Healthy Life

The Big 5

Five key health factors that age your body and steal late-life independence.

The top five health factors that increase the likelihood you’ll need help caring for yourself when you are older include:

• Smoking

• High Blood Pressure

• Diabetes

• Obesity

• Inactivity

Regular exercise can take care of four of the big 5… and if you don’t smoke you’ll be able to exercise even more.

According to realage.com, exercising regularly can make your RealAge as much as 9 years younger. 

The difference between people who remain self-sufficient and those who wind up dependent on others seems obvious. Self-sufficient people lead a healthy lifestyle. Clean living pays off big. For instance, midlife diabetic smokers are five times more likely to end up in a nursing home that people free of these factors.

When people manage their diabetes well or spend an hour at the gym instead of on the couch, the odds of suffering chronic, debilitating conditions decline dramatically. Most active people are the least like to have trouble caring for themselves later in life.

So, if you smoke, stop. If you don’t exercise, start walking. If you are overweight, work on dropping it and if you have high blood pressure, commit to controlling it. If you are diabetic be aggressive about managing it. All these steps lead to a healthier and hopefully more “independent” you.