Everyone knows you are supposed to eat right to stay healthy. That usually translates into lots of vegetables, fiber, low-fat dairy products and fish instead of red meat. Reducing sodium by avoiding table salt and processed foods is considered the Holy Grail of a healthful diet.
This is all very good advice if you want to live to a ripe old age. But what if you already have achieved that milestone?
We recently received the following question from a reader: “I accompanied my 91-year-old mother to her doctor this morning. He seems great: young, energetic and interested. He's treating her for degenerative arthritis and gave her a cortisone shot for her shoulder.
“I asked him what she should be eating and he said ‘Oh, I let everybody over 90 eat whatever they want.’
“Later I said to my mother, ‘Well, if you want to live to be 100, it would be good to eat carefully and take appropriate supplements.’ I wonder what you think about her doctor’s cavalier attitude regarding her diet.”
We actually side with your mother’s physician. When you reach a certain age, there should be relatively few restrictions. There isn’t a lot of data on what a 90-something should do to stay healthy. Most physicians assume that they should do the same things younger people do, but that may not be true.
For example, lowering cholesterol does not appear to provide the same survival benefit for people over 80. In fact, there is even some data to suggest that older people with low cholesterol don’t live as long as those with higher levels (Archives of Internal Medicine, May 10, 1993).
We hear from too many older people that the quality of their lives has been compromised by side effects from cholesterol-lowering drugs. Someone who is 80 or 90 should not be crippled by muscle pain or weakness just to lower cholesterol. That’s doubly true since there is little, if any, evidence that there will be substantial benefit.
Sometimes, strict adherence to rules can be counterproductive. Dr. Peter Lamy, a world-renowned expert in geriatric pharmacology and nutrition, offered the following anecdote:
“A 73-year-old man told me this story. His father is a 93-year-old immigrant from Russia, who likes pickles, salted herring, borscht, and other good, salty foods. His new physician cautioned him strongly: ‘How can you eat those foods? Don't you know they contain salt, and salt is a risk factor?’
“The 93-year-old man, trained to respect authority, was in fact told not to eat the foods he likes because of the potentially life-shortening risk factor. What we have now is a not-so-healthy 93-year-old because he does what the physician tells him and a 73-year-old son trying to get his father to eat.” (Currents: Journal of Food, Nutrition & Health, 1985).
When you reach your 90s, you have already beaten the odds. At that age, it makes more sense to enjoy every day as it comes along rather than deprive yourself in an effort to extend your life a few more months or years. As a relative once said, “It’s not how long you live, but how you live that counts.”
