How To Stay Healthy: Top Tips

Most of us would say we want to stay healthy, especially as we age. Staying healthy is about more than just avoiding the office cold or feeling good on a daily basis. Being healthy means protecting your body against illnesses and diseases that can be preventable with better lifestyle choices. 

Many times, poor health happens gradually. Years of inattention to our bodies can lead to age-related illnesses that could have been avoided if we’d simply given ourselves a little more self-care. 

Together, we’ll talk about what’s at stake and the scientifically-backed ways to help support total wellness and stay healthy longer.

Is Wellness Really Important?

When we’re younger, it’s easy to cast aside our health goals, thinking we’ve got plenty of time to get healthy later. After all, many of us skate through early adulthood relatively unscathed, with no major health issues to worry about. 

The problem is that years of neglect can lead to poor health as we age. Age-related illness and disease are real, and there’s a lot of risk involved if you don’t take an active hand in your wellness now. 

Heart Disease

For decades, heart disease has been the number one killer of Americans. Heart disease can be caused by genetic factors, but there are also associated lifestyle habits that can place you at higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease like:

• Obesity or having a BMI over 30
• Unregulated cholesterol levels
• Insulin resistance
• High blood pressure that is not well managed
• Leading a sedentary lifestyle 

Thankfully, these are issues that can be managed through intentional choices in food, diet, and healthcare management. 

Type 2 Diabetes

About one in 10 Americans have type 2 diabetes, a condition where the pancreas does not produce enough insulin to remove the glucose from the bloodstream, and the cells that need the glucose become resistant to the insulin that delivers it. 

Type 2 diabetes can be managed, but it can also lead to other health conditions like nerve damage, eye problems, and an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Type 2 diabetes is most frequently diagnosed in adults over the age of 45, but there’s been an increased occurrence of childhood and adolescent type 2 diabetes in the last few decades. 

Loss of Mobility

While some mobility loss is natural with age, keeping flexible and protecting against injuries like sprains, bone breaks, and pulled muscles is important. In fact, the risk of mortality increases with bone breaks in elderly patients by about four percent per year. 

Losing mobility is avoidable for most people who don’t have underlying illnesses that cause them to experience muscle or bone loss. It simply requires staying active and making an effort to focus on movement. 

Fatty Liver Disease

Long thought of as a disease that only affected alcoholics, fatty liver disease is now one of the leading causes of liver transplants in the world. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, known as NAFLD, affects one in three adults and one in 10 children and occurs in people who do not drink or rarely drink. 

There’s no treatment or cure for fatty liver disease, but it can be managed with lifestyle changes. 

When it comes to your health, there’s a lot on the line. Although many age-related illnesses are manageable with medications, they are still life-altering and can lead to even more negative health impacts. 

The best way to age healthfully? Take care of yourself now. Let’s talk about how.

Staying Health: Tips to Maintain Health As You Age

Sure, you take a multivitamin and drink plenty of water, but what else can you do to ensure you’re giving your body the best chance to thrive? Here, we’ll cover some tips to help you stay healthy for the long haul, not just the season. 

1. Maintain a Healthy Weight

Carrying excess weight can take a toll on your body. Many illnesses, like fatty liver disease, are closely associated with obesity. If you have a BMI of 25+, you may be overweight. Having a BMI of 30+ is considered obese.

Losing weight comes down to caloric intake and expenditure. You'll gain weight if you regularly consume more calories than you burn. You'll maintain or lose weight if you do not consume more calories than you burn. 

If you have trouble losing weight, talk to your healthcare provider about your options. A combination of healthy eating and physical activity is usually a good place to start.

2. Eat a Healthy Diet

We may not actuallybe what we eat, but our bodies thrive when given the nutrients they need. If we fill our plates with processed foods, we’ll end up packing in excess calories, sugar, and salt that our bodies don’t need. 

Instead, aim to eat for your wellness. Whole foods like lean proteins, fresh fruits and vegetables, and whole grains are packed with vitamins and nutrients the body needs and don’t contain excess calories it doesn’t. Part of establishing good health is establishing a good diet. 

If you’re looking for healthy choices, try following the example of octogenarians all over the world, who typically fill their plates with plenty of fruits and vegetables, including lots of legumes. Another healthy habit they adopt is movement.

3. Get Moving

One of the best ways to ensure you maintain your mobility is to keep moving. Not only is regular exercise great for helping keep your body limber, but it has numerous health benefits, like: 

• Improved mood and mental health
• Reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and fatty liver disease
• Improved quality sleep
• Aids in weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight

The best part about physical exercise is that you don’t even need a gym membership to get started. Going for a brisk walk each day is enough to support your body’s movement needs. 

Aim to get 150-300 minutes of light to moderate-intensity exercise each week, and you’ll reduce your risk of early mortality by 22 to 31 percent. That’s a pretty good return on investment for simply adopting one small part of a healthy lifestyle. 

4. Stay Current on Immunizations

Immunizations are available for diseases that can lead to life-threatening illnesses. Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B, for instance, can lead to long-term liver damage and are preventable with vaccinations. Additionally, getting vaccinated for certain illnesses that are common in elderly people (like shingles) can help you avoid getting sick as you age. 

If you have questions about the safety of immunizations, talk to your healthcare provider. They can help you understand how vaccinations work and whether certain vaccines are right for you. 

5. Get Regular Check-Ups

It’s important for your well-being to get regular check-ups with your primary healthcare provider. A yearly physical can help your doctor monitor any changes of concern in your body, help ensure your vitals are within a healthy range, and can also screen for illness and disease.

A yearly blood panel can ensure your blood sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol levels are healthy and check for fluctuations in your liver enzymes. These help your doctor manage your health and give you the information you need to maintain better health. 

6. Get Plenty of Sleep

Sleep is essential for healthy living. Most adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep each night, but that amount can vary depending on your age and activity level. If you have trouble getting enough sleep, try cleaning up your sleep hygiene.

Sleep hygiene refers to the habits you create to help you go to sleep. These could include dimming the lights, drinking a warm cup of decaf tea, or taking a bath. If you’re on a device or working out close to your bedtime, it will be harder for you to get the sleep you need.

7. Try a Supplement

Multivitamins may help your body get the nutrients it needs if you have a deficiency, but if you’re getting essential nutrients in your diet, your body doesn’t necessarily need the extra vitamins you’re taking. 

One essential nutrient your body probably is deficient in is pentadecanoic acid, also known as C15:0. Never heard of it? That’s not surprising. 

C15:0 is an odd-chain, essential, saturated fatty acid that the body needs to thrive but the body cannot make on its own. That means we have to get it from our diets or a supplement. 

Because C15:0 is found primarily in trace amounts in whole-fat dairy products (like whole milk and full-fat butter), it’s difficult to get adequate amounts of C15:0 in your diet without excess calories and ingesting more of the “bad” even-chain saturated fats. Don’t worry; we created a supplement to help you get the right amount of C15:0 back in your diet. 

Introducing Fatty15

Fatty15 is the first and only supplement that contains the pure, vegan-friendly, and award-winning version of C15:0 known as FA15™. This sustainable version is readily absorbable, doesn’t come packaged with the proinflammatory, “bad” even-chain saturated fats or excess calories (like in whole dairy), and doesn’t involve animals. 

Just one capsule per day can restore your levels of C15:0, which your body needs to support your cellular health and thrive. 

What It Does

C15:0 helps support long-term wellness by supporting your health from the cells up. It does so by helping repair, restore, and revitalize aging cells. C15:0 actually reverses cellular aging by:

• Keeping cell membranes strong. Aging cells have weakened cell membranes that can cause cells to become compromised and lose their shape. C15:0 integrates itself into cell membranes to fortify them and strengthen them by up to 80%.

• Activating AMPK. AMPK is a molecule that helps rid the body of cells that have lost their function and also regulates functions like glucose uptake. It also helps to calm our immune system. By activating AMPK, C15:0 helps restore balance to these systems.

• Helping mitochondria. The energy powerhouses of our cells become slower with age. They produce less ATP (energy) and more harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS). C15:0 reduces ROS output by 45%, and in one peer-reviewed study, it was shown to increase ATP levels in cells by 350%.

• Activating PPARɑ and PPARẟ receptors. These receptors play a role in heart, liver, and immune health and also control appetite, mood, and sleep. By activating them, C15:0 can help restore equilibrium and homeostasis. 

By taking fatty15 once a day, you can give your cells the support they need to keep them healthy, and that means a healthier, longer-living you. 

Protect Your Overall Health

Keeping healthy isn’t complicated, but you do need to be proactive. Making lifestyle adjustments is a great way to start, and adding fatty15 to your health stack is a smart choice for people who want to support their cellular health and overall health and wellness. 

The best time to start a new health journey is right now. Give your cells a fighting chance against aging with fatty15.

Sources:

Heart Disease Facts | CDC

Type 2 Diabetes | CDC

The 1-Year Mortality of Patients Treated in a Hip Fracture Program for Elders | PMC

Articles The prevalence and incidence of NAFLD worldwide: a systematic review and meta-analysis | Science Direct

Food Guidelines | Blue Zones

Massive study uncovers how much exercise is needed to live longer | American Medical Association

Efficacy of dietary odd-chain saturated fatty acid pentadecanoic acid parallels broad associated health benefits in humans: could it be essential? | Scientific Reports

A review of odd-chain fatty acid metabolism and the role of pentadecanoic Acid (c15:0) and heptadecanoic Acid (c17:0) in health and disease