There may not be a magic diet that guarantees a long and healthy life, but many geriatricians believe avoiding sugary beverages can help make that goal realistic.
There may not be a magic diet that guarantees a long and healthy life, but many geriatricians believe avoiding sugary beverages can help make that goal realistic.
Dr. Laurie Archbald-Pannone, associate professor of internal medicine and geriatrics at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine, said people are generally living longer. As they get older, she said it’s essential to focus not only on how to live longer, but also how to live “healthy longer.”
A key part of that is generally avoiding sugary drinks and many of their alternatives.
“High sugary beverages — example, sodas — have a lot of calories, a lot of sugar, and often one serving … can have more sugar than, really, the daily allowance,” Archbald-Pannone said. “It’s really easy to get a lot of sugar, a lot of calories, through those sugary drinks that aren’t beneficial to our bodies.”
That can apply to any liquid that has a significant amount of sugar, she said, including sodas, fruit punches or juices.
Diet beverages that have artificial sweeteners aren’t an ideal option either, Archbald-Pannone said, because they can cause inflammation and lead to different medical conditions.
“They can lead to increased inflammation in our body, as well as disruption of our gut floor, our good bacteria, our microbiome,” Archbald-Pannone said. “The best choice for our body is water.”
To help achieve a healthy lifestyle, Archbald-Pannone said it’s important to get nutritional needs from a balanced diet instead of from supplements.
Some things such as diet, exercise, relationships and social engagements can be changed and controlled; but others, such as genetics, can’t be, she said.
“There’s really no magic behind it,” Archbald-Pannone said. “There’s no one particular type of diet, or one particular food that is guaranteed to lead to healthy aging. It’s really about balance — having a good, balanced nutritional diet.”
Ideally, Archbald-Pannone said, a diet will include fruits, vegetables, protein and calcium from foods that people eat. Understanding what’s in food and drinks is similarly helpful, she said.
Sometimes, when eating out, it’s easy to lose track of drink consumption if a server is periodically refilling a cup, Archbald-Pannone said.
“That’s a lot of soda that we’d be ingesting at that one meal,” Archbald-Pannone said. “So really thinking about, how can we cut back on the amount of soda that we’re drinking?”
One approach is to do so gradually, that way it’s not an extreme step, she said.
Generally, Archbald-Pannone said, the common theme she hears from patients is considering moderation.
“Not too much of any one thing, but really trying to lead balanced, healthy lifestyles throughout life. And not just waiting until we’re older to put some of those things into place, but really starting throughout our life to get into those healthy habits.”
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