How to Win at Aging

Welcome back to One Day Better, where I share small steps that can help make today just a little better than yesterday. This week, I’m writing about:

• A big heart study

• A big brain study

• Joyscrolling!

How to Win at Aging

Two blockbuster studies — one focused on heart health, the other on the brain — just delivered some hopeful and really practical news about aging. The takeaway? It’s never too late to get your act together and focus on better health. Even small changes later in life can make a real difference —and you can start today. Ditch a few bad habits, adopt some good ones and you could gain years of healthier living. The brain research even revealed some surprising links between brain health and common drugs and supplements — including a shocking finding about a menopause hormone.

Let’s break down what each study found — and what it means for how you live now.

The heart study: This global study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at more than 2 million people across 133 cohorts in 39 countries — one of the largest efforts ever to understand how our midlife choices affect how long we live. Researchers focused on five well-known cardiovascular risk factors: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, and unhealthy weight (both underweight and overweight).

The findings were striking: people who reached age 50 with none of these risk factors lived more than a decade longer — and had more years free of heart disease — compared to those with all five. But perhaps the most encouraging insight was this: even making a single change in your 50s — like lowering your blood pressure or quitting smoking — extended life expectancy. The researchers also looked at what happened when people over 55 modified more than one risk factor, like losing weight and controlling diabetes. The greater the number of controlled risk factors, the greater the gain in additional life years.

I exchanged emails with the lead researcher, Professor Christina Magnussen at the University Heart and Vascular Center Hamburg, who said the study offered a hopeful message. “Even in midlife, it is not too late to adopt lifestyle changes,” said Magnussen. “The encouraging message is that everyone has the opportunity to positively impact their heart health by avoiding or addressing these modifiable risk factors.”

The brain study: This study, led by Stanford researchers and published in Nature Medicine, analyzed blood samples — from more than 44,000 people in the UK Biobank — to estimate the biological age of 11 different organs. They found that the age of your brain may be one of the strongest predictors of how long you’ll live. The science of organ aging is fascinating, but the study also shared new insights about the effect of everyday habits and medications on brain aging.

Researchers looked at 11 different organs and tested how each one responded to lifestyle choices like exercise, smoking, alcohol, sleep, and diet, as well as socioeconomic factors. Here’s what they found.

Patterns associated with faster-aging: Smoking, drinking alcohol, eating processed meat, poor sleep and lower socioeconomic status.

Patterns linked to more youthful aging: Vigorous exercise, eating oily fish and poultry and higher educational attainment.

Products linked to younger aging: In one of the most intriguing parts of the study, the researchers looked at 137 products to see how they related to biological age estimates for 11 different organs. Five products stood out as being significantly associated with youthful aging in the brain, pancreas and kidneys. These included: ibuprofen, glucosamine, cod liver oil, multivitamins, and vitamin C. These products share one potential throughline: they’re all linked in some way to immune support, inflammation control or oxidative stress — three processes deeply involved in aging.

There was one other product linked with youthful aging that was a true shocker: Premarin, the menopause hormone therapy that’s been at the center of controversy ever since the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study more than two decades ago. Back then, Premarin was blamed for increasing the risk of heart disease and breast cancer — leading to a steep drop in hormone use and decades of confusion and fear around menopause care. But in this new study, Premarin showed up again — this time linked to younger biological aging. This was an association, so don’t run out and start taking Premarin. But the signal was clear enough to suggest that estrogen may influence the body’s aging systems. This topic deserves its own full discussion around how poorly women have been served by knee-jerk interpretations of menopause research — so stay tuned!

What I’m taking away from this research:

At a certain age, it’s easy to feel like the die is cast, and that whatever is going to happen to you is going to happen. I’m certainly guilty of that thinking myself. But these two studies are a powerful reminder that aging is something we can influence. The heart study showed that changing even one habit in midlife can add years to your life. The brain study showed that some of our most mundane choices — how vigorously you move or whether you eat oily fish or choose processed meat or chicken as your protein source — can all have profound effects on how you age.

Joy scroll with me!

Here’s my weekly roundup of good news and interesting links to counteract the gloom.

Beluga whale cam: Launched this week in honor of Arctic Sea Ice Day, a new livestream from Polar Bears International and explore.org offers both above and below-water views of beluga whales as they migrate through the Churchill Estuary in Manitoba. The Beluga Cam can be hit or miss, but even when the whales are shy, you’ll still get the calming soundscape of Arctic waters where thousands of belugas gather each summer. Watch the cam.

Watch all the cams: I admit to being a bit obsessed with nature cams because they are a great way to take a brief mental break and mini escape. This link offers a nice way to peruse a variety of puppy, bear, osprey, sea life and other nature cams. Find your favorite cam.

Super-bear: The National Park Service Instagram shares this footage of a brown bear leaping from a small waterfall. I recommend turning on the sound. Watch the video.

Meet the Dogist: Elias Weiss Friedman started photographing dogs on the street as a personal project — now he’s The Dogist, with 11 million followers and a new book. He tells the Washington Post what dogs reveal about their humans, how he built a joyful corner of the internet and why your choice of breed might say more about you than you think. Read the conversation.

Family reunion: He grew up believing his American father had abandoned him. Decades later, a surprise DNA match connected Akihiko Yamamoto with the sister he never knew he had — and gave him the family he'd always longed for. Read more.

Our cosmic neighbor: One of my favorite Washington Post writers, Joel Achenbach, shares a breathtaking virtual tour of the Andromeda galaxy — our cosmic neighbor — captured in stunning detail by the Hubble Space Telescope. Explore.

Protein for breakfast: I recently started adding pea protein powder to my morning smoothie, so I was interested in this story about common protein mistakes from WaPo’s Anahad O’Connor. Read more.

Travel therapy: Research from Edith Cowan University suggests that travel may help slow the aging process. By exposing people to novel environments, physical activity and emotional uplift, travel may support immune function, reduce stress and enhance the body’s self-healing systems. Read a summary.

Message in a bottle: In 2012, a young couple tossed a love note into the sea off Newfoundland. When the bottle washed up on a beach in Ireland 13 years later, it was found by a coastal conservation group. Thanks to a quick post on Facebook, they tracked down the couple within an hour. Read more.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week. Let’s keep the conversation going! Send me your comments and ideas. Drop a note in our subscriber chat or message me directly on Substack!

Every week, the One Day Better newsletter celebrates the power of small steps. If you enjoyed reading, please share it with a friend. This newsletter is free and reader-supported. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a contribution here. This newsletter is copy edited and produced by Laney Pope.

Tara Parker-Pope, MPH is an Emmy Award–winning journalist who shared in the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has an MPH from the Yale School of Public Health and is now the Chief Content Officer at Thrive Global. This newsletter represents her personal views. Learn more at taraparkerpope.com.