Dr Doug Wilson says living longer by itself is not necessarily desirable, it's about living well too. Photo / Laurilee McMichael
Dr Doug Wilson says living longer by itself is not necessarily desirable, it's about living well too. Photo / Laurilee McMichael
"Life is tough, and when you're older it's tougher," says Dr Doug Wilson.
"But there's a bonus, and that's that the happiest ages for individuals are in the late teens and from 60 to 80. With older people, ambition no longer has to be satisfied and if they do havesome cash and their health, they can be very happy."
Doug should know. The 84-year-old was the Ryman Healthcare Senior New Zealander of the Year at the 2021 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Awards.
A qualified medical doctor, lifelong researcher and academic and US-based drug company executive, in recent years Doug has moved to Taupō and his focus has turned from shepherding new drugs through the tortuous testing and approvals procedure to writing novels for young people and the study of ageing.
His overview of the evolving research into ageing has been distilled into two books: Aging for Beginners (2017) and more recently, Ageing Well (2021).
Doug says the need for a second book so soon after the first is because when it comes to the study of ageing, the science is moving incredibly fast and there is a lot of interest in it.
Up until a few years ago, people either lived long or they didn't and a lot of it was thought to be down to luck.
What has become clear in recent years though, is that although luck can play a part, a person can live longer by adopting certain lifestyle changes.
Dr Doug Wilson, 84, at the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Awards in April 2021. Photo / Supplied
Doug says the key though, is about living well during those extra years. He says for people sick, in pain or with poor quality of life, they may feel living longer is not a blessing at all.
"Living longer per se is not by itself necessarily a desirable outcome," says Doug. "Living longer with good health is clearly a desirable outcome.
"We are intervening to make people live longer and cutting down the negative impact of a lot of diseases but people live longer, irrespective. If you take people that have joint replacements, that didn't happen when I first graduated, we didn't have that technology, so people struggled on and lived for a significantly shorter time."
While the biggest killers used to be heart disease and stroke, the rate has fallen by 90 per cent over the last 50 years thanks to people's better understanding and new drugs which can control conditions such as high blood pressure.
"President Roosevelt in 1945 died of a brain haemorrhage. His blood pressure was running very high, and they had no proper hypertensive drugs back then. That sort of intervention can make a profound difference."
While dumb luck can mean some people live longer than others, socio-economic status is also a contributor. Doug says it's proven that people living in poverty die younger. Socio-economic status is a recognised contributor to poor health, and conditions such as obesity and diabetes disproportionately affect Māori and Pasifika.
Another factor is your level of activity. Older sedentary people have a less healthy lifestyle than those who are active. Diet is also significant. A good diet is associated with a healthier life expectancy.
Less obvious for longevity is a person's relationships but Doug says these can be critical.
Besides physical activity, mental activity is important.
"People put their brain into neutral. A lot of the time they'll sit in front of the TV, and only reach for the remote occasionally."
It's not a problem for Doug, who works fulltime and spends part of every day reviewing the latest medical research. But even he admits that like many older people, he worries about developing dementia. While treatment of high blood pressure can help stave off vascular dementia, there are other forms of dementia that can be lurking.
"If [older people] forget names, they wonder, is that a sign that I've got dementia? Some time ago, I had been to Mangakino but when my wife asked, I had forgotten the name. I wrote it down and keep looking at it on and off for a week and woke up the brain neuron that then remembered it. That kind of thing though is not a sign of dementia."
Doug says finding a balance of strategies for ageing well depends on the things that are really important to a person.
"If we want to have a healthier lifestyle, it requires work and if you do it in a desultory way, that may not have the same impact.
"Give it your best shot, and that's the only way to play."
