Aged Care Insite Issue 94 | April-May 2016 | Seite 13

news

Those
sunny
60s

Happiness and sense of
wellbeing increase as
people approach age 70.

B

ritish researchers have found
approaching 70 can put a spring in
your step.
Feelings of wellbeing increase in the
seventh decade of life, the longest-running
study following the progress of people
from birth has shown.
The research involved questioning more

than 3000 participants. The volunteers,
aged 60 to 64, were quizzed on a range
of mental wellbeing measures, including
feeling cheerful, confident, optimistic,
useful and relaxed.
When they were asked the same
questions again at age 69, there was an
improvement in all 14 categories that made
up the wellbeing scale. This was despite
most of the group experiencing at least
one chronic disease, including arthritis,
diabetes and high blood pressure.
Dr Mai Stafford, of the Medical

Research Council Unit for Lifelong
Health and Ageing at University College
London, said: “What we’ve found is that,
on average, levels of wellbeing increased
during people’s 60s. We found that 1 in
5 experienced a substantial increase in
wellbeing in later life, although we also
found a smaller group who experienced a
substantial decline.”
The MRC National Survey for Health
and Development (NSHD) was launched
in 1946 when thousands of babies were
recruited into the study. One of its aims
is to look at how individuals change
over time in order to pinpoint common
experiences that make us happy.
Another recent finding from the study is
that those who lost weight at any age during
adulthood, even if weight was regained later,
had better cardiovascular risk profiles than
those who remained overweight.
“The benefit of using a cohort study like
NSHD is that we can look at how individuals
change over time,” Stafford said. “We
hope this will allow us to pinpoint which
common experiences may be linked to an
improvement in wellbeing in later life.” n

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