Lifestyle and behavioral factors are responsible for a multiple chronic aging diseases and associated to morbidity and mortality tendencies. In the U.S., nearly 50 million adults are smoking. Annually, smoking alone is responsibility for about 400,000 deaths.
As you probably know, anyone who ever try to give up smoking is facing some difficulties most of the time. Aged adult smokers tend to fall in group of less education, low socioeconomic status, and surprisingly most of them to be women. Older adult smokers also tend to have low levels of self-efficacy regarding smoking cessation.
Compare to younger smokers, aged adult smokers are having bigger chance to have adult smoking-associated diseases. Yet, they receive analogous benefits from smoking cessation as smokers whom started younger. It is noted that aged adults often want to stop smoking and do so at similar rates as younger smokers. It is recommended that treating smoking dependence in aged adults should have the same emphasis as treating other chronic aging diseases in this population. They note that medical staffs can be effective in treating smoking dependence regardless of the smoker’s age or smoking history. Treatment should consist of pharmacological and behavioral therapies plus health care intervention to help older patients reduce their tobacco use. More research is needed, however, to assess the effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions on older adults.
Please note that while the statistics cited in the following two paragraphs refer to adults, in general, these problems also concern to the older adults. Sedentary lifestyles, poor nutritional habits, and inadequate psychosocial adaptation to life stresses lead to increased rates of obesity and associated aging diseases. Obesity numbers among adults become twice in the year of 1980 and 2000. Around 30% of the adult population or 50 million adults have obese. It is estimated that obesity is responsible for about 112,000 deaths per year in the U.S.
It is estimated that up to 2.700 million deaths per year are because low consumption of fruit and vegetables. They found that consumption of fruit and vegetables to up to 800 gram daily could decrease total worldwide disease burden by 1.8% and minimize the burden of heart disease and stroke by 31% and 20%, separately. This nutritional goal could reduce the burden of stomach, esophageal, lung, and colorectal cancer by 19%, 20%, 12%, and 2%, respectively.
It is assessed energy expenditure in 302 high functioning adults, aged, 70 to 82 years. They found that those who were the most physically active had significantly lower chances of dying than those with the lowest physical activity level.
Some using data from a sample of adults aged 70 to 79 from the Health, Aging and Body Composition (HABC) study; found that persons drinking 1 to 7 alcohol drinks per week had lower age-, sex-, and race-adjusted incidences of death or end of life, compared with those who never or only occasionally drank alcohol (20.1 vs. 27.4 per 1000 person-years, respectively).
Nonetheless, there is still uncertainty about the survival benefit of alcohol use and the processes underlying the protective impact of low to moderate drinking alcohol. Recent data suggests that light to moderate alcohol use has an anti-inflammatory effect. For instance, using data from the HABC investigation, it revealed that light alcohol use is connected to lower levels of interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein. However, they found no link between alcohol consumption and tumor necrosis factor-alpha and plasminogen activator inhibtor-1.
Stress reduction strategies have been shown to have important psychosocial advantages and may be helpful in reducing morbidity and mortality in aging people. For example, participation in mind-body exercise, such as Tai Chi, has been connected with improvements in emotional well-being, stress-reduction, and mental health. There have been evaluated the long-term effects of stress reduction on mortality in adults, aged 55 years or older, with systemic hypertension.
Based on pooled data from two written randomized controlled trials that involved a Transcendental Meditation program, other behavioral interventions, and usual care, the authors found that participants in the Transcendental Meditation group had a 23 percent reduction in the rate of all-cause mortality, a 31% reduction in cardiovascular mortality, and a 51% reduction in cancer-related mortality, compared with controls. The researchers conclude that Transcendental Meditation program, as a stress-reducing approach in the prevention and control of high blood pressure, may help to reduce all-cause mortality as well as cardiovascular disease mortality in this population.
