Aging has a way of leapfrogging up your list of concerns-form somewhere below “I’d better clean out those rain gutters soon” to Alert! Alert! Top Priority! Code Red!”-in short order. The catalyst might be noticing a wrinkle that wasn’t there the last time you looked, trying on a favorite shirt that’s suddenly become too tight or playing a routine game of tennis and finding yourself creaky and sore afterward. One day you’re thinking of yourself as a young man; the next day you’re not so sure.
Fortunately, doctors and researchers are starting to pay as much attention to the subject of aging as the rest of us are. They’re working to better understand the changes that come as we get older and what can be done about them. One thing is already clear from their studies: Aging is inevitable-there’s no way to stop the clock-but a gradual decline in good health and good looks isn’t.
“Many of the things we blame on aging really have nothing to do with getting older,” says Ben Douglas, Ph.D., professor of anatomy at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and author of AgeLes: Living Younger Longer. He and others believe that we’re genetically programmed to age at a certain rate but that most people are sapped of an extra measure of youth by diseases and a gradual buildup of preventable niggling insults to the body. As a rule, experts say, people could look younger, feel more vital and live much longer than they do.
“People should be concerned about aging from the earliest stages of their lives,” says Huber Warner, Ph.D., of the National Institute on Aging (NIA). “The problems that lead to aging are cumulative, and the sooner you start correcting them, the better off you are in the long run. I’ve lived by that advice myself, and at age 55, my own experience tells me I feel better for it.”
How can we stay young longer? Men’s Health called on a wide-ranging field of experts on aging and the problems that attend it and asked them that question. This is the best of their advice.