Age well & wisely
Why it’s never too late for cycling to shake up your life
In his new book, The Lazarus Strategy, Dr Norman Lazarus reveals how exercise is pivotal in navigating our way down the universal road of ageing and why, whatever your age, now is the time to bring about positive change for your later years
When, around six years ago, Dr Norman Lazarus began writing what would become his new book, The Lazarus Strategy, he could scarcely have imagined the state of the world he’d be releasing it into. Originally scheduled for March, its publication was put on hold – much like the rest of the planet – while the world tackled the first, devastating wave of Covid-19. The book was belatedly published in August.
But forget publication dates. It’s what’s inside its pages that makes it particularly timely. Subtitled How to Age Well and Wisely, the book is part memoir, part manifesto on how to live an independent, medicationfree, exercise-filled life in your later years. It is based not just on his own experiences – someone who took up cycling at 55, got fit, lost weight and became a UK veteran champion in audax at 66 – but also the academic research that he’s thrown himself into in recent years.
Why the book is so apposite partly comes down to the outcomes for people who contract Covid-19. We’re learning more every day about this horrendous virus, but what is clear is that the mortality rate increases as you get older. That’s without taking pre-existing conditions into account; there are numerous such conditions in play here that develop in people and which are the result of lifestyle choices, such as obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. These are problems that make inevitable ageing a more hazardous process. Obesity is in the headlines at the moment. Boris Johnson blames his own choppy battle with Covid-19 on being overweight and wants to address the country’s weight problem, where it’s estimated 1 in 4 adults has a BMI (body mass index) of over 30 – the technical tipping point into obesity. Whether he’s successful or not remains to be seen, given his ideological opposition to ‘nannying’, as he calls
it, makes it difficult to see how effective his intervention will be. Laura Laker has more on this subject on p10.
Playing the long game
Back to Norman. Like the rest of us, he’s been largely confined to barracks since March and he takes our Zoom call from his home in Woldingham in Surrey, a village high up on the North Downs. It’s a wet, miserable late-July day, which we both agree isn’t built for cycling. He still gets out on his bike plenty, but admits he’s a fair-weather summer rider now that he’s in his mid-80s.
“I go out for the pure enjoyment now,” he says. “I looked out of the window today and I think ‘No chance!’ I belong to Oxted Cycling Club and people head out irrespective of the weather. I think, ‘You haven’t learnt yet!’”
There’s little need for Norman to put himself through the wringer any further; he’s been there and got the t-shirt. From the first spins around his block as an overweight 55-year-old, to trips to the next town, and then further afield to Guildford, he ended up riding 1400km audax events, through day and night, rain and hail. Audax aren’t competitive but have minimum speeds of 15km/h in which to finish. They were ideal for him, admitting he can’t climb well nor is fast. But he has a physical and mental capability to endure.
As I listened to this fit, lean, sharp-as-a-tack 84-year-old down the video call talking about his entrance into the world of long-distance cycling, Norman shows that it’s never too late to make changes that will improve your quality of life.
“I was taught that, as I got older, all sorts of funny things were going to happen to me. I was going to develop diseases, heart and lung problems, the usual sort of ageing problems that were part of growing old when I was practising medicine. Then I started cycling seriously at 55. I went on, and got older, and got to 65, and none of the horrible things that were predicted to happen to me occurred.”
During his career Norman, originally from South Africa but settled in the UK since 1970s, worked as a medical doctor, in academia (he’s currently a professor of Human and Applied Physiological
Sciences at King’s College), and at the Department of Health – “following health ministers around, keeping them on track when they were asked awkward questions”. He came back out of retirement at 70 to study Healthy Ageing at King’s College with Professor Stephen Harridge, which they’ve been hard at work on since. Their study, ‘Major Features of Immunesenescence are Ameliorated by High Levels of Physical Activity in Adulthood’, was published two years ago in the journal Aging Cell and widely reported at the time in the British media, It attempted to find out why Norman’s body – and those of 125 other older audax riders – were holding up. It found the cyclists, aged between 55 and 79, had immune systems of 20-year-olds, with similar levels of T-cells, which help the body respond to infection.
Controlled ageing
Norman and his colleagues believe being physically active in older age can help the body respond to vaccines, something of particular relevance now. It prompted him to tell the BBC’s medical correspondent Fergus Walsh that “if exercise was a pill, everyone would be taking it”.
Testosterone levels were maintained and cholesterol was down – “everything was how it should be were you experiencing healthy ageing,” says Norman today. “Your power may be going down, but the basic blocks of your body were remaining coherent and in concert. You were going down, no doubt, but you were going down in a controlled way, in a way that’s the opposite of someone who isn’t exercising. If you do not exercise, and I think this is a phrase to remember from the book, then you may not be ill, but you may not be healthy either. If you don’t exercise, you may get obese – up to about 50, nothing’s happening. ‘Why should I exercise?’ you think. But things begin to catch up with your health.”
It’s perhaps human nature to put off things that aren’t relevant today, but ignorance of our own health is a ticking timebomb. A healthy, exercisefilled lifestyle, he says, is no guarantee that we won’t be immune to age-related illness and disease, but it will give you a better chance.
One area that Norman’s keen to discuss is that of exercise and diet. He believes that, while the two are linked, they should be thought of as separate entities. Diet alone, he says, has been shown in studies to be almost as an effective driver for weight loss as diet plus exercise, and wants to expunge the fat but fit myth. The health problems associated with being overweight remain, even if you cycle 15 miles before breakfast every morning. Controlling your diet is totally crucial and something he examines closely in the book.
The book, Norman insists, isn’t to pontificate on what you should do, but to lay out his experiences, personal and professional, as a way of showing you a different path, whatever your means of exercise. It’s a path that gives you a better chance of both keeping your independence in old age and being less dependent on the state for interventions on your health.
Above all, when it comes to exercise, you’ve got to find something you enjoy. Without it, you won’t keep at it. Cycling was the sport that stuck for Norman. “It fitted in with my personality,” he writes in The Lazarus Strategy. “I could do it by myself, I could go at a pace that suited me, and I liked the idea of covering long distances in the open air at a speed I regard as human. Never lose sight of the enjoyment aspect. If you do not get your mind into the correct mood, your physical activity will just become a burden.”
The Lazarus Strategy: How to Age Well and Wisely, by Dr Norman Lazarus, is published by Yellow Kite in paperback priced £14.99. Also available in eBook and audiobook
“I was taught that, as I got older, funny things were going to happen to me. None did”