Dr. Bob's Five-Part Plan to Age Stronger After 60
By Dr. Robert Lee Oksenholt
For people past 60, five things stand out: walking, lifting weights, creatine, olive oil, and a daily multivitamin. Walking and lifting matter most; the supplements support them.
The first two do the most to keep you fit.
Walking keeps your heart, blood sugar, and brain in better shape.
Lifting weights keeps your muscles and bones strong enough to get you out of a chair, up the stairs, and back on your feet.
The other three support the first two.
Creatine helps the muscle you're working get stronger.
Olive oil protects your blood vessels.
A multivitamin fills the dietary gaps that come with age.
Walking and lifting cost almost nothing.
Together, the three supplements come to about $2 to $4.50 a day. That's the price of a cup of coffee.
WALK FIRST
Walking is the cheapest medicine I know. With every step, your heart pumps harder and sends more blood to your brain. Your working muscles pull sugar out of your blood to burn for fuel, which helps keep your blood sugar down. Your bones carry your weight.
Bone is alive. When it carries your weight, cells inside it sense the strain and build more bone. Stop using it, and your body takes the bone away. That's why astronauts lose bone in space.
You don't need a gym to begin. Open the door. Walk. Tomorrow, walk again. In time, go a little farther.
THEN LIFT
After about 30, we start losing muscle, and the loss speeds up as we age. Lifting weights is the best way to slow it down.
Give the muscle work, and it has a reason to stay strong.
When you make a muscle work against resistance, it gets stronger. It also pulls against bone, giving bone a reason to stay strong.
You don't have to lift heavy weights.
Use dumbbells, resistance bands, or get up from a chair 10 times without using your hands. Start light. Do it two or three times a week.
WHY CREATINE HELPS
Muscle runs on a molecule called ATP. Think of it as the body's fuel.
Every time a muscle tightens, it burns ATP. But a muscle stores only a few seconds' worth.
ATP has three phosphates attached in a chain. When a muscle needs energy, it breaks off the third phosphate, releasing energy. Creatine carries a spare phosphate and returns it, turning the tired molecule into fresh fuel in a fraction of a second. The more creatine in the muscle, the longer it can keep going.
For older adults, ten grams a day is a good dose. You don't need more. More can upset your stomach. Buy plain creatine monohydrate and keep it simple.
Tell your doctor you take it. Creatine can raise creatinine on a kidney test even when your kidneys are fine. If you have kidney disease, ask your doctor first.
IT WORKS BEST WHEN YOU LIFT
A 2025 review found that older adults who lifted weights and took creatine gained more leg strength and lean muscle than those who lifted without it.
Creatine doesn't do the work for you. It helps the muscle you're already working.
Take the creatine. Lift weights.
WHAT CREATINE DOES FOR YOUR BRAIN
Your brain needs energy, just like your muscles. Though it makes up only about 2 percent of your body weight, it uses roughly 20 percent of the body's energy.
When people take creatine for a few weeks, brain scans show creatine in the brain increases by about 3 to 10 percent from where it started.
A 2024 review found small gains in memory, attention, and processing speed. Those are the things you notice first when they slip: the name you can't find, the thought you lose halfway through a sentence.
THE OLIVE OIL NUMBER
I've written about olive oil before. Patients still ask the practical question: Which bottle should I buy?
The useful compounds are called polyphenols, and olive oil bottles vary in how much they contain. The olive matters. The harvest date matters. The pressing method matters. Age matters. "Extra virgin" alone doesn't tell the story.
Choose a high-polyphenol extra virgin olive oil.
Here's what polyphenols do. Your body constantly makes unstable molecules called free radicals that damage cells, including the fats in your blood.
Damaged fats are a step toward hardened arteries. Polyphenols neutralize free radicals before they do harm. One of them, oleocanthal, is what makes good, high-polyphenol olive oil sting the back of your throat.
Polyphenols also help your blood vessels relax and open.
Oleocanthal calms inflammation the same way ibuprofen does, only more gently. In a large Spanish trial, people who ate a Mediterranean diet rich in extra virgin olive oil had about 30 percent fewer heart attacks and strokes (than people on a low-fat diet).
The European Union lets sellers claim that polyphenols protect the fats in your blood, but only for oil with at least 250 milligrams of polyphenols per kilogram.
Two tablespoons a day at or above that level is a reasonable target. Find a good one, and it becomes the easiest health habit you have. It's food.
OLIVE OIL BUYING POINTS
Choose:
a harvest date within the past 12 months.
Early-harvest oil.
Dark bottle or tin.
A tested polyphenol number, if available.
A peppery bite in the back of your throat.
Keep it cool and dark. Use it within four to six weeks after opening. Heat, light, and time break down the polyphenols.
A MULTIVITAMIN — THE CHEAP ONE
As we age, the body absorbs some nutrients less well. B12 is one of them. Low B12 can affect the blood and nervous system and, when severe, can affect thinking and energy. A multivitamin helps fill that gap.
In COSMOS-Mind, 2,262 older adults took a daily multivitamin or placebo for three years. The multivitamin group did better on memory and thinking tests.
In COSMOS-Clinic, researchers tested 573 people in person over two years. Memory improved. Overall thinking improved a little.
Researchers said it was as if their brains had aged about two years less. Two years is not forever. As we get older, it isn't nothing either.
For a pill that costs pennies a day, that's a good return.
DR. BOB'S PRESCRIPTION
Walking: Most days. Go a little farther as you get stronger.
Lifting: Two or three times a week. Start light.
Creatine monohydrate: About ten grams a day with your lifting.
Extra virgin olive oil: About two tablespoons a day. Fresh, early harvest, tested. If you can't find it at your supermarket, you can order it online.
Multivitamin: Take one ordinary multivitamin formulated for older adults once a day. The cheap one.
Creatine is cheap. Olive oil is food. A multivitamin costs pennies. Walking and lifting are free.
Start where you are. You do not have to become younger. You are trying to stay stronger. Walk today. Lift something tomorrow. Keep going.
Walk. Lift. Then take your creatine, your olive oil, and your vitamin. Keep the routine simple.
Use the body. Keep it working. Stay stronger.
THE BEST EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OILS YOU CAN BUY
These oils have been lab-tested for polyphenols.
Hearst Ranch Estate Olive Oil (Paso Robles, California): Locally grown, cold-pressed, bottled in small lots and release-dated. Around $28 a bottle.
PJ Kabos Family Reserve (Greece): USDA Organic, 750+ mg/kg polyphenols, Koroneiki olives, harvest date on the label. Their "Phenolic Shot" reaches 1,100 mg/kg. Around $30–40.
The Governor (Corfu, Greece): 1,174 mg/kg polyphenols, verified by an independent lab. Made from Lianolia olives off trees hundreds of years old. Around $50–70.
Ellora Farms (Crete, Greece): Single estate, PDO certified. Enter the lot number on their website and trace your bottle from grove to shelf. Multiple gold awards.
Apollo Olive Oil (Oregon House, California): Family-owned. The olives are crushed in an oxygen-free mill to keep more polyphenols. Averages about three times the polyphenols of standard extra virgin oil. Certified organic.
Entimio (Italy): Organic, 600–900+ mg/kg depending on the label. Dark glass, harvest date on every bottle. 2025 NYIOOC Gold Award. Around $28–48.
Healthy Harvest True Tuscan (Tuscany): A family estate operating since 1803. Cold-pressed on a stone wheel within an hour of picking. 463 mg/kg polyphenols, lab verified. $41.99 for 500 ml.
Laconiko (Laconia, Greece): 578 mg/kg polyphenols. Single estate, 12-time NYIOOC Gold Medal winner. Around $25–35. Their ZOI line reaches 1,397 mg/kg, among the highest documented in the world. Around $55–70.
Kosterina (Southern Greece): 500+ mg/kg polyphenols, 100% Koroneiki olives, harvest date on every bottle. Around $25–35.
WellEatable (Tuscany, Italy): USDA Organic, single family estate. Their Robust label tests at 1,200+ mg/kg and Ultra High at 1,500+ mg/kg. 2025 NYIOOC Gold Award. Around $35–45.
Further Study
Creatine:
Creatine and Resistance Training in Older Adults – 2025 Meta-Analysis
Creatine and Bone in Postmenopausal Women – Two-Year Trial
Creatine and Cognition – 2024 Meta-Analysis, Frontiers in Nutrition
Creatine Safety
Creatine, Creatinine and Kidney Testing
Creatine and Brain Creatine Levels
Creatine and Sleep Deprivation – 2024
CABA Pilot – Creatine in Alzheimer's
Creatine Added to SSRI in Women With Depression
Olive Oil:
Polyphenol Content of Olive Oil
Olive Oil Polyphenols and Health
Price and Polyphenol Content – 2025
Multivitamins:
COSMOS Combined Analysis
COSMOS-Mind
COSMOS-Clinic
NIH Cohort: Multivitamins and Mortality – JAMA Network Open
Dr. Robert Lee Oksenholt is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) and a triple-boarded subspecialist, certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, and Critical Care Medicine. He has been a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians (FCCP) since 1994. With more than 40 years as a critical care physician, he continues to care for hospitalized patients, including in underserved areas. His specialty is helping people avoid his professional services.
