KEEPING YOUNG AT SEVENTY.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1929, Page 2

KEEPING YOUNG AT SEVENTY.

RIGHT DIET AND HABITS

(By Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane. Bart, in “Daily Mail.”)

The average man or woman who has attained the age of 70 has realised that the forms of activity which had been engaged in up to this time should either be relinquished or so modified as to meet their lowered vitaltv.

At this period of life the variations between different members of the community are very great. While a small proportion feel as young and vigorous as ever, most realise the necessity of accommodating their habits of life to some extent on the hereditary factor, but to a much greater extent on the diet and habits previously adopted. It is certain that for anyone who eats proper foods and is consequently able to secure a perfectly functioning drainage scheme, such evidences of physical and mental deterioration should not be a marked feature of this jteriod of life.

SECRET OE LONGEVITY

The secret of longevity consists in the devotion of such care to nutrition as will necessarily ensure perfectly healthy tissues able to resist the invasion of organisms and particularly of that dread disease cancer, which never affects a healthy structure. This is evidenced by the relative incidence of cancer in the long-lived, carefully fed clergyman to that in the much-short-er-lived, overfed butcher and brewer. The respective proportions are: Clergymen, 45: butchers, 105; brewers. 125 -.facts which are both stratiing and instructive

After 70 years of age too much care cannot be taken to limit the diet to such food as can safely he put, as it were, into a warm, moist safe full of flies without becoming poisonous. 'Phis means the exclusion from the diet qf animal food of all sorts, and limiting it to dairy produce, wholemeal bread, steamed vegetables—especially potatoes—and to salads and fruits, of all kinds. In the ease of fruits, the citrous are most valuable, but all uncooked fruits are useful.

MODERATION IN ALCOHOL

When it is possible to take a reason;balc amount of exercise without making too great a demand on the capital of nerve and muscle energy, golf, a moderate game of tennis, walking, riding, and fishing amply supply the necessary amount of activity. But in the case of those who have developed much fat in the abdominal wall, in their abdominal organs especially, it is obvious that a similar fatty degeneration affects every organ in the body and renders every structure coirespondingly inefficient. For such systematic abdominal cxevcies pursued with least exhaustion on the bath, massage by an expert masseur oi the employment of some of the ingenious electrical apparatus now on the market will suffice to keep the somewhat degenerated tissues in a reasonable state of health. A very moderate amount of alcohol should be taken, and that only -at meal times. In many eases total abstinence from alcliolic liqours of any sort is advisable.

No hard-and-fast line can be drawn in the diet, and particularly in habits, of people after 70, since so much depends on the life which lias been led up to this period. One form of treatment, however, is most advantageous, and that is the habitual use of some efficient apparatus for the production of ultra-violet rays.

At this period of life, especially when physical and mental activity is lowered these invaluable rays afford an immense benefit, assisting materially in the digestion of food and in facilitating the nutrition of every part of the body, and the vitality of every tissue. •In conclusion, moderation in the amount -of food taken, great care in attending to the function of the intestines ,and a sufficient amount of exercise, will work wonders in keeping the body in health and the mental faculties in activity, usefulness, and happiness. In addition, the continuance of business or professional occupation or, in their absence the development of a hobby, is invaluable as an adjunct to long life free from ill-health.