People in the U.S. are living longer than ever. But many fear that aging comes with unavoidable illness. What’s the point of longer lives if you are frail and unwell? New research on aging found that people are living with better fitness and fewer limitations than they used to.
“What we’re finding is that at every age, health is improving,” says Amy Finkelstein, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the authors of the work. “We’re not just living longer; we’re living better.
The researchers looked at data from 1993 to 2017. They found that, in that time, people on average gained 2.4 years of life expectancy. And those 2.4 years were healthy years without physical or cognitive problems. In fact, the time spent in a state of severe physical or cognitive limitation has declined by around 30 percent.
Research from Yale is also busting aging myths. According to a long-term study, almost half of people over 65 improved physically, mentally or both over time. People’s outlook on aging impacted how they aged.
“Many people equate aging with an inevitable and continuous loss of physical and cognitive abilities,” said Becca Levy, lead author of the study and professor at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH). “What we found is that improvement in later life is not rare, it’s common, and it should be included in our understanding of the aging process.”
More than 11,000 retirees were followed for 12 years. Over the study, 45 percent of people showed improvement. About 32 percent improved mentally, and 28 percent improved physically. Older people with a positive view of aging were more likely to improve in both mental abilities and walking speed.
The nocebo effect is the opposite of the placebo effect. When people believe something will have a negative impact on them, it does, whether or not it should. Believing negative things about aging was linked to worse memory, slower walking, worse heart health and higher biomarkers for Alzheimer’s.
“Because age beliefs are modifiable, this opens the door to interventions at both the individual and societal level,” said Prof. Levy.
Studies have found that most Americans don’t have a positive view of aging. That is bad news for the nocebo effect. Doctors often dismiss symptoms as signs of aging. And 80 percent of people believe all older people develop dementia. Fighting stereotypes about aging can be the first step in healthy aging. When people expect better outcomes, things go better for them. By erasing the stigma of aging, people can age more healthily.
