Here's what seems blindingly obvious to me from everything I've read: eating a balanced diet, staying fit (strength and cardio), having a healthy social life, are vital for staying healthy as you age.
I lost 30+ lbs recently. Feeling great. More energetic and focused. My journey involved:<p>- opting to exercise more. I adopted a dog to help motivate to go on daily walks. No gym membership required.<p>- opting to use public transportation where necessary and use a car when only necessary (prefer biking or walking now). Helps me stay fit and active without having to go to a gym.<p>- significant changes in diet. Reduced consumption of meat. Reduced consumption of sugar and artificially sweetened foods and replacing with fruits. Increased consumption of more leafy vegetables and opting for more healthier options such as salmon (omega-3s, ”healthy fats”).<p>- intermittent fasting. Very difficult at first but was able to find my groove after a couple of weeks<p>- added a few OTC supplements as part of routine as recommended by doc (vitamin d3 , fish oil)<p>I am fortunate enough to have been able to do this without any supplemental Rx medications like off label usage of “ozempic”.<p>I will admit it did take some time. Maybe 2-3 months to begin to reap the fruits of my labor but it was definitely worth it.
The absolute first thing you should think with articles like this: is the journalist confusing correlation and causation???<p>And sure enough, the main finding according the scientific paper [1]<p><i>In this cohort of 177 709 men followed up for a mean of 9.6 years, higher cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with a lower risk of colon cancer incidence. A lower risk of death from lung and prostate cancer was also noted.</i><p>Keyword being <i>associated</i>. So one needs to wonder, could the causation run the other way? Perhaps, people with cancer are apt to exercise less. In fact you only need to exercise a little bit less to get to a level of 3% less fitness. Seems an entirely reasonable explanation. If so, this means that exercising more would not reduce the chance of getting cancer. Since cancer is a bit of a dice gamble, that does not seem impossible to me.<p>Yet a further alternative, maybe exercise and lower cancer risk are <i>both</i> caused by something else. Some adjustments were made for various factors, but maybe if you are well-off, you tend to live better, leading to higher fitness and to lower cancer.<p>So, good to know, but the Guardian article reads way to much in this.<p>[1]: <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2806585%20" rel="nofollow">https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...</a>
Original study: <a href="https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2024/01/03/bjsports-2023-107007.full.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2024/01/03/bjspo...</a>
Huh, so going indoor climbing 2-3x a week has not only boosted my strength and endurance, but is also apparently reducing my chance of prostate cancer?? Sweeeeet.