Health & Wellness
Eating your way to a healthy old age
By Emanuela Barbiroglio
So called ‘ good nutrition ’, which provides a person with all necessary nutrients according to their sex , age and health status , goes hand-in-hand with physical activity when it comes to resisting age-related diseases . Together they tend to prevent the decline of muscle that may lead up to disability .
Nuno Mendonça , researcher , InDEPENDEnt
In 2021 , more than one fifth of the EU population was aged 65 and over . Current demographic trends suggest there will be 130 million Europeans over the age of 65 by 2050 . By 2040 , according to the World Health Organisation , the global population aged 65 and over will surpass 1.3 billion .
Longer life expectancy brings its own challenges , such as increasing physical and mental impairments . Age-related diseases like cancer , mental and physical decline are not uncommon . Overall , the rapidly ageing population places costly demands on struggling health systems .
‘ Changes in nutrition and lifestyle are by far the most cost-efficient ways to promote healthy ageing at the population level ,’ said Dr Hermann Stuppner , head of department in the faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Innsbruck in Austria .
Dr Stuppner developed the project MediHealth , which took inspiration from the Mediterranean diet amongst other eating habits across the world , to understand which plants help us to better age .
The Mediterranean area , especially Crete , has long been associated with low rates of coronary heart disease ( CHD ), breast and colon cancer . Some scientists attribute it to the high olive oil consumption , which serves as the principal source of dietary fat .
The MediHealth project selected plants originating from Greece , Vietnam , South Africa , Tunisia and Chile . Eventually , only the small wild green Cichorium spinosum known as spiny chicory was
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