Healthy aging

Focusing on the elderly from 1984 onwards

Because the cohorts of the Seven Countries Study and the general population were growing older, a decision was made to follow the increasingly older cohorts to study aging in the elderly – and its associations with various factors including diet and lifestyle.

The small cohort of survivors in Zutphen was supplemented with a new community sample of the same age. Thus, new studies were started in the elderly with a focus not only on the determinants of cardiovascular disease but also on healthy aging.

The FINE study and the HALE project assessed what healthy aging actually entailed and studied, in particular, the influence of diet, lifestyle and risk factors on different aspects of health.

Cardiovascular risk factors and all-cause mortality in the elderly

In the FINE Study the relations of classic cardiovascular risk factors with subsequent all-cause mortality were investigated in men aged 65-84 at baseline.

Cardiovascular risk factors and all-cause mortality in the elderly

Cardiovascular risk factors and long-term all-cause mortality

In the FINE Study the relations of classic cardiovascular risk factors with subsequent all-cause mortality were investigated in men aged 65-84 at baseline.

Cardiovascular risk factors and long-term all-cause mortality

Cognitive decline and all-cause mortality

In the FINE Study cognitive functioning was assessed in 1990 and 1995 in elderly men from Italy and The Netherlands.

Cognitive decline and all-cause mortality

Self-rated health, disability, depression and all-cause mortality

In the FINE study levels of self-rated health, disability and depressive symptoms were assessed in elderly men.

Self-rated health, disability, depression and all-cause mortality

Self-rated health, physician-rated health and mortality

Both self-rated and physician-rated health independently predicted all-cause mortality.

Self-rated health, physician-rated health and mortality

Widowhood and disability

The associations of different aspects of widowhood with disability were investigated in elderly men from Finland, Italy and The Netherlands in the FINE Study.

Widowhood and disability

Physical activity and disability

The results suggest that even in old age among relatively healthy men, a physically active lifestyle was inversely related to disability.

Physical activity and disability

Cardiovascular risk factors and disability

There is some evidence that classic cardiovascular risk factors measured in middle-age are related to disability and mental well-being in later life.

Cardiovascular risk factors and disability

Measuring functional status

Functional status was measured with a self-administered 13-item WHO-questionnaire on activities of daily living.

Measuring functional status

Disability and depressive symptoms

In elderly men from Finland, Italy and the Nethelands in the FINE Study, self-reported information on disability and depressive symptoms was collected in 1990 and 1995.

Disability and depressive symptoms

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