Lifestyle
Secrets revealed about how to live over 100
By Sue Mueller
Feb 11, 2008 - 5:06:04 PM

MONDAY FEB 11, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) -- Finally, researchers have gotten some ideas as to why or how centenarians live to age 100.   Maintaining a healthy lifestyle during the early elderly years including weight management, active physical activity, and not smoking may increase the odds of living to age 90, according to a study published in the Feb 11, 2008 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

As long as you maintain a healthy lifestyle, age-related diseases may not be too much of a factor that would otherwise reduce your odds of living to be a centenarian, reported another study published in the same issue of the journal, which suggests that avoiding chronic diseases is important, but not a necessary requirement for you to live as long as 100 years.

Researchers said that genetics plays a role in determining how long a person could live, but the modifiable environmental risk factors have a 75 percent share in one's lifespan.

In the first study, Laurel B. Yates, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues studied 2,357 men at an average age of 72 who participated in the Physician's Health Study starting in 1981 to 1984. They surveyed the participants for their height, blood pressure and cholesterol levels and how often they exercised twice in the first year and once in every year thereafter until 2006.

They found those who lived to age 90 or older were more likely to have not experienced smoking, diabetes, obesity and hypertension and those who indeed lived to that age generally enjoyed better physical function, mental well-being and self-perceived health in late life compared to men who died at a younger age.

Smoking, obesity and sedentary lifestyle were linked also to poorer functional status in elderly years, the researchers found.

Specifically, a 70-year old man who did not have the risk factors including smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and physically active had a 54 percent probability of living to age 90.   However, any of the four risk factors reduced the likelihood.

For instance, sedentary lifestyle reduced the chance of living to 90 to 44 percent, hypertension to 36 percent, obesity to 26 percent, and smoking to 22 percent.   Any combination of three risk factors would reduce the odds to 14 percent and all four risk factors combined lowered the odds to 4 percent.

The second study led by Dellara F. Terry, M.D., M.P.H., of the Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, and colleagues involved 523 women and 216 men age 97 or older. The researchers surveyed the subjects for their health history and functional ability.   Age-related diseases considered in the study included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, dementia, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, osteoporosis, Parkinson's disease and stroke.

The study showed only 32 percent centenarians acquired any age-related disease before age 85 and 68 percent started experiencing any of such diseases after 85. One can say delaying acquisition of any age-related diseases was critical and only one third of centenarians got their disease if any before 85.   One can also say that getting an age-related disease is ok as long as after the age of 85.

The researchers also found that men who lived such a long life tended to have better function and health status than women.   It is possible according to the report that men who could live to such an old age must be in excellent health condition compared to women who usually had a better endurance and even if their health was not so great, they may still live a long life.

A scientist affiliated with foodconsumer.org, but not part of either research teams cautioned that the results should not be misinterpreted.   He said all these data only suggest a statistical correlation between risk factors and longevity, not a cause-and-effect relationship.  

The results from both studies did not prove that people who follow a healthy lifestyle and are not subject to the studied risk factors such as sedentary lifestyle, obesity, blood pressure and diabetes would definitely have a 54 percent chance of living to age 90, the foodconsumer.org scientist said.

Those who lived a sedentary life may not be healthy enough in the first place, meaning a bad health status may not be a result of a sedentary life but the former may actually cause the latter.   Obesity can be corrected by surgery and blood pressure and diabetes can be controlled by taking medications, but that does not mean these patients live a healthy lifestyle that may give them good odds of living 90 or 100 years, he added.

For more information, read the abstracts of these two studies at

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/168/3/284

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/168/3/277