BOOK REVIEW: Geriatric Icon Dr. Butler Delivers Rules for Long, Healthy Life in 'The Longevity Prescription'
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
As the founder of the first department of geriatric medicine in the country at Mount Sinai and the National Institute on Aging within the National Institutes of Health, Robert N. Butler, M.D., is widely regarded as the father of geriatric medicine.
Dr. Butler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a frequent adviser to the World Health Organization, and the founder of the International Longevity Center, whose mission is to champion research and policy focused on helping our senior population age well and live vibrant lives.
Now, with the publication of The Longevity Prescription: The 8 Proven Keys to a Long, Healthy Life (Avery, a member of the Penguin Group (USA), 288 pages, $26.00) Dr. Butler targets the massive Baby Boom generation, outlining eight essential keys to longevity: exercise, nutrition, mental vitality, sleep, relaxation, love and intimacy, community connections, and medical care.
Each chapter -- there is also a ninth prescription, showing how you can stick with the program -- provides specific, prescriptive advice that has been proven to delay or eliminate chronic illness and promote health.
Here are the eight prescriptions, which are covered in detail in the easy-to-read and understand book:
1) Maintain mental vitality: One key is staying in optimal fully functioning mental health. Butler offers activities to avoid depression and cognitive calisthenics that increase brain function, memory, decision making, attentiveness and may even help stave off Alzheimer's or other dementia.
2) Nurture relationships: A sense of belonging is vital to staying healthy. Make new friends and retain old ones, practice forgiveness (no Irish Alzheimer's!) and the importance of sexuality.
3) Sleep...fundamental to good health, good spirits and longevity. Dr. Butler explains what sleep is, how we sabotage ourselves of getting a good night's sleep. The pros and cons of sleeping aids are explored.
4) Decrease Stress: Stress is one of the leading factors in illness. It plays a role in almost every major disease from diabetes to loss of sexual function. Through relaxation techniques, exercise, laughing, and creative breathing, you can reduce and eliminate stress and live longer.
5) Connect with the community...connectivity enhances health. You can feel connected by giving back to the community, increasing their social capital, pursuing a second career, embracing cyberspace or finding a hobby.
6) Stay active: You've heard this time and time again, but it's true, Dr. Butler says. You MUST be active and baby boomers are bringing new meaning to staying active and staying fit. Sometimes they exceed common sense and over do the exercising, giving rise to the term "boomeritis," but Dr. Butler says this overdoing may, in fact, be media hype!
7) Eat your way to health: Eating should be continue to be a pleasure as we age. By creating a nutrient-rich diet, eating organic, following the 'ten commandments' of nutrition," maintaining proper dental hygiene, consuming in moderation and making the best choices.
8) Practice prevention: Know your doctor! Effective medical care is the most important line of defense for aging bodies.
If you carefully read The Longevity Prescription -- which, of course, I urge you to do -- you may be surprised to learn that:
• A good marriage at fifty-not a low cholesterol level at that age-is a better predictor of good health at eighty.
• Stress reduction and a good night's sleep are wellness strategies just as essential as exercise and diet are.
• Why honing a center of balance is a key to physical health.
• How the brain can be trained to regain lost function and ensure continued clarity.
• Why starting a second career in retirement can lead to contentment, and more.
As I progressed through Dr. Butler's book, I assessed my own devotion -- or lack of it -- to his prescriptions. I ranked high on starting a second career, which in my case amounts to continuing to practice daily journalism, something I've been doing for more than 44 years. I'm officially retired, but I've excised that word from my vocabulary. Instead of print journalism on five daily newspapers, I write and edit online. I've also continued my lifelong hobby of photography and do as much woodworking as I can without the shop I once possessed.
I also ranked fairly high on stress reduction and getting a good night's sleep. I could do with more exercise and I promise to exercise more.
With one baby boomer -- people born from 1946 to 1964 -- turning sixty every 7.6 seconds, it's important to avoid thinking of the later years of life with fear and trembling. By emphasizing clear-cut research findings that balance physical health with emotional wellbeing, Butler and his colleagues offer a definitive path to whole-life happiness.
About the author: Dr. Robert N. Butler is president and CEO of the International Longevity Center-USA and is a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He is the author of the Pulitizer Prize-winning "Why Survive: Being Old in America. He is a frequent adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO). Visit his website at: www.ILCUSA.org.