Ignore the hyperbaric chambers and infrared light: these are the evidence-backed secrets to aging well.
忽略高压氧舱和红外线：这些是有证据支持的减缓老化秘诀。
Humans have searched for the secret to immortality for thousands of years. For some people today, that quest includes things like sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber, experimenting with cryotherapy or blasting oneself with infrared light.
几千年来，人类一直在寻找不朽的秘密。对于今天的一些人来说，这种追求包括睡在高压舱里，尝试冷冻疗法或用红外线照射自己。
Most aging experts are sceptical that these actions will meaningfully extend the upper limits of the human life span. What they do believe is that by practising a few simple behaviours, many people can live healthier for longer, reaching 80, 90 and even 100 in good physical and mental shape.
大多数老龄化专家怀疑这些行为是否会有意义地延长人类寿命的上限。他们相信的是，通过练习一些简单的行为，许多人可以活得更健康，达到80岁、90岁甚至100岁，身体和精神状况良好。
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“People are looking for the magic pill,” said Dr Luigi Ferrucci, the scientific director of the National Institute on Aging, “and the magic pill is already here.”
“人们正在寻找神奇的药丸，”美国国家老龄化研究所的科学主任路易吉·费鲁奇博士说，“而神奇的药丸已经在这里了。
Below are seven tips from geriatricians on how to add more good years to your life.
以下是老年病学家关于如何为您的生活增添更多美好时光的七个提示。
1. Move more 多运动
The number one thing experts recommended was to keep your body active. That’s because study after study has shown that exercise reduces the risk of premature death.
专家建议的第一件事是保持身体活跃。这是因为一项又一项的研究表明，运动可以降低过早死亡的风险。
Physical activity keeps the heart and circulatory system healthy and provides protection against numerous chronic diseases that affect the body and mind. It also strengthens muscles, which can reduce older people’s risk of falls.
体育锻炼可以保持心脏和循环系统的健康，并预防影响身心的多种慢性疾病。它还可以增强肌肉，从而降低老年人跌倒的风险。
“If we spend some of our adult years building up our muscle mass, our strength, our balance, our cardiovascular endurance, then as the body ages, you’re starting from a stronger place for whatever is to come,” said Dr Anna Chang, a professor of medicine specialising in geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.
“如果我们在成年后花一些时间来增强我们的肌肉质量，我们的力量，我们的平衡，我们的心血管耐力，那么随着身体的衰老，你就会从一个更强壮的地方开始，迎接即将到来的任何事情，”加州大学旧金山分校专门研究老年病学的医学教授Anna Chang博士说。
The best exercise is any activity you enjoy doing and will stick with. You don’t have to do a lot, either — the American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, meaning just walking a little more than 20 minutes a day is beneficial.
最好的运动是你喜欢做的任何活动，并且会坚持下去。你也不必做很多事情——美国心脏协会建议每周进行 150 分钟的中等强度运动，这意味着每天步行 20 分钟多一点是有益的。
2. Eat more fruits and vegetables 吃水果和蔬菜
The experts didn’t recommend one specific diet over another, but they generally advised eating in moderation and aiming for more fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods. The Mediterranean diet — which prioritises fresh produce in addition to whole grains, legumes, nuts, fish and olive oil — is a good model for healthy eating, and it’s been shown to lower the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and dementia.
专家们不建议一种特定的饮食而不是另一种饮食，但他们通常建议适量饮食，以更多的水果和蔬菜为目标，减少加工食品。地中海饮食 – 除了全谷物，豆类，坚果，鱼和橄榄油外，还优先考虑新鲜农产品 – 是健康饮食的良好模式，它已被证明可以降低患心脏病，癌症，糖尿病和痴呆的风险。
Some experts say that maintaining a healthy weight is important for longevity, but to Dr John Rowe, a professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University, that’s less of a concern, especially as people enter old age. “I was always more worried about my patients who lost weight than my patients who gained weight,” Rowe said.
一些专家说，保持健康的体重对长寿很重要，但对于哥伦比亚大学卫生政策和老龄化教授约翰·罗博士来说，这并不是一个问题，尤其是当人们进入老年时。“我总是更担心减肥的病人，而不是体重增加的病人，”罗说。
3. Get enough sleep 保证充足的睡眠
Sleep is sometimes overlooked, but it plays a major role in healthy aging. Research has found that the amount of sleep a person averages each night is correlated with their risk of death from any cause, and that consistently getting good quality sleep can add several years to a person’s life. Sleep appears to be especially important for brain health: a 2021 study found that people who slept less than five hours a night had double the risk of developing dementia.
睡眠有时会被忽视，但它在健康老龄化中起着重要作用。研究发现，一个人每晚的平均睡眠量与他们因任何原因死亡的风险相关，持续获得高质量的睡眠可以延长一个人的寿命数年。睡眠似乎对大脑健康尤为重要：2021 年的一项研究发现，每晚睡眠时间少于 5 小时的人患痴呆的风险增加了一倍。
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“As people get older, they need more sleep rather than less,” said Dr Alison Moore, a professor of medicine and the chief of geriatrics, gerontology and palliative care at the University of California, San Diego. Seven to nine hours is generally recommended, she added.
“随着人们年龄的增长，他们需要更多的睡眠，而不是更少，”加州大学圣地亚哥分校医学教授兼老年病学、老年学和姑息治疗主任艾莉森·摩尔博士说。她补充说，通常建议七到九个小时。
4. Don’t smoke, and don’t drink too much either
不要抽烟，也不要喝太多
This goes without saying, but smoking cigarettes raises your risk for all kinds of deadly diseases. “There is no dose of cigarette smoke that is good for you,” Rowe said.
这是不言而喻的，但吸烟会增加患各种致命疾病的风险。“并没有任何剂量的香烟烟雾对你有好处，”罗说。
We’re starting to understand how bad excessive alcohol use is, too. More than one drink per day for women and two for men — and possibly even less than that — raises the risk for heart disease and atrial fibrillation, liver disease, and seven types of cancer.
我们也开始了解过量饮酒有多糟糕。女性每天喝一杯以上，男性每天喝两杯以上——甚至可能更少——会增加患心脏病和心房颤动、肝病和七种癌症的风险。
5. Manage your chronic conditions
管理您的慢性病
Nearly half of American adults have hypertension, 40 per cent have high cholesterol and more than one-third have pre-diabetes. All the healthy behaviours mentioned above will help manage these conditions and prevent them from developing into even more serious diseases, but sometimes lifestyle interventions aren’t enough. That’s why experts say it’s critical to follow your doctor’s advice to keep things under control.
近一半的美国成年人患有高血压，40%患有高胆固醇，超过三分之一患有糖尿病前期。上面提到的所有健康行为都将有助于控制这些疾病并防止它们发展成更严重的疾病，但有时生活方式干预是不够的。这就是为什么专家说，遵循医生的建议以控制事情至关重要。
“It’s not fun to take the medications; it’s not fun to check your blood pressure and check your blood sugar,” Chang said. “But when we optimise all those things in a whole package, they also help us live longer, healthier, better lives.”
“吃药不好玩;检查血压和血糖并不好玩，“张说。“但是，当我们在一个完整的包装中优化所有这些东西时，它们也会帮助我们活得更久、更健康、更美好。
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6. Prioritise your relationships
优先考虑你的人际关系
Psychological health often takes a back seat to physical health, but Chang said it’s just as important. “Isolation and loneliness is as big a detriment to our health as smoking,” she said, adding that it puts us “at a higher risk of dementia, heart disease, stroke”.
心理健康往往比身体健康退居二线，但Chang说这同样重要。“孤立和孤独对我们的健康与吸烟一样严重，”她说，并补充说，它使我们“患痴呆，心脏病，中风的风险更高”。
Relationships are key to not only living healthier, but also happier. According to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, strong relationships are the biggest predictor of well-being.
人际关系不仅是生活更健康的关键，也是生活更快乐的关键。根据哈佛大学成人发展研究，牢固的人际关系是幸福感的最大预测指标。
Rowe tells the medical students he teaches that one of the best indicators of how well an elderly patient will be faring in six months is to ask him “how many friends or family he’s seen in the last week”.
Rowe告诉他教的医学生，衡量老年患者在六个月内表现如何的最佳指标之一就是问他“上周他见过多少朋友或家人”。
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7. Cultivate a positive mindset
培养积极的心态
Even thinking positively can help you live longer. Several studies have found that optimism is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, and people who score highly on tests of optimism live 5 to 15 per cent longer than people who are more pessimistic. That may be because optimists tend to have healthier habits and lower rates of some chronic diseases, but even when accounting for those factors, the research shows that people who think positively still live longer.
即使是积极思考也可以帮助你活得更久。几项研究发现，乐观与较低的心脏病风险有关，在乐观测试中得分高的人比更悲观的人长活5%至15%。这可能是因为乐观主义者往往有更健康的习惯和更低的慢性病发病率，但即使考虑到这些因素，研究表明，积极思考的人仍然活得更久。
If you had to pick one healthy practice for longevity, “do some version of physical activity”, Moore said. “If you can’t do that, then focus on being positive.”
摩尔说，如果你必须选择一种健康的长寿做法，“做一些体育锻炼”。“如果你做不到这一点，那就专注于保持积极的态度。”
Written by: Dana G. Smith
Illustration by: Cristina Spanò
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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