12 ways to look and feel younger than your years and peers

Michael Roizen, M.D., cofounder of RealAge.com, has done an exhaustive review of more than 35,000 medical and scientific studies about aging in humans. He has uncovered many of the mysteries of how and why we age, and shares the simple things we can do to make our "real age," which can be older or younger than what the calendar says, younger. Here are his tips to help make a woman's real age younger in as little as 90 days.

1. An aspirin a day after age 40: Taking one 325 mg tablet of aspirin per day can lower your real age by as much as 1.9 years.

2. Floss your teeth: Flossing and brushing daily can make your real age 6.4 years younger.

3. Know your blood pressure: A person with low blood pressure (115/75 mm Hg) is as much as 25 years younger than a person with high blood pressure (greater than 160/90 mm Hg).

4. Reduce stress: In highly stressful times, your real age can be as much as 32 years older than your calendar age. By building strong social networks and adopting stress-reduction strategies, you can erase 30 of those years.

5. Take your vitamins: Regularly taking vitamin C (1,200 mg/day), vitamin E (400 IU/day), calcium (1,000-1,200 mg/day), vitamin D (400-600 IU/day), folate (400 mcg/day) and vitamin B6 (6 mg/day) can make your real age 6 years younger.

6. Quit smoking, and avoid passive smoke: Smoking makes your real age 8 years older.

7. Be active: Even a small amount of exercise — two 20-minute walks per day — can make your real age nearly 5 years younger.

8. Wear your seat belt: Regularly wearing a seat belt and driving within 5 miles per hour of the speed limit can make your real age as much as 3.4 years younger.

9. Fill up on fiber: Getting 25 grams of fiber per day in your diet can make your real age 2.5 years younger than if you included only 12 grams of fiber per day in your diet.

10. Monitor your health: People who are proactive about seeking high-quality medical care and managing chronic conditions can have a real age as much as 12 years younger than their peers who do not.

11. Laugh: Laughter reduces stress, strengthens the immune system and can make your real age as much as 8 years younger.

12. Become a lifelong learner: People who remain intellectually involved throughout their lives have a real age as much as 2.5 years younger.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2004002009_12things11.html

World's oldest person set to turn 115

American Edna Parker, the world's oldest known person, will celebrate her 115th birthday on Sunday, defying mind-boggling odds.

Her achievement was recognised by Guinness World Records last August after the death of a Japanese woman four months her senior.

Edna Parker

There are only 75 people alive - 64 women and 11 men - that are 110 or older, according to the Gerontology Research Group, a California-based organisation that verifies reports of extreme ages.

Mrs Parker, who was born April 20, 1893, has been a widow since her husband Earl died of a heart attack in 1938.

She has also outlived her two sons - Clifford and Earl Jr - but is far from lonely with five grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great grandchildren to keep her company.

"We don't know why she's lived so long," said Don Parker, her 59-year-old grandson.

"But she's never been a worrier and she's always been a thin person, so maybe that has something to do with it."

Scientists who study longevity hope that Mrs Parker can help unlock the secrets to long life.

Two years ago, researchers from the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University took a blood sample from Mrs Parker for the group's DNA database of supercentenarians.

Her DNA is now preserved with samples of about 100 other people who reached the 110-year milestone, and whose genes are being analysed, said Dr Tom Perls, an aging specialist who directs the project.

"They're really our best bet for finding the elusive Holy Grail of our field - which are these longevity-enabling genes," he said.

A smiling Mrs Parker looked on as relatives and guests released 115 balloons into the sky to celebrate her milestone.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/19/wold119.xml

Mine Is Longer than Yours - The last boomer game.

At first, I thought I was alone in the pool. It was a sparkling blue gem, implausibly planted in the skyscraper canyon of downtown Los Angeles, as if David Hockney, heading toward Beverly Hills, had taken the wrong exit on the I-10 freeway. This fine pool was the consolation and only charm of the Soviet-style complex where I had rented an apartment so that I could walk to work at the Los Angeles Times. It was early, not even 6 A.M. I had finished my laps and was enjoying the emptiness of the pool, the faint sounds of downtown gearing up for the day, and the drama of the looming office towers. As we learned on September 11th, they really can fall down on top of you. But they wouldn’t on that day. I felt healthy and smug.

Then what I had thought was a ripple in the water turned out to be—no, not a shark with hectoring John Williams music pulsing from a boom box in its stomach. It was a tiny old man in a tiny black bathing suit. He was slowly, slowly completing a lap in the next lane. When, finally, he reached the side where I was resting and watching, he came up for air. He saw me, beamed, and said, “I’m ninety years old.” It was clearly a boast, not a lament, so I followed his script and said, “Well, isn’t that marvellous” and “You certainly don’t look it” and on in that vein. He beamed some more, I beamed, and briefly we both were happy—two nearly naked strangers sharing the first little dishonesties and self-deceptions of a beautiful day in Southern California.

Perhaps sensing some condescension in my praise, he then stuck out his chest and declared, “I used to be a judge.” And I started to resent this intruder on my morning and my pool. Did I now have to tell him it was marvellous that he used to be a judge?

What was so marvellous about it? What was his point? But, even as he said this, a panicky realization of its absurd irrelevance seemed to pass across his face, and then a realization of its pathos. When he was a judge—if he had been a judge—he had not felt the need to accost strangers and tell them that he was a judge. And then he seemed to realize that he had overplayed his hand. He had left this stranger in the pool thinking the very thought he had wanted to dispel: the old fool is past it. And finally (I imagined, observing his face) came sadness: he had bungled a simple social interchange. So it must be true: he was past it.

On an airplane seven or eight years ago, I turned and discovered Robert McNamara in the next seat. He is ninety-one now, so he must have been more than eighty at the time. I asked him why he was going to Denver. He said that he was meeting a female friend at the airport and heading for Aspen. It seems that when his wife died he had commissioned in her memory one of a chain of primitive huts on a trail between Aspen and Vail. Now he was going to ski the trail and stay in the huts with his lady. He told me this, then beamed, like my friend in the pool.

Well, life is unfair, but let’s not get carried away. Longevity is not a zero-sum game. A longer life for Robert McNamara doesn’t mean a shorter life for you or me or the average citizen of Vietnam. He’s done that damage, and at his age he won’t be doing more. In fact, he seems to have been spending the gift of a long life trying to make amends—mainly, as he described his recent agenda to me, by flying around the world to conferences where the world’s suffering is deplored. Nevertheless.

Still, to get to that view of things, I had to suppress an irrational feeling that McNamara had won big in a game he shouldn’t have been entitled to play. Yes, life is unfair, and never more so than in how much of itself it gives to different people. Deaths of young adults are mourned with special pain, and the very, very old are celebrated. But any age between about sixty and ninety doesn’t rate a second glance as you flip through the obituaries. Anywhere in there is a normal life span, even though the ninety-year-old got fifty per cent more life.

What’s more, of all the gifts that life and luck can bestow—money, good looks, love, power—longevity is the one that people seem least reluctant to brag about. In fact, they routinely claim it as some sort of virtue—as if living to ninety were primarily the result of hard work or prayer, rather than good genes and never getting run over by a truck. Maybe the possibility that the truck is on your agenda for later this morning makes the bragging acceptable. The longevity game is one that really isn’t over till it’s over.

Between what your parents gave you to start with—genetically or culturally or financially—and pure luck, you play a small role in determining how long you live. And even if you add a few years through your own initiative, by doing all the right things in terms of diet, exercise, sleep, vitamins, and so on, why is that to your moral credit?

Extending your own life expectancy is the most selfish motive imaginable for doing anything. Do it, by all means. I do. But for heaven’s sake don’t take a bow and expect applause.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/07/080407fa_fact_kinsley

Healthy teeth an indicator of longevity - study

The importance of looking after your teeth shouldn't be underestimated. Danish researchers say people who still have most of their teeth at age 70 live longer.

Having few or no natural teeth at the age of 70 may be an early indicator of accelerated ageing, Danish researchers suggest.

"It is important to take poor dental health seriously in that these people may be at greater risk of general physical and/or cognitive decline," Dr Poul Holm-Pedersen, of the Copenhagen Gerontological Oral Health Research Centre, said.

The finding in this study that tooth loss appears related to the onset of disability and mortality in old age raises important clinical issues for disease prevention and geriatric care, Holm-Pedersen and colleagues note in a report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The researchers assessed the number of teeth remaining intact among 573 non-disabled men and women who were 70 years old and living in Copenhagen in 1984.

At the start of the study, fewer than 20 per cent of the elders had 20 or more teeth, and more than 40 per cent had no teeth.

The investigators determined the onset of disability among study participants through follow-up assessments conducted 5-, 10-, 15-, and 20-years later; and assessed their mortality over the subsequent 21 years.

Compared with elders maintaining 20 or more natural teeth, those with no or few teeth at age 70 were significantly more likely to report mobility problems such as difficulty walking or climbing stairs within the next 5 or 10 years.

Toothlessness at age 70 was also linked with greater mortality over the study period.

These associations remained strong when the investigators accounted for other factors potentially associated with disability and death, such as health-related problems and education.

"Tooth loss may be related to complex behavioural and socioeconomic factors," Holm-Pedersen said.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/6/story.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10501590

A hope note

One of the most fascinating studies on health, happiness and longevity in our time is being conducted by Dan Buettner. National Geographic has sent him around the globe to study "blue zones," places where people not only have more years in their life but more life in their years.

Buettner's travels have taken him to the Italian island of Sardinia, the Japanese island of Okinawa and the Nicovan Peninsula on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Men in Nicova make it to their 100th birthday four times more often than men in the United States, even though their medical bills are only about 7 percent as much.

We're not surprised by his findings that the people in these "blue zones" are physically active throughout life, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and little meat, and drink a glass or two of red wine every day. We've been hearing for 50 years now that poor eating habits and little exercise are killing us.

Buettner has observed two things that are not so widely known. One is that people who live both long and large place a high premium on family, friends and religion. A bottle of diet pills or vitamins probably doesn't contribute as much to longevity as having a caring, supportive community around us.

Two, those who live long and large talk freely about purpose in life. In Okinawa, for example, there is no word for "retirement." There is another word that roughly translates to "that which makes life worth living." Men there have one-fifth as much cancer as Americans and one-quarter as much heart disease.

Buettner's new book from National Geographic is titled "The Blue Zone." Take his "vitality compass" at www.bluezones.com and learn how long you're likely to live given your current life habits.

http://www.corydondemocrat.com/Articles-i-2008-04-01-205998.114125_A_hope_note.html

Life Trust launches new cash fund

Life Trust has announced the introduction of the LT Henderson Liquid Assets Fund for investors in its Longevity Income Plan (LIP).

The new cash fund comes in response to IFA requests in the face of the recent stock market volatility and offers investors an investment that is protected from the vagaries of the market.

The LIP is a long term investment specifically designed to provide a rising income the longer a planholder lives.

The LT Henderson Liquid Assets Fund is a unit trust primarily investing in short term deposits, certificates of deposit and other money market instruments in the UK. The fund provides a good return for more risk-averse investors and maintains security and liquidity by investing in money market instruments with certain minimum short term ratings and a duration of less than 12 months. Moody’s and Fitch have both awarded it their highest ratings for funds of this kind.

Life Trust is the first financial services company specifically dedicated to tackling the financial issues associated with increasing longevity and launched its innovative first product, the Longevity Income Plan, at the beginning of January.

Andy Briscoe, CEO, Life Trust, said: “With the current market volatility IFAs have told us that some clients are looking for a safer alternative to equity investments. The cash fund from Henderson is a well-performing and safe fund that will give piece of mind to our more risk-averse investors during the ongoing market difficulties.”

Kate O’Neill, Director of European Distribution & Hedge Funds, Henderson Global Investors, added: “This is the second fund that we have offered to investors in the Longevity Income Plan and we are delighted to be able to support Life Trust in responding quickly to market changes. The fund offers Life Trust’s planholders security, liquidity and the foundation for solid long-term returns.”

http://www.easier.com/view/Finance/Investments/Funds/article-171725.html

The Beginning of the Longevity Revolution

As baby boomers are repainting the aging landscape, new products dedicated to fighting aging are cropping up. However, these products aren't only for older generations -- younger groups could also utilize them to detect problems early on.

At last week's Aging in America conference in Washington, attendees were greeted with multiple displays of technology aiming to help older people live better. A technological divide exists between the "oldest old" and the "recently old" baby boomers, but technologies developed for both groups may also be able to help younger generations fight aging.

"I don't think it's fair to think that boomers are like their parents," said Adriane Berg, author of How Not To Go Broke at 102, due for re-release in July. "Change is what we know."

It's certainly true that boomers are repainting the aging landscape, and making use of technology is big on their agenda. Joining social networking sites like Boomj and Rezoom, Berg has launched her own Web site, WealthBuilder Longevity Club, that aims to use technology to network boomers for travel, old-fashioned key exchanges, and even real estate cohousing arrangements. While social networking is a tech trend flowing from younger to older circles, a reverse flow is set to happen in other areas.

Cognitive Exercises

Cognitive decline, for instance, is a big issue as individuals get older, but decline doesn't start suddenly when one becomes a senior. It happens slowly over time and can even occur because of certain events, such as chemotherapy treatment. Many companies have produced software to fight mental decline, and one of the most impressive is CogniFit.

For US$139, Cognifit's MindFit program exercises 14 different mental skills and works on an individualized basis so that it gets more difficult as the user gets better. Exercising one's brain not only helps with memory and attention deficit issues, but also helps reduce depression and stress. The company is currently producing a program for the younger workplace set, making it clear that everyone benefits from cognitive exercises.

Of course, some of America's oldest don't use computers and, indeed, the conference didn't even offer Internet access to its 4,000 attendees, save 10 terminals in a makeshift cybercafe. Only 28 percent of Americans age 70 and older go online, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. This is sometimes known as the "grey divide," and for those who fall into this camp, devices like Dakim's [m]Power offer cognitive training programs using a touch screen instead of a mouse and keyboard. However, even if a person isn't using cognitive training software, it may be possible to detect cognitive impairment simply by measuring a person's gait.

"We can catch the early onset of multiple sclerosis, Huntington's or Parkinson's by noticing subtle changes in a person's gait," said Michael Rowling of Gaitrite, a company that makes a portable walkway that digitally captures people's steps. The product can also help diagnose running injuries and is now being used by the U.S. Army to measure improvement in wounded soldiers. I tried the product and my gait analysis can be found here.

Driving Innovation

One can easily see how technologies aimed at helping elder communities can be used in a positive way by younger people. Home Guardian, a company that makes sensors to monitor non-intrusively the health status of elders, is another example.

By simply placing a thin plastic mat with sensors under an individual's bed, the folks at Home Guardian can monitor the sleeper's heart rate and breathing. It's possible to do it this way because one's breathing and heart rates have different frequencies. For individuals with a potentially serious disorder like sleep apnea, this could be a fast and easy way to diagnose the problem. For elders, it could mean the difference between life and death.

The longevity revolution is just beginning. Older elders and the boomer generation may have much different ideas about what retirement should look like, but the needs of both communities is driving innovation in tech that will wind up helping everyone, including those in generations X and Y.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/web20/62438.html

BIOLOGY OF AGING

There are no diseases peculiar to old age and very few from which it is exempt.
-Alfred Worcester (1855-1951)

Twenty percent of all humans who have ever lived past the age of 65 are alive today. And these older individuals are biologically younger than the old of generations past: A landmark 1993 study by Duke University found that the percentage of older Americans in good health is growing at a greater rate than the percentage of those with disabilities.

Between 1960 and 1990, while the overall U.S. population grew 39%, the ranks of those 85 and older jumped 232% (the over 65 group increasing 89% while the number of those under 25 grew by only 13%). A child born today who lives to age 65 is ten times more likely to reach 100 than people born one century ago (click here to see life expectancies at age 65 from 1910 on). Now in the year 2000, there are an estimated 100,000 people aged 100+, up from 32,000 in 1990. This should keep Willard Scott busy!

THE QUEST FOR LONGEVITY (IF NOT IMMORTALITY)

The news was good in the September 1997 press release from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Life expectancy of Americans reached an all-time high in 1996 of 76.1, indicating a continuing gain in the battle against premature death.

The quest for immortality seems to be an obsession of the human primate--its methodologies dating back to some of the earliest recorded messages of the past. The search for long (if not everlasting) life is implicit within Western mythology and within its scientific quests, as in:

* the antediluvian beliefs that people lived longer in some past Golden Age. Recall the supercentenarians in Genesis: Methuselah supposedly lived to a ripe 969 (5:27), Jared 962 (5:20), Noah 950 (9:29), and Adam 930 (5:5).

the hyperborean beliefs that there are remote pockets of super longevity around the world, pristine places without the stresses and pollution of modern urban societies, where the old retain valued social roles. In the 1970s, for instance, the press carried stories of people living to extraordinary ages in Vilcabamba, high in the Andes of Ecuador, and in the Azerbaijan republic of the former USSR.

In 1973, for instance, Soviet authorities reported the death of Azerbaijanian Shirali Mislimov, who supposedly lived to 168, who was from a republic where there were 63 centenarians per 100,000 population (compared to 3 in the United States).

The fountain of youth myths, where some wondrous substance or procedure would extend life, such as young Achilles being dipped in the pool of immortality by his mother. Such long-lived personalities as Pope Pius XII, Bernard Baruch, and Somerset Maugham had the cells of unborn lambs injected into their veins.

Enthusiasms were tempered with Leonard Hayflick's discovery of the finite divisions of human cells, the so-called Hayflick Limit--that, at least at the cellular level, we are somehow programmed to die.

After all, if Darwin's mechanisms of natural selection are to work, old generations must be superceded by the new. But there flickered hope in the cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks which, one-half century after whose host's death, live eternally on throughout the world.

Merchants of Immortality" (aired June 4, 2003) featuring an interview with Stephen Hall, author of Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension.

http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/ger-biol.html

Want to see your 100th birthday? Be like the French and drink red wine

In the battle of the centenarians, it is an unequal contest. France and Britain have near identical populations, yet today 20,000 French citizens are aged 100-plus against 11,000 people in Britain.

The increase in the very old is happening across the Western world but the number in France has soared, according to the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies in Paris, which published the figures.

They show French centenarians have risen from 3,760 in 1990 to 20,115 in 2008, a more than five-fold increase. In Britain, centenarians are the fastest growing section of the population, yet we still trail our continental cousins. What is the secret of the French success?

France still holds the record for the world's longest lived person – Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 aged 122 years, five months and 14 days. She attributed her longevity to a diet rich in olive oil, regular glasses of port and an ability to "keep smiling".

With her keen interest in good food and drink and zest for life she was the perfect advertisement for the health-giving properties of la vie française. Despite the French passion for cream, eggs and foie gras, le digestif after a meal, and an addiction to Gitanes cigarettes, they have half our obesity levels, less than half our death rate from heart disease and lower rates of cancer in women (but not men). They play boules and cycle, even in their dotage, which keeps them active enough to enjoy lunch. And lunch they take very seriously – a proper, sit-down, three- or four-course meal from an early age.

The biggest puzzle is how the land of Escoffier, with its love of rich food and creamy sauces, has managed to avoid an epidemic of heart disease. The French and British diets contain similar quantities of fat, at around 40 per cent of total calories, yet French rates of heart disease in the under-75s are less than half those in Britain.

Kay Tee-Khaw, professor of clinical gerontology at the University of Oxford, said: "France's high number of centenarians is interesting. A major cause of death in middle age is heart disease. Life expectancy from age 65 is substantially better in France, because they have substantially lower rates of heart disease. It is better in Crete and Greece, too.

"We know this must be due to lifestyle because the time trends are so clear. There have been massive changes [in longevity] and it has happened so fast it must be due to lifestyle but we have not been so good at understanding what aspects. I think red wine has something to do with it."

The low rate of heart disease in France, despite its rich diet, is the French paradox which has puzzled medical researchers for decades. US scientists have suggested the explanation could be the French habit of eating everything, but less of it.

Like Britain, the country has a north-south divide, with cream cheese and cider dominating menus in Normandy and fish, fruit and vegetables and olive oil rather than butter featuring more prominently close to the Mediterranean. Death rates fall as the consumption of fruit and vegetables increases.

Then there is the wine. There have been rapid increases in wine sales in the UK in the past decade, yet British consumption at 27 litres a head per year still has a long way to go to match the French at 64 litres. Despite drinking in greater quantities, the French drink more moderately, with meals, as opposed to binge drinking in Britain.

Red wine is thought to be good for combating heart disease. But Roger Corder, professor of experimental therapeutics at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and author of The Wine Diet, believes the explanation is more complex. He observed that the Gers region close to the Pyrénées in the south had twice the national average of men aged over 90.

When he analysed the Madiran wine, made with at least 40 per cent Tannat grapes grown in the region, he found it had among the highest levels in any wine of a plant chemical, procyanadin, which has a beneficial effect on the blood vessels.

"The wines to look for containing high levels of procyanadins are those with firm tannins made in the traditional way. It is not just about Madirans. There are plenty of choices out there."

He added: "But it is not just about wine. The French spend more on food and eat better quality and more variety. It is about a lifetime's habit. Cut out all this dieting nonsense and just eat healthily and exercise. The French join cycle clubs – and then go for fantastic lunches."

The French recipe for a longer life

The Germans have a saying: "Happy like God in France". A modern version might be "Happy like a wrinkly in France".

The explosion in the numbers of very elderly French is something of a mystery to the French themselves. And a bit of a worry. By mid-century, at the current rate, there could be 170,000 French centenarians.

The best guess of French researchers is that there is something in the French climate and diet which is conducive to long life. But climate and diet have been roughly the same for years. The proliferation of French centenarians, three quarters of them women, is explained by advances in medical treatment, and the generally lavish provision of good-quality healthcare since the 1940s.

A decade ago, American researchers discovered something that they called the "French Paradox". French people lived longer and were healthier even though they consumed many things – especially large quantities of red wine – which were supposed to inflict bodily harm.

The true paradox of French longevity is more complex than that. It is a series of interlocking paradoxes.

First, there are regional differences. Expectation of life is higher in the south of France than in the north, and especially high in the south-west. If you truly wish to live to be 100, you could try the red wine, olive oil, poultry, fish and haricots of the typical French south-western diet.

Secondly, longevity is supposed to be a sign of contentment. Yet polls and anecdotal evidence suggest the French are a naturally cantankerous and discontented people.

Finally,the French are no longer eating and drinking like the French. Medical researchers worry they have moved to a more Anglo-Saxon diet: more fat, more processed foods, more beer.

Perhaps there will not be a great great granny-boom in mid-century France after all.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/want-to-see-your-100th-birthday-be-like-the-french-and-drink-red-wine-804902.html

Statistics show Icelandic men have longest life expectancy

Icelandic men have the longest life expectancy in the world, living an average of 79.4 years in 2007, Statistics Iceland said on Thursday.

"This is a world record. They live even longer than Japanese men," Oloef Gardarsdottir, a spokeswoman for the agency, told AFP.

Japanese men live on average 78.6 years.

"We don't have an explanation. It's really difficult to give a reason why," she said.

Icelandic women meanwhile have a life expectancy of 82.9 years, among the highest in the world.

Japanese women have an average life expectancy of nearly 86 years, according to United Nations statistics.

Icelandic men and women lived on average more than 81 years in 2007, not far behind Japan at 82 years and ahead of France at almost 81 years.

The North Atlantic island has long lived off of the fishing industry but has undergone a vast transformation since the mid-1990s, in particular due to a booming financial sector.

The Nordic country is one of the richest in the world, and has a population of 313,400.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080403/hl_afp/icelandhealthpopulation