About Longevity With Function

Since I don’t write these posts very often these days (life is busy with my little farm), today’s article will combine multiple ideas about aging and health.  I talk a lot about nutrition.  It’s important— even critical for functional life span.   And today, I’ll throw in some at the end. But it’s not everything. 

Elsie Calvert Thompson died peacefully in her sleep in March.  She was two weeks away from her 114^th birthday.  There's no doubt her birthday bash would have been a swinging one. 

“She was a very positive person. She loved people. She was always happy, she loved music, she loved to dance,” George, her son said. “It was just wonderful to have her as long as we did.” 

Thompson's caregiver of 13 years, said she never saw the elderly woman in a bad mood. she had worked with Thompson for the past 13 years as she continued to live in her own condominium in Florida as opposed to an assisted living facility.

Then there is 100 year old Fauja Singh who ran the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon recently.  He finished last, but he finished.  In fact it’s Singh’s eighth marathon. Though he was born in 1911, he didn’t start running until age 89.   

And from a study on longevity:  “We regard these individuals as wonderful models of aging well. Some of our subjects, ~15% have no clinically demonstrable disease at age 100 years and we call them “escapers.” About 43% are “delayers,”or subjects who did not exhibit an age related disease until age 80 years or later. Finally, there are about 42% of our subjects who are “survivors”, or those with clinically demonstrable disease(s) prior to the age of 80 years.  We have observed amongst supercentenarians (age 110+ years), that health span equals lifespan. Thus we believe that instead of the aging myth “the older you get the sicker you get,” it is much more the case of “the older you get, the healthier you’ve been.” 

My own feeling is that living to 100 or more is no fun if you’re not fully functional.  I am interested in the strategies that promote wellness and function.  I think they ultimately lead to longevity, too, but that’s not the point.  The point is to have good years at the tail end of life, wherever that is chronologically.  Again, from the longevity study: 

Once it truly became apparent that living to 100 was a terrific advantage, not just in years of survival but importantly in many more years of quality life, we set out to understand what factors the centenarians had in common that might explain such an advantage. Not all centenarians are alike. They vary widely in years of education (no years to post-graduate), socioeconomic status (very poor to very rich), religion, ethnicity and patterns of diet (strictly vegetarian to extremely rich in saturated fats). However, the centenarians we have studied do have a number of characteristics in common: 

1. Few centenarians are obese. In the case of men, they are nearly always lean.
2. Substantial smoking history is rare.
3. A preliminary study suggests that centenarians are better able to handle stress than the majority of people.
4. Our finding that some centenarians (~15%) had no significant changes in their thinking abilities disproved the expectation by many that all centenarians would be demented.⁴ We also discovered that Alzheimer’s Disease was not inevitable. Some centenarians had very healthy appearing brains with neuropathological study (we call these gold standards of disease-free aging).⁵
5. Many centenarian women have a history of bearing children after the age of 35 years and even 40 years. From our studies, a woman who naturally has a child after the age of 40 has a 4 times greater chance of living to 100 compared to women who do not.⁶ It is probably not the act of bearing a child in one’s forties that promotes long life, but rather, doing so may be an indicator that the woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly and that the rest of her body is as well. Such slow aging and the avoidance or delay of diseases that adversely impact reproduction would bode well for the woman’s subsequent ability to achieve very old age.
6. Some families demonstrate incredible clustering for exceptional longevity that cannot be due to chance and must be due to familial factors that members of these families have in common.⁹
7. Based upon standardized personality testing, the offspring of centenarians, compared to population norms, score low in neuroticism and high in extraversion.

I think numbers 1, 2, 3 and 7 are very interesting findings. Below is another study/experiment that indicates there are mental considerations to how we age. 

In 1979, psychologist Ellen Langer conducted a piece of research designed to test this idea. She invited a group of 75-year-old men to spend a week on a retreat. It was a retreat with a difference, though. The men were instructed to dress, speak and act as though the year was 1959. Their environment was decked out like it would have been in 1959, and no magazines or books dated later than 1959 were allowed at the retreat. 

Before the retreat, men underwent assessment of physical and mental function including their strength, posture, eyesight, intelligence, perception and memory.  

At the end of the week, the men were tested again, and most of the men had improved in all of the assessments. Even characteristics that are generally regarded as fixed – such as eyesight and intelligence – were found to have improved across the group. This research was subsequently detailed in Ellen Langer’s 2009 book entitled: Counter-Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility. 

How old you are biologically is not just about biology!  But a lot of it is.  I submit the following information as well.

Ötzi is probably the most-studied Neolithic man in history. More than 5,000 years ago, the ancient iceman was hit by an arrow and bled to death on a glacier in the Alps between modern-day Austria and Italy. The glacier preserved his body until it was discovered by hikers in 1991. 

Since his discovery in the Ötzal Alps by the hikers, scientists have reconstructed Ötzi's face, analyzed his clothing, scrutinized his body and sequenced his genome.  

What studies on Ötzi tell us are interesting from a nutritional standpoint.  He was a middle aged, well-off farmer/agriculturist, and he had heart disease and joint pain (arthritis).  His teeth tell the story of a carbohydrate rich diet, with several cavities, tooth wear and gum disease.  It’s the same kind of wear and tear and disease that’s also found on Egyptian mummies who ate grains. 

Then more mummies from many walks of history were examined and something like 34% showed signs of heart disease.  Some of these were pre-agricultural, so they were not eating grain.  Most of the Egyptian mummies were upper classes and most assuredly WERE eating grain heavy diets.  But blaming heart disease on grain is too broad.   

With the advent of research and investigation of inflammation as the cause of heart disease we find more enlightenment.  Do grains contribute to inflammation?  Absolutely.  They are packets of sugar which causes a rise in blood sugar, a rise of insulin—both inflammatory (not controversial, btw).  They also are heavy on Omega 6 oils, a surplus of which is highly inflammatory.  But many other things cause untoward inflammatory response which starts the disease process.  Not enough sleep, stress, bad attitudes, loneliness, injury, malnutrition.  For a complete treatise see my booklet on inflammation or do your own research. 

What can you and I take away from the above?  An up-attitude and seeing yourself as young and vital as opposed to old and frail is a wellness and longevity strategy.  Nutrition that is very light on high glycemic load foods that raise blood sugar and insulin.  (I recently read an article that recommended whole grains as low glycemic foods.  THEY ARE NOT!!  Glycemic load of 2 slices of white bread is 18, almost in the high range (20 is high, 1-10 is low).  The glycemic load of two slices of whole wheat bread is 12.  Not low.  All grains jack up blood sugar and insulin.  Wheat has many additional toxins, of which I have talked at length (see old blog articles). 

There’s a lot of opinion on what are inflammatory foods.  I might have to change some of my ideas some day when they get around to more research, but carbs are some of the most inflammatory, veggies not so much, fruit carbs less than most.  Roots less than grains, but not by much--sweet potato glycemic load on 1/2 cup is 9, same amount of white rice, 11).

Be sure you are not short on any nutrients.  Avoid stress, get enough sleep.  Get weight down or never let it get up.  Skip vegetable oils.  Cholesterol is your friend, not your enemy.  Socialize enough, love wisely but thoroughly!  What does that get you?  Maybe a long life, but for sure a better life for however long it is.

 

 

The Diseases of Civilization

When we look at human history and the ancestors from whom we got our genetic makeup, we have to remember they developed in response to all the selective pressure of any developing species.  A million or a hundred thousand years ago, the ancestors who did well biologically reproduced better, leaving their genetics behind.  Otherwise a species does not survive or progress.  So we come from humans who survived well on the diets of hunter/gatherer groups.  That diet had some variety depending on geography.  And humans are omnivores, clearly utilizing both plant and animal food sources.  These are the genetics from which we come. 

The advent of agriculture changed the diet but not the genetics.  Anthropologists, who study this stuff,  tell us that the advent of agriculture--growing grass seeds (grain)--made humans shorter and less robust.  Here's the first paragraph of an article by some of those scientists in the Journal of Nutrition, June 1, 1996 (not new!!!) titled "An Evolutionary Perspective Enhances Understanding of Human Nutritional Requirements"  I have taken out the reference info to make it easier to read.

"Human nutritional requirements reflect evolutionary experience extending millions of years into the past, and for nearly all this period genetic and cultural changes occurred in parallel. However, agriculture and, especially, industrialization produced technical and behavioral change at rates exceeding the capacity of genetic adaptation to keep pace.  Geneticists believe that the increased human number and mobility associated with civilization have produced more, not less, inertia in the gene pool and that when the humans of 3000-10,000 years ago depending on locality) began to take up agriculture, they were, in essence, the same biological organisms as humans are today. Accordingly, our ancestral dietary pattern has continuing relevance: an understanding of pre-agricultural nutrition may provide useful insight into the requirements of contemporary humans."

In plain English what that says is that human genetics haven't changed although our culture did and the two are no longer in sync nutritionally.

Yesterday I attended an Easter Brunch with a group of bright, educated, very forward thinking people. These were people who generally do not think the government is the best source of information to count on.  Food was discussed a lot because we were eating lots of it.  Not once or even twice, but three times I heard someone state the conventional "wisdom" about how bad cholesterol is for humans. 

The cholesterol hypothesis--although wrong in every way--remains front and center as the "cause" of heart disease (a disease of  civilization).  It gets the funding.  It gets the press.  Everybody believes it because we've heard it a million times--all one word--"ARTERY-CLOGGING-SATURATED-FAT".

The story of how the cholesterol hypothesis got to this sorry state of prevalent belief can be found in the book, "Good Calories Bad Calories"  and "The Great Cholesterol Con" and in many youtube videos including "Big Fat Fiasco" found here,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=exi7O1li_wA
The Congressional committee who decided the "validity" of the cholesterol hypothesis, and the resulting food pyramid had some dissenters who were overridden.  As a result, we've had a 50 year nutritional experiment conducted on Americans.  How's that working for us?

I leave you today with a comment--in the congressional record--from one of those dissenters.

"Heart disease, cancer and diabetes are what we call diseases of civilization.  It's ludicrous to blame the diseases of civilization on ancient foods.  Saturated fat (cholesterol) is an ancient food."

And my final comment.  You and I are designed to eat animal products including lots of animal fat.  We were not designed for grass seeds, vegetable oils and sugar.  Avoid the diseases of civilization by eating ancient foods.

What's Your CRP Number?

CRP stands for C-Reactive Protein.  It is a simple blood test that measures the level of inflammation in your body.  If you've read many of my blog articles you know I harp on chronic inflammation being the cause of all disease.  It is the beginning.  Of ALL disease.  Every one.  Ok, you might get an argument for a few about some disease or another.  But even conventional wisdom says the chronic preventable things all have an inflammatory component.  When your immune system is cranked up and stays in high gear 24/7 from the things that you eat and the lifestyle choices you make, inflammation starts to damage organs and systems.  Period.

So the following snippets are from a marketing research group Saurange, at this website: http://saurageresearch.com/bullets-january-2013/

• The United States is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal health insurance system. (nih.gov)
• 75% of all health care dollars are spent on patients with one or more chronic conditions, many of which can be prevented, including diabetes, obesity, heart disease, lung disease, high blood pressure, and cancer. (cdc.gov)
• There are four times as many health care lobbyists in Washington as there are members of Congress. (sickothemovie.com)
• An estimated seven to 10 million people worldwide live with Parkinson’s disease. In the United States, as many as one million individuals live with PD, which is more than the combined number of people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy and Lou Gehrig's disease. Approximately 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease each year, and this number does not reflect the thousands of cases that go undetected. Incidence of Parkinson’s increases with age, but an estimated four percent of people with PD are diagnosed before the age of 50. Statistics have shown that men are slightly more likely to have Parkinson’s disease than women. (Parkinson's FAQ)
• The flu kills about 36,000 people each year in the US—90% of those who die of the flu are 65 or older. (cdc.gov)

All those diseases are avaoidable.  Nothing jumps out and gets you.  You ask for it.  Literally.  Read more about inflammation in my ebook, all over the web, several popular books, tho some have missed the boat in a few places....

 

Take the CRP test.  Go to your doc and ask for it.  If your number is higher than 1, you are at risk and you are causing damage somewhere in your body even if you do not currently have symptoms.  And get your Vitamin D level checked while you're at it. 

 

Best,

Ellie

What does "No Wheat" do for you?

Yesterday Novak Djokovic won the Austrailian Grand Slam for the third time.  He went gluten free two years ago and his career in tennis took off like a shot. Not that he was a bad player before going gluten free.  But he is now number 1 in the world.

Tennis is very physical, of course.  It also is very much a mental game.  Gluten can affect mental stamina and clarity as well as physical.  Clearly, Djokovic's mental and physical games have improved.

I just mention the above for it's nice to find some media mention about devil wheat, rather than always touting the healthiness of whole grains.  They are not.  Humans have several million years of living with no grain in their diet.  They were strong and robust.  With the advent of agriculture, humans get smaller, less robust and less healthy.  But lots more of them.  With the advent of agriculture, the soil that animals, nature and weather had created over millenia, started eroding away.  With the advent of agriculture, humans went to war to get more land to denude since all they had was no longer productive.  Strong case I think.  It is outlined comprehensively in "The Vegetarian Myth." 

So what can getting off gluten (and grains) do for you?  Probably you do not want to win any grand slam tennic matches.  But do you want to be mentally sharper?  Would you like to have less painful joints?  Would you like to lose weight?  Lower Blood pressure?  Get off medications?  Getting off wheat (and other grains) might do some of those for you.  I found arthritis abated dramatically.  And I was so sure wheat was not a problem for me.

There's invisible stuff too.  Wheat ties up minerals so your body cannot use them.  So while all the conventional wisdom touts the minerals in wheat as one of the healthy things about it, they do not do YOU any good.  Wheat and baked good and other cereals are just very condensed packets of sugar.  They raise your blood sugar, trigger insulin release, make you hungrier, and thereby contribute to a host of the diseases of civilization.

What do you have to lose?  A 2 week elimination diet of no wheat or grains costs you nothing, absolutely cannot hurt you, and might make you feel a whole lot better and be a whole lot healthier.  Not particularly easy, I admit, for wheat is in everything it seems.  And I hear this so often--"Well what do you eat then???"  Wow, if wheat is the staple of your life, I guarantee you're not doing as well as you should--both mentally and physically.  Eat more protein, vegetables, animal products, some fruit and nuts.  There is a lot of great food that is not grain!!!  Try it, you'll like it!

Ancestral Health, Paleo Diet and Primal Blueprint

...are some of the names given to a very broad movement of people interested in avoiding the diseases of civilization.  It's a big movement with disparate subsets that do not agree with each other totally.  I commend the following article to you (from GreenMed)   click here 

The jist of the article (I think) is simply that what our ancestors ate before the advent of agriculture was varied and dependant on where they lived.  We cannot know exactly what they ate, though real anthropology, nitrogen and carbon dating techniques can tell us a lot.  The evidence is clear that pre agricultural humans did not get cancer, diabetes, heart disease or the many other diseases of civilization.  Yes, they ran risks that we do not.  Their world was fraught with potential perils.  But those who survived the physical dangers lived functional lives without alzheimers and depression and osteoporosis and autism and irritable bowel syndrome and polycyctic disease.  And all the others.

So perhaps it's not quite so important that we nail down exactly what's in a historical paleolithic diet as it's important to understand what was NOT in it.  Such as:

Grass seeds probably never had a part of a paleo diet.  Grass seeds are too labor intensive.  Biologically speaking, grass seeds (grains) are little bundles of huge amounts of energy (sugar) for starting new plants.  Early humans didn't eat grains.

Industrial sludge, commonly called vegetable oil, (high in inflammatory Omega 6 oils) did not exist.

Sugar was not part of anything.  Early humans ate a diet that was very low in sugars and the things that become sugar in digestion.  The entire blood sugar/insulin system served a completely different purpose--to shuttle nutrients into cells, not to lower blood sugar.  The insulin system's function to lower blood sugar was only meant for the emergency situation when they found a bee tree and honey or a big crop of ripe berries.

The vegetative matter they gathered was organic and not fertilized with petrochemicals, but with the natural fertilizer of animal waste and the breakdown of  other plants and animals.

Fruits were less common, were in season, and relatively hard to come by, not hybridized nor stored on shelves for weeks.

There was nothing prepackaged.  They ate real food and there were no phoney colors, preservatives or pesticides in it.

No factory farmed livestock that ate grass seeds, got fat and needed antibiotics. 

No sweetened drinks.  No deserts.  No bread, no ceareal, no flouride in their water, no antibacterial soap. 

Yet, with all the trappings of civilization missing, early humans thrived and raised families and had well developed social groups, rituals and development.  And they proliferated--filling the globe.  That's biological success.

Now, humans die by millions--of degenerative diseases, often after years of gazillion-dollar medical intervention (proceedures and pharmaceuticals).  While I'm truly delighted that I do not have to run away from a hungry predator, I also do not want to live my declining years in hospitals and doctor's offices. 

My aunt died recently of cancer.  She was 90 years old.  What I heard from relatives was that wasn't so bad, afterall she was 90.  I say that cancer is not inevitable, nor is heart disease or many of the other things that kill--whether it's at 20 or at 90.  We know that cancer grows on its preferred fuel (glucose).  You cannot eat a diet high in sugar and sugars for a lifetime without paying a price in pathology--sooner or later.  High sugars and the resulting high insulin are inflammatory.  Eventually every cell in the body is responding with the immune response--inflammation--the body's response to insult.  And when the inflammation cannot work it's healing job because it is forever being initiated, never shutting down, it begins to damage some of those cells and allows pathology to get a foothold.

I read something recently (have forgotten the source, unfortunately.)  "Cancer doesn't make a person sick, cancer results when a person is sick."   And today I leave you with a couple other sound bites.

Buring fuel (food) causes the production of free radicals which age us and cause inflammation (they do physical damage to cells.)  More food, equals more free radical damage.  But the interesting part is this:  While protein and animal fat do cause some free radical production, carbohydrates cause many, many times more.

Your are what you eat--or, "We dig our graves with our teeth!"

Catching up...

It's been a long time since I last "spoke" to you. A lot has happened in my world since then. It may be a long time till I write again, too, for lots is happening still! 
The decade I spent disabled with arthritis -- it turns out-- might have been a blessing in disguise. Modern medicine gave me (finally) four titanium joints that enable be to get around fairly well. My abiding goals have always been to feel good and to be able to raise livestock and garden. Function. But with my new joints, then I got busy with research. I started with a premise. Whether I subscribe to evolution or a creative deity, my premise is the same:  

It's not right to be disabled at such a 'young' age. It's neither divine nor adaptive to survival. What did I do wrong to get there!

That research has been the impetus for this blog, for the website and for the booklets I wrote. It turns out that I may be quite out in left field (though I have good company) because I do NOT think poor health, function and feeling crappy jumps out and gets me. I think I did things that got me there. The human birthright is feeling good and being disease free. Any deviation from that is self inflicted. My research set out to discover why I spent that decade as a virtual cripple.

Whether I believe in divine creation or in an evolving survival of species adapted to environment--or both, my conclusion is the same.  The human is a perfectly self healing, adaptive organism with mechanisms to stay healthy and functional—commonly called homeostasis.  But humans also have certain biological requirements.  Ignoring those results in departure from homeostasis and the body kicks in its one notr mechanism for righting things—the inflammatory response.  Philosophically, I think it would be more adaptive if there was more than one healing mechanism—but there is just one.  So, injury, toxins, deficiencies, all get treated the same and the body inflames in response. 

Cool.  Except that it turns out modern humans are insulting their biology 24/7, often without knowledge of it.  I learned to pay attention to the old adage, “follow the money" for the money interests are touting those insults as healthy and totally ignoring biology. 

What happens when the inflammatory response is initiated and never stops?  It ceases to heal and instead damages.  The fact that the damage takes decades to make an arthritic cripple, to initiate cancers or other diseases, indicates how really remarkable the human biology is.  But the bottom line is this.  Chronic inflammation starts the disease process—all of them.  Including things we’ve been told are just part of getting older.  Untrue.  Disease is not part of getting older.  It’s part of chronic inflammation.

So what I discovered for me is that even with new joints my skeleton was riddled with painful arthritis.  And I fixed it by getting very serious about stopping the chronic inflammation.  No more arthritis pain.  Along the way, my blood pressure got better.  I have more energy.  My brain got sharper.  My moods got universally up.  I just bought a small farm in the way outback of Oregon and am raising livestock and gardening and homesteading again.  At 68.  And I’m planning on another 30 years of it, too. 

I think any amount of effort on diet and nutrition is worth those results.  My experience in talking to people is that I must be very different than most folks because they don’t want to hear that their diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, anxiety, schizophrenia etc has anything to do with what they put in their mouths.  There seems to be huge emotional attachment to eating for disease and death: "My doctor said…”  “The TV tells me…”  “How could what I eat have anything to do with my body?”

It tires me.  It discourages me.  It’s sad.  And I get it that most relish or at least tolerate feeling bad.  I don’t and the information is available to anyone with a library and a computer.  I have so much to do in the next 30 years!  And joy to experience.  I wish everyone that joy and function, but I recognize I can’t change others and must just take care of me. 

 By way of saying I’m opting out of the crusade to convince anyone to eliminate chronic inflammation and let it go back to its real job of healing insults once in a while.  Not to eat sugars and the things that convert to sugar (grains).  Not to use vegetable oils.  To eat enough cold water fish or take fish oil.  To take plenty of extra vitamins and minerals because unless they are growing their own, there is precious little nutrition in grocery stores.  To get plenty of sleep, eat plenty of animal products (preferably not factory farmed).  To exercise intensely once in a while and move a lot the rest of the time.  To hug the ones they love.  That’s what it takes. Basically to live like our hunter/gatherer ancestors who didn’t eat crap and got real food.   

It makes me weird to not participate in our cultural suicide by food.  I’m good with that.  My garden and goats and chickens are my reward.  At 68 and beyond. 

What I've found out is what I put in the e-books at http://mindingthemiddleagedmiddle.com/  That's about the most I can do to condense several years of research into an explanation and overview on what we REALLY know about human health.  The health information you hear on TV and even from doctors and nutritionists is about money and misinformation.  Sometimes with the best of intentions.  Be careful who you believe (including me) and see what is actually real in research and nutrition.

What kind of exercise makes sense past 50?

The old wisdom said exercise should taper off in intensity as a person gets older.  We now know that's bunk!  When you hear terms like sarcopenia (decreasing muscle mass) it is almost exclusively applied to older people.  The science has proven pretty conclusively it has nothing to do with age.  It's about how much a muscle gets used.

So why should you care?  What's so great about muscle, anyway?

Muscle is is important past middle age for at least two reasons.  First of all, it moves you.  Muscle is what makes you able to pick up a grandchild or move a bale of hay or participate in a sport or carry a bag of groceries.  It equals how functional your body is. 



I've been pushing the idea that function is our natural birthright.  Frail, sick and limited is not our birthright.  There is a marathon runner who is 100 years old.  There are centenarians who live alone, drive, garden, participate in sports and hobbies they love.  There is an award winning body builder who is over 70.  Muscle is what makes all that possible.

The other purpose of muscle is about vanity.  It looks better.  For women, that swinging flapping upper arm syndrome happens when the triceps muscle no longer keeps the area taut.  Cellulite happens when fat overtakes muscle that's declining.  And it will without exercise.

Look at these pictures.  The woman weighs the same in both pictures.  Which would you rather look like?

Muscle loss is a result of not using it.  Muscle development is a result of using it.  Simple.  That's where exercise comes in.

Let me mention a pet peeve of mine.  There is lots of talk about what good exercise walking is.  It's certainly better than sitting on a couch.  It is not going to do anything for your muscles unless your walking is up hills and mountains, and lasts for many hours.  If you want function and to look good.  lift and move heavy stuff with some real intensity.  It does not have to be in a gym.  But intensity is the key, and if your exercise does not get your heart beat up and make you breathe hard--if you don't feel it in your muscles, it's not doing much.

Here is a link to an article that has some very interesting pictures.  http://theurbanathleteblog.com/2012/01/11/lifelong-exercise-and-strength-training-in-older-adults/

Which upper leg do you think looks good?  Which person do you think can still carry bags of potting soil and grandchildren and have fun? 

Now, those pics of upper leg muscle were from people who used their legs in high intensity.  But the kicker is that we didn't see a cross section of the arm muscles and if they're not getting used, they won't show such great aging.  Exercise only preserves the muscles you use.  There’s no “whole body neuroprotective effect,” So if you want to look good and be able to do lots of 'stuff' you must exercise all the muscles of your body.  Weight training can do that in the shortest amount of time.  It is perfectly safe for older adults.  When I was a personal trainer, I had clients--a husband and wife--he was 90 and she was 87.  Both made huge gains in strength, weight loss and appearance.  It's never too late!  Don't have a gym close by?  Get a few dumbbells, or some bands.  There are many exercises that can be done with no equipment at all. 

Here are some youtube videos of bodyweight exercises

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UayvOd0xlAU&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76HjVOoUX6U&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNRiFnyqTxQ&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrHG7m4m4-A

Besides all the nutrition information I've talked about, exercise is the other biggie for looking better and feeling better well into your ninth or tenth decade!