Healthy aging may depend on past habits
By Bruce Bower
Men younger than 50 can exert substantial control over their eventual physical and mental health after age 65, according to the most recent analysis of an ongoing 60-year-long study.
Those men who relatively early in life developed good habits, such as exercising regularly and coping flexibly with distressing situations, were healthier and happier in their senior years than those who had not developed such habits, conclude George E. Vaillant and Kenneth Mukamal, both psychiatrists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.