5 Simple Dietary Changes to Improve Your Longevity

More and more evidence suggests that your diet plays a significant role when it comes to your overall health and longevity. While other factors, such as genetics and your local environment also count, diet is something that you can control more easily than almost anything else. The following are five simple changes to your diet that can positively impact your longevity.

 

1. Eat Less Sugar

Though many of us have a sweet tooth, reducing your consumption of sugars is one of the most important healthy changes you can make to your diet. Sugar, as well as many sugar substitutes, are empty calories that can contribute to many illnesses like diabetes as well as obesity. While everyone enjoys desserts and treats, it’s important to manage how much sugar you consume on a daily basis. Don’t forget to read ingredients labels, as many foods sold at the grocery store contain unnecessary added sugar. This can even be the case in foods you wouldn’t think about, like baked beans, ketchup, and BBQ sauce.

 

2. Consume More Leafy Green Vegetables

While many vegetables are healthy, leafy greens such as kale, spinach, and chard are especially rich in nutrients. You should make an effort to include one of these exceptionally healthy vegetables in your diet at least several times per week. For variety, you can prepare them in different ways and add spices and flavorings to them. Look for dark green vegetables as opposed to light green as the darker color tends to indicate a higher vitamin content.

 

3. Drink Water Instead of Less Healthy Beverages

Many people get into the habit of drinking soda or energy drinks when they are thirsty. Those who do so probably don’t think about how many empty calories they are quickly consuming. You are far better off using water as a thirst quencher. Even fruit juice is high in sugars and calories, so it’s best to only consume such juices in small quantities. Pure water is always the best beverage to drink!

 

4. Reduce Your Portions

If you are in the habit of piling lots of food onto your plate, one important change you can make is to take smaller portions. Likewise, don’t be so quick to take seconds. Evidence suggests that consuming fewer calories is one of the secrets to longevity. Before making any drastic changes to your diet, you may want to consult a Winter Haven doctor, but in all likelihood he or she will recommend that you reduce your portions. Working with your doctor will also allow you to see the difference in important health indicators like HDL’s and LDL’s, which can be strongly impacted by diet.

 

5. Be Selective With Your Snacks

Eating healthier snacks can be an effective measure to improve your health and longevity. Many people don’t pay much attention to their snacking habits. Rather than relying on vending machines or fast foods, make it a point to carry around healthier snacks. For example, nuts such as walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, and pecans are good sources of healthy omega-3 fatty acids as well as protein. Including a healthy snack in your diet a few couple of times a day can help to keep your blood-sugars more level.

 

If you want to be healthier and live longer, you may have to make certain changes to your lifestyle. This may include getting more exercise, reducing stress in your life, and making some dietary changes. The above points can help you get started with the latter. Even if you can start by making a few small changes, you can make noticeable improvements in your health. With simple steps like the 5 listed above, you’ll be able to improve your longevity and quality of life.

Categories: changes, diet, dietary, evidence suggests, green vegetables, healthier snacks, Healthy, improve, longevity, nbsp, Sugar

How to Work Out Your Annual Retirement Withdrawals

Back in the 1990s, financial adviser Bill Bengen gave advice that shaped many people’s corporate wellbeing well after they finished work. Bengen said that if you withdraw 4.5% of your retirement savings each year, adjusted for inflation, your money should last 30 years. This became known as the 4% a year rule, but does it still apply in today’s financial crisis? In January this year, US researchers published a thought-proving paper, “The 4 Percent Rule Is Not Safe in a Low-Yield World,” which has changed the way corporate wellness experts have viewed retirement withdrawals – one size does not fit all anymore.

 

These days, we’re living longer and our investments are earning half of what they might have done 15 years ago. It’s not as simple as sticking a number on it, you need to factor in three things when figuring out how much to withdraw annually from your retirement funds; your time horizon, asset allocation mix and – what’s most often overlooked – the potential ups and downs of investment returns during your retirement. Let’s take a look at each of these factors in a little more detail.

 

1. Time Horizon: You may live for more than 30 years after you retire, which means your nest egg has to last that long. The younger you start tapping your retirement savings, the lower the annual withdrawal percentage must be for savings to last. Let’s say you retire at 63; you’ll probably need to withdraw no more than 3% each year. If you retire at 70, on the other hand, you may be able to take 7% out of your nest egg on a yearly basis. However, don’t wait any longer than that, as the law requires you to make the minimum distributions from traditional IRAs and employer-sponsored retirement plans at age 70½.

 

2. Asset Allocation: Your asset allocation mix is basically the amount of your portfolio in stocks and the amount in bonds, and this can have a real impact on how much money is safe for you to withdraw in each year of your retirement. It’s tempting to reduce your risk level as you approach the time in which you’ll need to tap your investments, but putting 100% of your money in bonds probably won’t generate the returns you’ll need to make your money last 30 years or longer. If you have a 100% bond portfolio and withdraw 4% of your nest egg every year, the chance of your money lasting 30 years is just 35%.  However, with the same withdrawal rate and a portfolio that’s composed of 75% equities and 25% bonds (using conservative assumptions), having enough money is almost guaranteed. Remember, the higher your percentage of bonds, the lower your annual withdrawal rate should be.

 

3. Ups and Downs of Investment Returns: Last of all, it’s important to think about the timing of investment returns in retirement. The most vital returns occur in the first two years of retirement, as anyone who retired in late 2007 and suffered big portfolio losses over the next couple of years will tell you. It’s hard to make up for the shrinkage if your retirement savings take a huge hit early on, so it may make sense to put a portion of your savings in a fixed annuity shortly before you retire. This will provide a guaranteed income stream for a set period of time, usually until death, which will help to guard you against potential market downturns. Otherwise, if crisis hits in the first few years of your retirement, you’ll probably need to take out less than 4% if you don’t want to run out of money.

Categories: allocation mix, annual withdrawal, asset allocation, investment returns, longevity, nest egg, retirement savings, Retirement Withdrawals, The 4% Rule, time horizon, withdrawal rate

Parents in their 90s? You Won’t Get Alzheimer’s for a While

If your parents live very long lives, your wellbeing is better protected against Alzheimer’s disease. This is according to a new study, published in JAMA Neurology, which warns, however, that even though the sons and daughters of people who live very long lives tend to get the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease later than others, their mental health is not fully immune from the memory-robbing disease.

According to lead researcher Stephanie Cosentino, of the Columbia University Medical Centre in New York, ‘It’s not necessarily that these individuals never become cognitively impaired, but what it seems like is that there is a delayed onset of cognitive impairment.’ The researchers compared people in their 90s, their spouses, siblings, children and their children’s spouses, finding that the offspring of people with exceptional longevity were approximately 40% less likely than peers to be cognitively impaired between ages 65 and 79.

Cosentino explained, ‘These families seem relatively protected, but once they reach extreme old age – say after 90 (years old) – their rates of cognitive impairment become comparable.’ The researchers were unable to say whether a parent’s longevity protected the offspring from becoming cognitively impaired in their 60s and 70s, but Cosentino and her colleagues want to know what makes them different from the others. ‘Our current interest now is understanding the genetic basis of that delay,’ she noted, adding that the hope is they could eventually help others delay memory problems as well.

Mary Sano, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, who was not involved with the new study, commented,  ‘This study and other studies have really shown we are moving in the direction of understanding the genetics and biology of successful ageing. I think the reason it’s so promising is because we’ve put a lot of effort into studying diseases to find the silver bullet to prevent disease and very little work goes into people who are less likely to have the disease or less likely to develop the disease. I think looking at this side is critical, because we haven’t had much luck looking the other way.’

 

Parents in their 90s? You Won’t Get Alzheimer’s for a While

Categories: Alzheimer's Disease, longevity, Research