The fourth part of this series looks at your heart and lungs. One thing the heart and lung share in common is, left to their own devices, they could function normally for much longer than typically ends up occurring. It’s important to discuss because heart disease is the most common cause of death in people 65 and over, and it is also the most frequent cause of activity limitations. Let’s quickly review changes, challenges and solutions.
Heart Changes: Coronary artery disease increases as your activity declines. Blockages accumulate on the inside of your arteries, and they harden as they lose their elasticity. Both of these factors resulting in lessened blood flow. High blood pressure increases with age, independently and as a result of this.
Lung Changes: The air sacs, airways, and tissues lose elasticity and become more rigid with age. In general however, serious disease notwithstanding, the respiratory system can serve one well throughout a very long life. However, if you’re a smoker or have lung disease (e.g. asthma, COPD), the reversible damage to the lungs starts becoming irreversible about age 35. At that time, you in effect begin tearing out useful lung tissue, which diminishes your respiratory capacity and sets you up for chronic bronchitis and cancer, as the body attempts to repair this damage and does so incorrectly.
Challenges: In the absence of structural disease or continuing to expose yourself to toxins (e.g. cigarettes), the effects of these changes on our health status need not be severe. The social implications of the effects of normal changes due to aging often would not hamper reasonable normal functioning. The real challenge is to avoid inhaling toxins that will harm you (duh, right?).
Solutions: This is much simpler than you’d think and mostly involves prevention. The biological changes can be greatly diminished and held off by a regular, strenuous exercise regimen that causes deep breathing and elevation of your heart rate over a period of time and by avoidance of toxins, especially cigarette smoke and fatty foods. Your heart and lungs are well situated for the long haul in the absence of bad genes and bad habits.
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Dr. Sterling………I love how so many of your articles go back to diet and exercise as treatments for the things that ails us. So, I think that maybe the purpose of the blog is to get us to eat properly and exercise, I mean since you keep reiterating it. 🙂
Hi, Stephanie. I guess that means you’ve been paying attention! Diet and exercise are what physicians are referencing when we tell you “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”. Yes, it is amazing how many different medical ailments are traceable back to poor health choices we make. Of course, you neglected to the ingestion of toxins (such as cigarette smoke) as the third leg of the stool. Thanks for your comment, and thanks for following Straight, No Chaser.
I also noticed that you mention smoking in a lot of articles, but since that is not something that I have to worry about, I didn’t bother to mention it. The only reason I mentioned the diet and exercise part is because I felt like maybe you were calling me out because I am making every excuse to not get on the treadmill this morning. Or maybe it’s my conscience goading me to hit the treadmill. LOL!!!
If I need to be a guardian angel sitting on your shoulder, so be it! Good luck.