1. Drink lots of water everyday.

Consume six to eight glasses everyday. Water is an essential nutrient just like vitamins and minerals because your body can not make enough of it to meet your daily requirements. It helps regulate body temperature, transports nutrients to your body cells, and helps remove waste. Because sensitivity to thirst diminishes with age, older adults all susceptible to dehydration, which can cause confusion, fatigue, headache and more.

2. Older people may need a vitamin B12 supplement.

If you are 50 or older, you should be taking a B12 supplement. B12 is essential for cell replication and red blood cell production. The acid in your stomach releases vitamin B12 from the meat you eat. The vitamin then binds to a substance called intrinsic factor that enables B12 to be absorbed into the blood stream. Up to one-third of older adults produce inadequate amounts of stomach acid and therefore can no longer properly absorb B12 from food.

3. Vitamin D health alert.

If you live in Northern climate (that includes Boston, Seattle, Chicago, and much of Canada, as well as parts of Europe), your body may be seriously lacking in vitamin D, essential for absorption of calcium. The majority of this vitamin is made in our skin upon exposure to sun-light. Not only do Northern climates receive little sun in winter, but summer’s bugs, poor air quality, and our desire to protect our skin against the sun’s harmful rays lead many to shun it during summer months, too. Vitamin D is important in helping calcium to shore up bones to protect seniors against fractures. Seniors need between 400 IU and 600 IU of vitamin D daily. One cup of fluid milk contains 100 IU, as does one cup of fortified soy or rice beverage as well as some fortified orange juices.

Will cutting down on calories slow your aging clock as well as help cut extra weight off your waistline? Since 1930s, scientists have known that restricting calories not only delays aging but even reverses some of its consequences in laboratory rats and mice. By feeding these animals a very low-calorie diet, a mere 30 to 50 percent of what they normally eat, scientists have been able to extend the lives of not only mice but also fruit flies.

One study was designed to see whether monkeys, fed a diet that included all required nutrients but two-thirds the usual calories, would live longer than normal. Data suggests that the primates who ingested a lean meal, as compared to their peers who ate all the food they wanted, had a lower incidence of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. One theory as to why there’s a link between eating less and living longer? Metabolism of foods leads to the production of free radicals; the less food consumed, the fewer damaging free radicals produced.

Rats and monkeys, however, are not humans. Before caloric restriction is recommended as a potential anti-aging strategy for people, carefully supervised studies on humans (such as those currently sponsored by the U.S. National Institute on Aging) need to be done. Caloric restriction is risky to try on your own: While it is generally known that seniors require fewer calories, the aging body is also less efficient in absorbing and using some nutrients. Knowing how to cut calories without compromising essential nutrients can be tricky; becoming undernourished would erase any benefits to be had. Low-calorie diets are likely to be deficient in some nutrients, and leading proponents of such regimens, such as anti-aging specialist Dr. Roy Walford of United States, believe that supplementation with vitamins and minerals is essential.