By Teresa Carr
Adams County Senior Council
Administrative Assistant
From everydayhealth.com/healthy-aging: These Habits Can Help You Live to Be 100, by Becky Upham, June 21, 2024
What does it take to live to be 100 years old? If you answered good genes mixed with a little luck, you may be in for a surprise: There are actually a few habits that increase your chances of joining the “centenarian club,” according to a new study.
When it comes to lifestyle choices, physical activity appears to be the most important to extend life into the 100s, followed by never smoking and having a healthy diet, says a coauthor of the study, Xiang Gao, MD, PhD, a professor and researcher at the Institute of Nutrition at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Never or not smoking, not drinking or moderate drinking, regular exercise, dietary diversity, and a BMI within the normal range were all considered favorable. For each category, participants were assessed on both their current and former status.
Scientists evaluated participants’ diets based on how often they ate fruit, vegetables, fish, beans, and tea. The more often they ate foods from that group, the higher their diet diversity score. Overall, a higher healthy-lifestyle score was associated with greater odds of reaching 100 years.
When viewing each element individually, researchers found that exercise was the most important factor in longevity and was associated with a 31 percent higher likelihood a person would become a centenarian, followed by never smoking (25 percent higher chance) and a healthy diet (23 percent more likely).
It’s Never Too Late to Start Making Healthy Changes- A healthy lifestyle can help improve the chances of seeing your 100th birthday, and says that it’s never too late to make positive changes, especially when it comes to a healthy diet.
People who get regular exercise, see good healthcare providers, and have a biological age lower than their chronological age all have improved chances of hitting the century mark as well.
Biological age is based on an analysis of chemical modifications in your DNA that can estimate how quickly or slowly you’re aging compared with your peers.
Expert Advice for Getting Into the ‘100 Club’ – Valter Longo, MD has written books on longevity and developed a fasting mimicking diet (FMD) that lowered participants’ biological age by about 2.6 years.
Here are his tips for eating to live longer:
· Eat mostly vegan. Longo suggests a primarily plant-based diet that limits meals with fish to a maximum of two or three per week. Choose seafood with a high omega-3, omega-6, and vitamin B12 content (salmon, anchovies, sardines, cod, sea bream, trout, clams, shrimp) and try to choose ones with low levels of mercury.
· Keep protein intake low. If you are younger than 65, keep protein intake low — between 0.31 to 0.36 grams (g) per pound of body weight. That comes to 40 to 47 g of proteins per day for a person weighing 130 pounds (lb), and 60 to 70 g of protein per day for someone weighing 200 to 220 lb.
After age 65, you should slightly increase protein intake by way of fish, other lean proteins, eggs, dairy (he suggests goat and sheep products), beans, nuts, and legumes.
· Minimize saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources. Limit meat, cheese, and sugar, and maximize good fats and complex carbs.
· Focus on whole grains and veggies. That includes tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, and legumes and generous amounts of olive oil (3 tablespoons per day).
Just A Thought: “Getting older has some benefits…Call it a ‘Senior Moment’ and you can get away with pretty much anything.” ~ Author Unknown
