Are you running young?

As a runner you are clearly interested in being healthy and fit, and staying that way as you age. Did you know that age may be less a matter of how much time has elapsed since you were born, than a matter of how you're living those years? More significant than your objective age is your functional age or real age. Real age is what people are talking about when they say that you look young for your age--something runners are likely to hear more often than their non-running counterparts. Even more important than how you look, real age reflects what's going on beneath the surface.

Michael Roizin, M.D., and a team of medical experts have ploughed through the plethora of medical studies affecting human longevity and have settled on a list of 126 items that influence life span in either direction. Roizin has published their results in a best selling book called Real Age, Are You as Young as You Can Be? The list has a few surprises and a lot of advice to offer the motivated reader.

Of course, you know that running itself is likely to subtract years from your age and even more can be subtracted for related behaviors and the results of running. For example, subtract a year and a half for maintaining regular exercise for more than three years. Subtract another year for exercise taking your heart rate past 70% of maximum for at least 60 minutes a week. Subtract a year each for low resting heart rate, high HDL levels, and strength training for at least 30 minutes a week. Take away a whopping three years each for not smoking and for keeping blood pressure low.

But before you decide that as a runner you must have a "real age" of about a ten-year-old, realize that even you will be toting up some minuses as well. Maybe you don't get a good night of sleep with some regularity or maybe you sleep too much--add a year. Commute on a motorcycle? Add a year and a half. Don't like fish and never eat it? Add another year and a half. Keep adding if you eat meat more than twice a week.

Get the picture? Longevity is a complex issue with your heredity playing a large role (yet only 30% according to Roizen). Yet many factors are well within your control. Running may take you a long way in the right direction, but poor lifestyle choices can more than reverse the positive effects. That also means good choices subtract even more years from your age.

Between the lines in Roizin's list is the apparent resiliency of the human body. It seems as if the body is pretty quick to forgive and forget former bad habits as long as good changes are made and sustained, in other words, you could smoke cigarettes and otherwise lead a pretty degenerate life during your twenties, see the light and give it all up. Within just a couple of years it doesn't seem to matter that your previous lifestyle would have sent you to an early grave: exercise, a good diet, and healthy habits will subtract years from your age despite lousy habits when you were younger.

Some will say it takes a gimmick to sell a book, but this is less a gimmick and more a useful tool. The list of 126 items related to your longevity gives you a vivid conceptual image. Eating lots of fruits and vegetables, for example, is more than just something you ought to be doing. It will likely increase your life span. That's pretty tangible, plus or minus. Visit the Web site at www.realage.com for more information and a quick test. It's a good opportunity to applaud yourself for your good habits and take a reality check on the bad ones.

(Real Age, Are You as Young as You Can Be? By Michael F. Roizin, MD., 1999, HarperCollins, New York, NY, 335 pp.)

RELATED ARTICLE: Real Age Tip

Next time you buy grapefruit, think pink or red. Grapefruit is a great source not only of vitamin C, but many other antioxidants. The pink and red-hued grapefruit also contain lycopene, an antioxidant carotenoid that has been linked to a reduced incidence of prostate and other cancers. According to German researchers, the average grapefruit contains 3.6 milligrams of carotenoids, second in amount only to papaya. All of these antioxidants help boost the body's immune system and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Getting the right amount of antioxidants through diet can make your RealAge as much as six years younger.

(Real Age tip from www.realage.com)