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 PrintableVersion 70 ways to beat 70Countdown?70 WAYS TO BEAT 70 The title of the book implies that reaching the age of 70 is a bad thing, but the aim is to help readers not only reach 70 in the best of health, but live beyond it. Each of the book’s 70 chapters deals with a diferent topic, well referenced and with a wide bibliography. All three authors are Christians with a medical background. The book reflects much of the received wisdom concerning health, but it’s good to always weigh this up for yourself, bearing in mind that medical opinion changes as more discoveries are made. Animal fats were once regarded as deadly, for instance, but it’s been shown that the real killers are trans-fats which include margarine, once touted as a healthy alternative. Interestingly, more than two-thirds of the chapters deal with our emotional health and relationships. Only in recent years has science caught up with the wisdom of Scripture which tells us to ‘Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life’ (Proverbs 4.23). Chapter 58 quotes research that has found genetic evidence of the corrosive effect of loneliness. ‘Lonely people also had underactive genes that control inflammation and cells’ life cycle’ and ‘those genetic patterns may show why chronic loneliness has long been linked to poorer health and accelerated ageing’. The ‘underactive genes’ is the key. Recent research shows that damaging emotions inhibit gene expression. During my own research I found more than one study showing clear links between feelings of loneliness and a significantly increased risk of developing dementia. Only once does the book appear to miss the beat. I debated whether or not to mention it, but it’s so important to the wellbeing of older people that it needed to be included. Chapter 64 describes an incident in a care home where a resident ‘who was always slumped over in her wheelchair and not connected with what was going on’ would lift her head, sit up in her chair and sing every word of a hymn when it was played. The writer puts it down to the power of music, but we know from experience in our care homes that the reaction comes from the ‘quickening’ of the believer’s spirit. Very often we find that simply reading Scripture, or preaching the Word, has the same effect. Louise Morse,
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