NEW YORK, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- For those age 65 and over, it's never too late to improve health through diet and exercise, a U.S. review said.
Lead symposium editor Dr. Richard Rivlin of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York said the research has an extremely important and positive message.
"Many elderly people feel that it is too late for them to improve their health, but that is simply not true," Rivlin said in a statement.
The report, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found adults over age 65 can significantly improve their health with simple lifestyle changes even if they had an unhealthy lifestyle in the past.
Some of the actions that can benefit those over 65 include:
-- Lowering high blood pressure by improving diet and exercising. This had more dramatic health benefits for the elderly than for any other age group and could prevent one-fifth of coronary heart disease cases in men and 30 percent in women.
-- Adhering to a low-calorie diet with regular exercise lowers rates of cancer. In one study, risk was reduced by nearly 50 percent.
-- Weight training and supplementing with calcium and vitamin D to help prevent osteoporosis and reduce the number of bone fractures.
