What follows is not intended in any way to offer medical advice and, of course, you should always consult with your doctor. That said, with being in the healthcare industry, studying ways to better achieve health and longevity has become a hobby of mine.
I wanted to offer my ten favorite health tips. All these tips are based upon multiple credible studies. But I won’t bore you with study details which, if you like, you can google on your own.
It goes without saying that getting good sleeps, plenty of exercise, and eating a healthier Mediterranean style diet will contribute greatly to one’s health and longevity. These ten tips, that are favorites of mine, may be less known:
Tip One: Eat Lots of Mushrooms: I always tell people that me and mushrooms have something in common. Were both fungis (fun guy, get it!). Okay, bad jokes aside, mushrooms are delicious, at least I think so, and all that deliciousness has only 4 calories per mushroom. Mushrooms are a tremendous source of bioactive compounds that have anti-toxin and anti-inflammatory benefits. Mushrooms reduce triglycerides in blood which are major factors in strokes and heart attacks. Mushrooms can also reduce cholesterol levels and blood pressure.
One to two cups of mushrooms a week have been found to significantly reduce various types of cancer including breast and prostate. Mushrooms, especially Lions Mane, help stimulate nerve growth which improves cognitive function. Reishi mushrooms are sometimes called nature’s Xanax because they both reduce stress and improve sleep. Finally, mushrooms are a key source of pre-biotics for gut health. Mushrooms can of course be eaten cooked, or raw if you like, or are available combining a variety of mushroom types in capsule form.
Tip Two: Eat Wild Blueberries. We all know that 1950s classic, “I got my thrills on Blueberry Hill.” Maybe the reason the hill was so thrilling was because of all those wild blueberries. Blueberries themselves are on just about every list of the 10 best foods for you. But, did you know that wild blueberries have 2 times more antitoxins and 30% less sugar than regular blueberries do? They are an anti-toxin powerhouse, high in fiber and linked to improved cognitive skills and cardiovascular function including lowering blood pressure and improving blood vessel function.
I am not suggesting you go out wild blueberry picking every weekend, although that does sound like a fun activity. But look for wild blueberries that have been flash frozen to keep nutrients locked in, available at grocery stores or online. Just tell them Tom sent you. Just kidding, they won’t care.
Tip 3: Get the Shingles Vaccine: Here is an interesting question that could come up if you’re ever on a game show. What percentage of seniors have gotten the shingles vaccine as is highly recommended for us seniors to do. Is it 35%, 48%, 61% or 73%? If you answered 35%, you are game show ready.
The shingles vaccine is free when you have Part D drug coverage. We all know what the shingles vaccine is primarily for, shingles. Around 50% of seniors will get shingles, with the risk increasing greatly as you age. People who have had shingles will all tell you the exact same thing, “Don’t get shingles.”
It’s painful and uncomfortable, and at its worst can last months or years and can lead to blindness, heart attack, strokes and facial paralysis. The shingles vaccine reduces the risk of getting shingles by 90%.
But here’s what you probably don’t know. A new major study showed that the shingles vaccine does more than just protect us from shingles. It reduces the risk of developing vascular dementia by half in a study of 170,000 people. The shingles vaccine is also associated with significant decreases of risk from cardiac events and death, with heart attacks being lowered by 25%.
Tip Four: Take Creatine: As we age, we lose muscle. That is as inevitable as the hair on our head, and many of us lose that, too. When we were young, we wanted lots of muscles because, for men anyways, we all wanted to look like, if not Arnold Shwartsneiger, at least Silvester Stallone. As seniors, growing older, muscles are even more important because they keep us active and protect us against dangerous falls.
Creatine supplements, in a variety of forms including tasty gummies, can be a key aid in combating muscle loss, increasing lean body mass and adding to endurance. Creatine also aids the brain and is shown to slow down brain aging. Low amounts of creatine are found naturally in red meat and shellfish especially. In order to get 3-5 grams daily of creatine as recommended, most people will need to take a creatine supplement. Hello, delicious creatine gummies.
Tip Five: We Need Protein: And speaking of muscle, just like the main ingredient in bread is flour, the main ingredient in muscles is protein. In our senior years we actually need more protein than we did when we were younger. There are two reasons for this. One, our bodies become less efficient at converting protein to muscle and so most of it goes to waste.
Second, more than ever, we need as much muscle as we can get because we will be losing muscle rapidly and the muscle mass we do retain both protects us against injuries and infections and having enough muscle strength adds to our vitality and life enjoyment. The recommendation for seniors is around 50 grams of protein daily per hundred pounds you weigh, so for a 150-pound person, it’s 75 grams.
It’s best to spread protein out over three meals, so for instance, 75 grams of protein would be 25 grams per meal. In chicken terms a 6-ounce chicken beast has around 50 grams of protein, an egg 6 grams. So, the chicken comes first when it comes to protein. Meat, yogurt, oatmeal, cottage cheese, nuts and beans are other excellent protein sources.
Tip Six: Get Your Fiber: What is fiber? For many of us it’s a mystery. We know it’s something that good for us. We kind of know that bananas have fiber. And after that, the mystery begins.
Another name for fiber is roughage. We can all remember our mothers telling us, “You have to eat your roughage.” Fiber is the portion of food derived from plants that you can’t digest and absorb. Your body digests the other parts of food such as fats, proteins and carbohydrates, but fiber simply passes through your body intact taking the journey through your small intestines and colon and then making its way back out into the world. Yes, as number two.
Most people don’t know that there are actually two types of fiber: soluble fiber dissolves in water and insoluble fiber does not. Soluble fiber passes through our body but while it is there it does good things. It’s kind of like the houseguest who washes the dishes. Soluble fiber helps lower your levels of blood sugar and your bad cholesterol.
Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water. Because it doesn’t dissolve it becomes the locomotive for your digestion system and forms into the bulk of your stools. As such, getting plenty of insoluble fiber hopefully keeps you from becoming constipated.
Most plant-based foods contain both types of fiber. But the ratios are different. Some foods lean heavily towards insoluble fiber content while others focus their attention more to the soluble side. The bottom line though is we need a good deal of both types of fiber for different purposes. So, get a variety of fiber sources.
When it comes to fiber, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Harvard Medical School did an analysis of over 250 studies on the benefits of added fiber and concluded that those who ate more fiber in their diet reduced their risk of dying from heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and colon cancer by 16% to 24% when compare to people who ate less fiber. 250 studies are a lot of pudding proof! Ideally banana pudding for the fiber.
Fiber also helps to keep your weight down and your appetite suppressed.
Senior men should get at least 30 grams of fiber a day, women at least 21 grams. Some of the best ways to accomplish this is with a high fiber breakfast cereal, around 10 grams, an apple or banana 5 grams, and beans and peas are high in fiber as well. Follow the fiber content on labels and mix up your fiber sources to get plenty of both kinds.
Tip 7. Flavanols Especially for Sitters: As we get older our blood vessels do not transport blood as well as they once did. This is especially a problem when you sit a lot, as when sitting we reduce the efficiency of how well our blood vessels are able to do their job.
A major study of Britain, found that cocoa which is high in flavanols, and which the British happen to love, caused the blood vessels to work as well while sitting as they do while standing. So, if you’re going to have a long sit, a cup of cocoa that it high in flavanols could be a good idea. Other foods high in flavanols include nuts, apples, berries and tea. But not doughnuts, darn it.
Tip Eight: Vitamin D, It’s The Sunshine Vitamin: What’s the best source of Vitamin D? The sun. So, I certainly would have thought that living in Arizona, the state ranked Number One in sunshine, I wouldn’t have a Vitamin D deficiency. But I did, and I wasn’t alone. A whopping 70% of seniors have a Vitamin D deficiency. The reason is, as seniors our bodies generate only around 1/4th the Vitamin D as we did in our 20s.
And who needs Vitamin D protection the most given that it is instrumental in bone health by aiding the absorption of calcium, helps maintain muscle strength, boosts our immune system, regulates blood sugar, and plays a key role in fighting heart disease? It sure sounds like the answer is: seniors.
And speaking of heart disease, an exciting game changing study came out in 2025 by Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City. They found, in a large trial, that a Vitamin D3 supplements reduced the risk of a second heart attack in half for those who had suffered one previously.
And, imagine that. That’s the kind of results giant pharmaceutical companies tout from a pill they charge a $1,000 a month for. And here we can cut our second heart attack risk in half from something we get free from the sun. Or at worst, a month’s supply of D3 pills cost us only a few dollars.
The recommended dose of Vitamin D for seniors is 800 IU though some experts recommend up to 4,000 IU per day can have value, a higher dose should be in consultation with your doctor. Higher doses, especially above 4,000 IU can be harmful.
Tip Nine: Something to Sing About: Saffron! Some of us might remember the Donovan song Mellow Yellow from 1966, with the opening line, “I’m just mad about Saffron and Saffron’s mad about me.”
It turns out that there could be something very “Mellow Yellow” about the spice saffron, which is delicious in rice and many other foods, and available inexpensively as a supplement. 28 different studies have shown that saffron could be as effective with dealing with depression as anti-depressives are. And most “mellow yellow” for us seniors is that saffron seems to also have a positive impact on sexual function and on preserving memory function. A couple of important functions worth preserving, wouldn’t you say?
Tip Ten: Foodless Evenings: Oh, to be a kid again. I could eat anything, and I did. Milkshakes to my heart’s delight! And I never gained an ounce of fat. My mom would say she could use my ribs as a washboard. But now that I am a senior, there’s clearly no more clothes getting washed on my ribs.
Weight control is a tough issue for many seniors as our metabolism changes and it becomes difficult to shed unwanted pounds. Fat around the organs is a big issue for heart health and also impacts many other conditions such as diabetes.
One of the trends that has come into vogue is intermittent fasting, particularly by not eating for a 16-hour window, limiting eating to from noon to 8:00 pm. For many people this has worked well with weight loss and as well as other health benefits. Of course, other nutrition experts advocate that eating breakfast, and especially getting our protein in the morning, is important.
Either way, a recent major study at Northwestern University has added a new wrinkle. They found major health benefits by not eating the last three hours before sleep. So, if you go to bed at 10:00 then no more eating after 7:00. The study shows that by doing so we have meaningful drops in both our blood pressure and in our heart rate while we sleep and we also have better daytime blood sugar control. Not to mention that less time for evening snacking means less calories and in so doing controlling weight gain.
