Читать книгу The Nordic Guide to Living 10 Years Longer - Бертил Марклунд - Страница 7

AS I MENTIONED in the introduction, we now know that your lifestyle is the most significant factor for a long and healthy life. You are very much able to influence your longevity and your health through active choices.

Before we begin with advice for good health, we first need to understand how things fit together. How can we build up and strengthen our body and mental health, so that we can feel good and protect ourselves against inflammation?

Inflammation—the big threat

THE BIG THREAT to our health is the occurrence of inflammation in the body, largely due to an unhealthy lifestyle. I’ll be showing how lifestyle and inflammation are connected, how they affect our health, and how we can avoid it.

Risky inflammation is problematic because you have it all the time, but you won’t know that you have it, and you therefore won’t know that you are being damaged by it. You might even feel fine with your unhealthy lifestyle right now, but what may not be so clear is the high price you’re paying—premature ageing! The fact that inflammation has such an impact on our health is fascinating and relatively new information that may not be known by everyone.

By how many years can life actually be extended?

DIFFERENT HEALTHY LIFESTYLE changes can give different outcomes. The figures mentioned in the book are thus averages for everyone involved in a particular study. This means that if a change in lifestyle has given an average of 7 more years of life for all those in the study, the number of years for the individuals in the group may vary from 3 to 11, for example. There is thus no way of knowing exactly what the outcome will be in each individual case, but the message is still clear: making this lifestyle change increases the chance of improving health and extending life by a number of years.

And if you make several lifestyle changes, you can’t simply add up all the years of extended life for each particular change. Instead, the effects merge into each other, further increasing the likelihood of delaying diseases, feeling healthy, and extending your life.

Figure 1. An unhealthy lifestyle leads to increased risk of disease.

How does inflammation occur?

INFLAMMATION CAN OCCUR in various ways, but the main cause is free radicals.

When we breathe in, oxygen enters our lungs, transfers to the blood system, and is carried off to all the cells in the body. The cells then use the oxygen to produce energy for their critical functions. This forms a by-product—free radicals. The body is able to use small amounts of free radicals, but an unhealthy lifestyle creates too many. These electrically charged substances then go on the rampage, damaging cells in the body—and causing inflammation. All cells are vulnerable to damage, in tissue, blood vessels, and various organs. Our immune system also suffers (see Figure 1).

WHAT DOES LONG-TERM INFLAMMATION CAUSE?

AS WE AGE, the damage and inflammation caused by free radicals becomes ever clearer. The immune system fails and bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells are able to multiply and spread. But damage to the immune system can also make it overambitious, so that it starts attacking the body’s own normal cells. This gives rise to what are known as autoimmune diseases such as rheumatic pain, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease.

Long-term inflammation also means that the body’s tissue, blood vessels, and organs have sustained damage and their function will gradually deteriorate. Overall, inflammation can lead to a number of different diseases, including those named in Figure 1.

Many of our most common diseases are caused by the same thing—inflammation.

How to boost your health and combat inflammation

CHOOSING A HEALTHY lifestyle boosts your health and also stimulates the self-healing processes that in various ways combat the occurrence and harmful effects of inflammation.

1.Build up a powerful immune system—through a health-promoting and invigorating lifestyle.

2.Reduce the production of free radicals—through a preventive lifestyle.

3.Render the free radicals harmless—through a protective lifestyle.

You decide, through your lifestyle, which path you want to take toward better health.

1. BUILD UP A POWERFUL IMMUNE SYSTEM

YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM comprises your lymph glands, spleen, and bone marrow, plus a large number of white blood cells of various kinds that patrol the body on the hunt for intruders. They defend the body against external invasion by finding and destroying harmful bacteria and viruses. They also deal with and kill off the body’s cells that have been damaged by free radicals, and that risk transforming into cancer cells.

A particular type of white blood cells known as “natural killers” or “NK cells” are the immune system’s special forces. As soon as they discover an intruder, they try to make cell-to-cell contact and release a toxin that forces its way into the alien cell and destroys it. That’s how fantastic our body is.

We also have a large and developed immune system in the mucous membranes of the intestines, which works in partnership with the bacteria there. Foreign objects enter our body all the time as we eat and drink, and the gut’s immune system can distinguish between what is harmful and what is good for our health. Good food and low levels of stress are 2 good ways to create a strong immune system in the gut.

Choosing a healthy lifestyle enables us to build up strong immune defences. The number of immune cells can be increased, along with their activity levels. This ensures that we are well-equipped to resist infections and the development of cancer.

2. REDUCE THE PRODUCTION OF FREE RADICALS

A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE means living in a way that significantly reduces the production of free radicals and thus also reduces the damage to our immune system, blood vessels, and organs. This in turn reduces inflammation and consequently also the risk of contracting a range of different diseases (see Figure 2). This book describes how a healthy lifestyle can seriously reduce the number of free radicals.

Figure 2. A healthy lifestyle protects against the most common diseases.

Smoking—by far the most significant cause of free radicals and inflammation

SMOKING IS ONE of the worst choices you can make if you want to enjoy a long and healthy life. Smoking significantly increases the occurrence of free radicals, which directly damage our blood vessels, immune system, and organs. In short, smoking leads to increased inflammation in the body.

The smoke also contains carcinogenic substances, which result in a greater incidence of lung disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and a whole host of other diseases. Smoking thus speeds up our ageing process, with research showing that smokers lose 8–12 years of their life on average.

Imagine being a smoker who stops smoking and instead starts living a healthier life. Since the body is able to gradually recover, you could find yourself going from -8 years of life expectancy to maybe +8 years, potentially giving you an increased lifespan of 16 years—and a healthier life at that! Perhaps knowing this can provide the motivation to take that positive leap and stop smoking.

3. RENDER THE FREE RADICALS HARMLESS

THE BODY HAS developed protection against attack from free radicals, in the form of antioxidants. Since the production of antioxidants in our body begins to tail off around the age of twenty-five, these need to be added via our food. More about that in a later chapter.

Improve your health—start today!

IF YOU HAVE, or have had, an unhealthy lifestyle, forget what has gone before. The important thing is what you do now, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. The rejuvenating and healing process kicks in as soon as your lifestyle changes for the better, and the effects are quick to take hold. This is true whenever you choose to begin—in other words, it’s never too late. It doesn’t matter what you start with, the important thing is that you do something that has a positive impact on your health.

The result will be a healthier and longer life.

RESEARCH SHOWS

A MAJOR STUDY conducted in 11 European countries over the course of 12 years reported dramatic results: a reduction in cancer mortality of 60 per cent over the period of the study, among people who switched to a healthier lifestyle.

The researchers also drew the conclusion that those who lived a healthier life worked out to be 14 years younger in biological terms over the whole length of the study.

THE GOAL OF THIS BOOK

IN THIS BOOK, I want to show the role lifestyle has to play in strengthening the immune system and slowing and preventing inflammation in the body. Follow this advice and you will feel healthier and younger. It might also lead you to avoid a number of diseases and slow the biological ageing process.

Sweden is one of the healthiest countries in the world, and in all of the Nordic countries there is increasing awareness of the importance of living a healthy lifestyle. However, the themes in this book are wholly universal and can be applied by anyone seeking to make a change in their life.

I hope to be able to show you how your lifestyle can strengthen your own inherent powers. The healthier your habits, the more years of good health you can hope to enjoy. Let us begin with one of the most critical tips—the importance of movement.