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What would you say is the most significant factor in terms of healthy ageing ? I think the single biggest target or takeaway message is for us to think about our health each and every day . We ’ re forgetting that , unfortunately , with healthy ageing you ’ ve got to do something every day , and that protects you 30 years later .
That ’ s one of the important things this study showed us : it really is about what you ’ re doing each and every day , across 30 years . The good news is you can make up for lost time , the bad news is if you don ’ t do it today , you ’ ll have to do twice as much tomorrow . And that ’ s what ’ s important .
What were some of the key things the women in this study did every day that benefited them the most as they aged ? Number one , do physical activity each and every day . I ’ m not saying you have to go to the gym or go jogging or anything like that . The second thing is to make sure you eat lots of vegetables and fruit and incorporate fish and legumes and nuts . Focus on those things and then eat whatever else you want , if you ’ re still hungry , but focus on eating those things and avoid sugar , especially added sugars .
The next thing would be about getting enough sleep and making sure you ’ re socially connected , which I recognise is a difficult thing to say in our current environment . Human beings are infinitely adaptable and we are adapting to new ways of connecting . Connecting doesn ’ t have to mean you ’ re an extrovert , connecting doesn ’ t have to mean you ’ re seeing people face-to-face , it ’ s about feeling that connection with others because that can support us too .
Did you pick up on any significant gaps in women ’ s health that aren ’ t being discussed ? One would be the fact that we know nothing about women ’ s health , I mean , outside what is characteristically thought of as women ’ s health , which would be things that are bikini covers . When people say , ‘ I ’ ll come to this talk on women ’ s health ’, they will think about something that a bikini is covering , and when they come to my talk and I ’ m talking about a brain and I ’ m a neurologist , they get very confused . We know a lot about women ’ s health covering the bikini , but we know very , very little about women ’ s health not covering the bikini locations .
It was only in 2015 that the Federal Drug Administration mandated that male and female animals have to be incorporated in drug trials . So that ’ s six years ago , so you can see there ’ s huge gaps in what we know .
The second part , I ’ d say specific to our study , is we learnt there were things we should be focusing on that the women told us about that we weren ’ t . Things like being grandparents , looking after grandchildren ; they actually introduced that question into our study . We incorporated a whole study around volunteer work and grandparenting , and we found some really incredible bonding .
We ’ ve been very lucky to have these incredible women , who have devoted 30 years of their lives , still coming back to the university and doing this study .
What did you find were the best preventative measures women took to help prevent dementia ? For several years now the leading cause of death of women in this country has been dementia . So it ’ s a really big issue . It ’ s a leading cause of death in the UK and across the globe . Two-thirds of cases of dementia are female , so this is an issue for women ’ s health . And the number one thing you can do is physical activity each and every day , seven days a week .
Moving daily has been shown to increase hippocampus size – that ’ s your memory centre in the brain . It improves blood flow , it reduces your blood sugars and blood cholesterol . It ’ s just good all around and has been really shown to be the best thing you can do each and every day for your brain health .
What has this study revealed about how women ’ s mood affects how they age ? There ’ s a lot of work showing that as you get older , you obviously have more disease , you have more loss , so we were actually expecting to see that over the 30 years of study we would have more and more people who were depressed .
However , when we actually looked across all the decades of the study , we saw that while people had more illness to deal with and deaths of close , personal friends and family , they were actually less likely to have clinical depression when
Women do get better with age . They get more resilient and more able to cope .
they were older , compared to when they were younger .
It just shows that women do get better with age . They get more resilient and more able to cope , even though they ’ re having all of these events happening .
What did this study teach you about resilience and the women ’ s ability to adapt to significant changes throughout their lives ? There ’ s so many challenges that people face , but what I cannot get over is how resilient human beings are . Every time we have to experience a disaster , be it bushfires or war , we just look at people and think , ‘ Wow , people really are incredible ’.
Tapping into that capacity to adapt and be resilient is actually a skillset human beings have , and we have better adaptability than most animal species . So tapping into that evolutionary power , or superpower , that human beings have can actually make you healthier as you get older .
If writing this book and doing this research taught you one thing about women ’ s health and ageing , what would it be ? That we really have to think about our health . There ’ s a lot of things we ’ re thinking about and all the cultural messages coming to us : ‘ Look after your children ’ s health , look after your partner ’ s health ’. Women live four to five years longer than men , depending on the country you ’ re looking at , so there is a perception that women ’ s health is okay , and we have to look after everyone else – but actually those extra years women live they are not living well .
We really do have to think about our health because we can have healthy ageing . These are not things that are impossible to prevent . The World Health Organization actually says that 80 per cent of the chronic diseases of ageing are preventable . So this really is something we should focus on .
If there ’ s one takeaway : think about your health today because you need your body for a hundred years . ■
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