convince her that the published figure is life expectancy at birth. By the time you’re old enough to read the newspaper your life expectancy has already increased, so although it’s the simplest statistic for journalists to quote, it isn’t the most meaningful for their readers.

Now I’m delighted to report that my mom has changed her attitude. After years of telling people she doesn’t need anything for her birthday, this year she wrote a list.

Since her 80th birthday she stopped wanting anything new because she was sure the things she already had would last long enough. She hadn’t got to the point of not buying green bananas, but she didn’t think she had a future.

This year she asked for new dresses, a frying pan and new lights. She’s even talking about getting a new kitchen. After 6 years of making do with what she’s got her things are wearing out. So she’s decided I might be right about life expectancy and it’s time to start living as though she could reach 90 or beyond.

It’s a much more positive outlook. She’s thinking about living rather than dying and embracing new experiences. We went to the beach for her birthday and she seemed to enjoy herself more than she has in years.

Baby boomers are changing patterns of aging by refusing to slow down as they get older, but there are times when we all become aware of our own mortality. I don’t know anyone who is totally immune to cultural conditioning when it comes to milestone birthdays such as 40 or 50.

Perhaps our ability to live beyond 80, 100 or even 120 is restricted by society’s attitudes to age backed up by scientific and historical data telling us that death is inevitable. It’s the opposite of the placebo.

We are all familiar with the extraordinary power of the placebo which is purely based on belief. It is more amazing than any drug because it can have positive effects on the symptoms of every disease. Yet very little is known about its twin, the nocebo effect which is at least as powerful and can be deadly.

The nocebo is not just present in extreme cases of Voodoo. We might be immune to those anyway as long as we don’t share the beliefs of the Witch Doctor.

It’s also present in our society and it’s much harder to stand outside its influence when we’re unaware of our underlying assumptions or we think our beliefs are true.

This week’s New Scientist tells the story of a man who died on schedule because his doctor said he was dying of liver cancer and only had a few months to live. After he died the autopsy showed the doctor had got it wrong. The man died because beliefs were presented as facts.

The nocebo is also responsible when doctors tell patients about possible side-effects of drugs and the rates of those effects to go up.

Likewise people who believe they have a high risk of developing a disease are more likely to get it than those with the same risk factors who don’t share the belief. This is worth being aware of if you get your DNA tested. Could you completely dismiss a report that showed a high tendency towards one or more hereditary disease?

I suspect we all have unexamined beliefs that are limiting our enjoyment of life and ultimately reduce our life expectancy. And we are influenced by others far more than we would like to admit. But that’s enough negativity. If we are going to breakthrough the pervading ideas about mortality we need to cultivate the life-affirming qualities of the placebo effect, share our optimism and generate new possibilities.

Aging is a slow progression of damage that can be caused by free radicals.

These destructive free radicals are minute particles which are unstable because they contain an unpaired electron. They quickly set up chain reactions in the body, like a domino effect, where one free radical takes an electron from the molecule next to it to make up a pair. The next one becomes a free radical and that takes another electron from a nearby molecule and so on until something stops the process (usually an antioxidant).

Unfortunately when free radicals occur in our cells they damage each molecule in the chain and the ce lls don’t fully recover. Over time they can affect the whole body and contribute to loss of sight, hearing and other organ failures.

We can’t see what’s going on at the molecular level, so the damage doesn’t start showing up until whole groups of cells have been affected, such as when our skin loses its elasticity or we get wrinkles. Strong sunlight and pollution generate free radicals in the skin so the parts of the body most exposed to the sun and the environment show the first signs of aging.

All it takes to stop a cascade of free radicals is a molecule that acts as an antioxidant appearing in the right place at the right time. Antioxidants can give free radicals an electron to complete a pair without becoming unstable in the process. So the domino effect is halted and no further damage occurs.

We get antioxidants in three ways. Firstly, we can make them in our bodies, but they seem to become less available as we age. Secondly, a diet rich in fruit and vegetables provides protective antioxidants, but I’m sure my diet is inadequate. And thirdly, we can absorb them through our skin.

In the last 10 years clinical studies have shown that regular use of products containing antioxidants really can protect or reduce wrinkles. (Like most things though, it’s best not to over do it. Too many antioxidants applied to the skin could cause irritation.)

I’ve already been eating more oils to increase my intake of antioxidants and essential fatty acids . Now I’ve realised I can boost my intake simply by feeding my skin.  So I’ve started to use oil on my body after a bath or by having a massage. I’ve made a blend of rosehip oil and sunflower oil as a kind of multivitamin for the skin. It’s such a pleasant way to improve my health, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it a long time ago when I learned we can absorb nutrients through the skin.

Even the least vain amongst us wants to do something about their appearance when they start looking old. You may not feel any different, but as soon as you get gray hair, people’s expectations of you change, whether you like it or not.

Not everyone goes as far as cosmetic surgery, but millions of women use hair dye and men cover up bald patches. And it can make a major difference to our lives in a society where youthfulness is highly valued and old people are often ignored.

While we take the time to cover up the first signs of aging, preventing them is far less popular. Like a lot of people, I didn’t do anything about it until I needed to, but I’ve got good reasons to do something now.

Apparently, we don’t just get steadily worse as we age. Unless we can do something about it, the rate of aging accelerates. So in your 40’s you might see minor changes, but in your 50’s it gets a lot tougher and the pace of deterioration continues to speed up until you reach 90. Then for some reason it seems to slow right down.

I’m sure it’s easier to take up a new sport now and continue it for many years, than it would be to start in 10 years time. Also, friends in their 50’s say it’s much harder to lose weight than it was when they were younger.

I don’t want old age creeping up on me. Tomorrow I’m taking up running!