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Keys to living longer and better

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Each of us can live strong, healthy, vibrant, energetic lives for a long time to come. The key? Actually, there are five of them. Read on, and you may never see your dinner plate, your friends, or your sneakers the same way again.
That's no misprint. When nutrition researchers invited themselves over for dinner in kitchens across the globe-from Greece to Japan to the state of Pennsylvania-they discovered a tummy-satisfying secret to good health: Pile your plate high with vegetables and fruits, add respectable portions of beans and whole grains, and downplay high-calorie fare like cheeseburgers, cream sauces, and fatty meats. It's no secret that physical activity tones up muscles, burns calories, and puts a happy bounce in your step. But recently, researchers uncovered a new, bonus benefit: Exercise acts as a powerful vaccine against the aging process itself.
When University of Florida exercise physiologists put healthy people ages 60 to 85 on weight-training programs for six months then tested them for signs of free-radical damage, they were surprised by the results. By the end of the study, low-intensity exercisers had a drop in free-radical damage, while high-intensity exercisers had a slight increase. And a control group of nonexercisers had a whopping 13 percent rise in free-radical damage.
 Life is perpetually busy no matter what your age. But the truth is, as careers reach their later stages, as children mature, and as home-improvement ambitions are fulfilled, time usually does become more available for adults after 60.