A friend once told me that if a person can live through the sixties than most likely they can live well into their seventies or eighties and if very lucky maybe even into their nineties. 

I have every intention of living until I’m at least 90 years old; 100 would be better.  But I’m beginning to think there is some truth to my friend’s comment about surviving the decade between age sixty and age seventy.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association this year the oldest baby boomer is turning 65.  This year I turned 61.  And according to the Boomer Report, “Too many of America’s baby boomers will spend their retirement years either with Alzheimer’s or caring for someone who has it.”   If I’m going to live to be 100, I have to start now thinking about the quality of life I will have to get there.

From the day we are born, our bodies begin to grow but at some point each of us begins to erode or “age.”  In the harrowing movie, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” we see what it would be like to wake up old and grow younger as you live your life backwards.  If that was the way everyone lived, it would not be so curious, but it is not.

I think that for the most part I’ve lived a healthy life with the usual things like flu, ear infections, root canals, four babies (2 c-sections), umbilical hernia operation, laser surgery on my eyes, and migraine headaches for many many years.   When I turned forty, I started wearing bifocals; and at fifty, I tackled menopause without the use of drugs. I reached age sixty without knee problems, hip problems or any chronic illnesses and I thought I was home free.

This is because some time in my early fifties I was at a meeting where the guest speaker was Dr. Tom Cable from the Optimal Health Institute.  Before he left, he said if I leave here with one message and only one, it should be to take your fish oil pills.  He had explained earlier the importance of the omega-3 pills saying in laymen’s terms that the brain is made of up “mush” as he put it, and research has shown that the omega-3 in the fish oil keeps the brain more mushy, therefore delaying the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s.  Since then I rarely miss a day taking my fish oil pills.  “Fish oils have been effective in helping many patients with both physical and mental conditions. There are research studies showing benefits from fish oils in Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, coronary artery disease, bipolar disorders, depression, and ADHD to name a few.  Theoretically, there is almost no condition that EFA’s would not help,”  according to Dr. Cable.

I may be wasting away, but when I’m sixty-four, I will still strong and well because I will do it in my time by making healthy choices every step of the way.  Which by the way is also God’s time; for together we can do all things.