Yeah, I keep reminding people, especially young people about this.

What's the use of living until you're 70 if you spend the last ten years of life living in a body that is half dead?

I know one guy who worked in heavy industry retire at 65 and decided to just smoke, drink booze and eat junk on his couch for his retirement. He loved it for about two years. Then he had heart attack, diabetes, and early signs of dementia. He lingered for 8 more years living a miserable life before he died a slow death in hospice for about a year.

One my of neighbours is 80 years old and still at home ... but for the past ten years, he's been battling cancer, heart problems and almost semi regular infections of some kind. His entire life is just pain every day. He keeps ending up in the hospital for something ... only to return a week or two later after having survived. He is just miserable all the time and the only way anyone can see him coming out of all this is to die.

I have another old friend who is 70, great heart, good weight, good bodily health .... but she has Alzheimers ... and she's had signs of it for the past ten years. She'll live for a while but what kind of life is it to not have your memory for the last ten years of your life?

Take care of yourself as much as possible now while you are young. Sure some of this is just genetics or luck but I'd rather try my best to have a decent quality of life later on than do things to guarantee I'll be miserable at the end of my life.