April 19, 2017 – Will you dance at your great-grandchild's wedding?Most of us won't be healthy enough to chop a carpet in our 90s. But some people don't just dance, they cook, drive, and volunteer at an age after they are literally debilitated, affected by dementia, or each. With an aging population, researchers try to work out why.Scientists are studying “super-agers” – 90-year-olds who live without significant physical or memory problems – to seek out out what healthy habits can assist us all live longer, higher lives.As life expectancy increases — the number of individuals over 85 within the U.S. is predicted to triple to 14.6 million by 2040 — researchers wish to work out how we are able to extend our healthspan, or the period of time we are going to live in good health.“The number of people who will live to be over 90 will be enormous. We need to know very quickly how we can help these people live very healthy lives,” says Oscar Lopez, MD, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center on the University of Pittsburgh. Some people win the genetic lottery and can naturally live higher, longer lives. However, experts say our genes only account for about 20-30% of our longevity. This signifies that we are able to influence the vast majority of our aging – around 70-80% – through our lifestyle.So exactly which habits are most significant?While there is no such thing as a blueprint, studies can provide some clues. It's no surprise that healthy eating and exercise likely have an effect on how well we age. But they’re removed from the one things at stake, and so they may not even be a very powerful ones.This is what researchers have found.Lessons from the “Blue Zones”
Author Dan Buettner has been researching individuals who live to be over 100 years old since 2000. He worked with National Geographic to discover five “Blue Zones” that contain the best percentage of individuals with the longest life expectancy on the planet. People in these zones also lived relatively freed from diseases related to aging, akin to heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
There is just one Blue Zone within the United States: the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Loma Linda, California. Other communities include Ikaria, Greece; Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; and Nicoya, Costa Rica.
Here's what they’d in common:
- A plant-based weight-reduction plan – beans, whole grains, vegetables
- Opportunities for natural exercise akin to walking, herding and gardening
- Have a way of purpose
- Belonging to a spiritual community
- Take a every day nap or find one other solution to “switch off” every day.
- Don't overeat and don't eat after sunset
Büttner gives quite a few lectures on the importance of food, exercise, prayer and meaning – and has documented his findings in several books and within the Blue Zones Project. With few people more likely to take up livestock farming within the United States any time soon, the project, first launched by a Minnesota city in 2009, goals to seek out ways to make communities healthier.
About 40 communities worldwide have since adopted his principles and redesigned public spaces – parks, schools, grocery stores and restaurants – to advertise healthy eating and more social interaction. Some are constructing latest cycling and climbing trails. Schools can ban students from eating anywhere except the cafeteria. And smoking bans make smoking tougher.
“We want to provide healthy options so they aren’t forced to make the healthy choice the easy choice. That leads to longevity and social connectedness,” says Sam Skemp, Blue Zones project manager on the Minneapolis-based organization. Skemp says they will measure progress by reducing obesity and smoking, how much fruit and vegetables people eat and the way much time they spend exercising.
In Beach Cities, a set of beach communities in California which might be a part of the Blue Zones Project, adult obesity fell by 15% and smoking fell by 16% between 2010 and 2015. In Cedar Falls, IA, smoking rates fell 50% between 2012 and 2015, and obesity rates fell 15% in a single yr.
Keep your brain sharp
A plant-based weight-reduction plan and exercise can prevent illness and keep us physically healthy. Can additionally they keep us mentally healthy? The commonest explanation for Alzheimer's disease is old age, and after the age of 85, dementia rates rise sharply.
When it involves memory and pondering, studies suggest that exercise is the most effective ways to maintain our minds sharp. Lopez and colleagues on the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer's Research Center found that exercise builds brain cells.
“We saw that people who walked more than 72 blocks a week had better brain volume, and following these people over time reduces the risk of dementia.” It's relatively inexpensive and contributes to general and cognitive health “, he says. Additionally, people often go for walks with others and may have a glass of wine at lunch. If they order fish, that's even better for strengthening gray matter, says Lopez.
Alzheimer's disease researcher Claudia Kawas, MD, and her colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, are studying how lifestyle – including exercise and diet – affects the brain health of the elderly.
Her research team has found a link between a healthy heart and a lower risk of dementia. Their subjects also had at least one thing in common with the people of the five Blue Zones: they attended church services every week. You too:
- Drink at least 1-2 cups of coffee every day
- Had a reading habit
- Participates in recreational physical and non-physical activities
- Drinking one or two alcoholic drinks every day
Kawas says the connection between lifestyle and brain health may not be so direct. For example, the socializing that comes with an afternoon martini may be more important to mental alertness than the vodka you drink.
She says researchers are also trying to figure out why some people who have genes that make them more likely to develop Alzheimer's don't develop the disease. Other people have plaques and tangles in the brain that are common with this disease, but do not have problems with memory.
Kawas suggests that a healthy diet and physical activity can create “resilience” in people who may have the genetic potential to develop Alzheimer's but do not.
But nutrition is difficult to study, she says. Of all the factors, education appears to be the strongest factor in maintaining brain health, says Kawas.
“The higher your level of education, the more likely you are to maintain normal cognition in the face of the pathology of Alzheimer's disease,” says Kawas, a professor of neurobiology at UCI's School of Medicine. “This is an environmental issue. Diet and exercise might be one of them, but they are not the whole story.”
Nature vs. environment
Some individuals are genetically predisposed to age later, regardless of what or how much they eat.
Sofiya Milman, MD, is an element of a research team on the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York that studies 90- and 100-year-olds. They are all Ashkenazi Jews descended from Eastern European Jews and their children. The Longevity Genes Project, which began with 500 participants ages 95 to 112, found a robust link between longevity and protective genes.
Even taking lifestyle under consideration, their genes outweighed the bad habits. The centenarians within the study paid no attention to their weight or weight-reduction plan.
“There were very few vegetarians or people in the group who had abstained from salt or meat throughout their lives,” she says. The study has expanded into one other study that follows people of their mid-60s whose parents are no less than 100 years old. Researchers wish to see how well children with 100-year-old parents age in comparison with individuals with non-centenarian parents. So far they’re aging well, says Milman.
“They have less heart disease, less cognitive decline, less Alzheimer’s,” she says. “We expect they will also live much longer.”
Milman, an endocrinologist, says research shows that those with longevity of their family have protective genes that keep aging diseases — heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes — at bay for 20 to 30 years longer than the common person.
“If you have protective genes, they may protect you from negative effects of the environment,” says Milman. “But most of us don’t have these protective genes, so it’s important to exercise.”
Life expectancy has increased by almost 30 years within the last century, Kawas points out, due to medical and technological advances, including basic advances akin to good sewage and water treatment systems. An 80-year-old has a lower risk of developing Alzheimer's today than 30 years ago. Because doctors know find out how to control hypertension, the danger of stroke has also decreased, says Kawas.
But regardless of what knowledge science and sociology have provided about longevity, nobody knows the recipe for delaying mortality slightly longer.
What does Kawas advise to beat the mortality limit? The evidence shows it's necessary to eat a plant-based weight-reduction plan and stay in your feet, she says. But also engaging in activities that keep the mind sharp.
“Do what your mother told you: exercise, use your brain, reduce stress, rest and be nice to people.”