Lifestyle (Medicine) and Healthy Aging

Abstract

Healthy aging is a process that occurs over the life cycle. Health habits established early and practiced throughout life impact longevity, the ability to reach old age, and the health with which one experiences older adulthood. The new field of lifestyle medicine addresses root causes of disease by targeting nutrition, physical activity, well-being, stress management, substance use, connectedness, and sleep. As a result, lifestyle medicine can optimize the trajectory of aging, and promote targets that have been recognized in geriatric medicine as essential to well-being and quality of life, resulting in a compression of morbidity.

Keywords: Compression of morbidity; Lifestyle medicine; Multimorbidity; Nutrition; Physical activity; Successful aging.