Exercise, Physical Hobbies, Low Calories & Stress For Fewer Disabilities and Long Life

Original source: The News & Observer:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/health_science/story/1052659.html

Centenarians' could strain budgets

Published: Apr 28, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Apr 28, 2008 05:15 AM

Thomas Goldsmith, Staff Writer

At 109, Alberta Thompson began life in the 19th century, lived every minute of the 20th and, despite some trouble getting around, remains sharp in the 21st.

Until recently, Annie Laurie Williams, 105, climbed up and down the stairs at her Five Points-area home, part of her routine of daily exercise and a diet built largely on fruits and vegetables.

And Dr. Harold Eliason, a retired physician who lives at the Forest at Duke retirement community in Durham, celebrated his 104th birthday in February.

All three centenarians are trendsetters.

About 95,000 Americans are now 100 or older, census estimates show, and their closely watched numbers are predicted to more than quadruple by 2030, reaching 1.15 million by 2050.

How healthy they remain in old age may have a dramatic effect on federal entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid, health-care experts say. The annual cost for treating elderly and disabled people under these programs is currently $400 billion, Congressional Budget Office numbers show. The vital question: Will people in their 90s and 100s have longer periods of mobility and independence or just more years of disability and dependence?

"If we don't do a better job, this really large group of people who reach advanced old age will be a burden on our health-care system," said Dr. Jack Guralnik, an epidemiologist and gerontologist at the National Institute on Aging in Maryland.

In North Carolina, the cost to Medicare of a chronically ill patient's last two years of life can easily surpass $50,000, according to the 2008 Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. The healthier the state's older people remain, the more tax dollars will be saved.

"The costs are definitely higher" for chronically ill older people, said Denise K. Houston, a researcher and assistant professor at Wake Forest University's J. Paul Sticht Center on Aging and Rehabilitation. "We are managing diabetes and heart disease, yet still having poor function, which leads to loss of independence earlier."

A 30-year leap in U.S. life expectancy during the last century -- from 47 to 77 -- means that the demographic group known as the "old old" is growing faster than any other. Nearly one out of three women who is 50 today will reach 90, demographers say.

"This magic number of 100 really captures people's imagination," Guralnik said.

Yet those who have passed the milestone express ambivalence. Eliason, who was born in West Virginia and became a pediatrician, chafed at some of the boundaries aging has placed upon him.

"It's getting kind of tedious; life isn't a bowl of cherries," Eliason said this week. "I'm getting to the point where I couldn't walk a block if I had to."

Eliason remained mobile well into his 11th decade. Only a recent knee injury has limited his walking. He jokingly attributes his good health to a secret fountain of youth, but decades of bowling and golfing were probably more of a factor.

Along those lines, academic studies offer some common sense for people who want to reach the century mark in good shape: Remain active, don't smoke, and eat a sensible diet, typically one low in calories. Houston, from Wake Forest, recently led an academic study showing people with a healthy body weight at age 25 and age 50 were less likely to become disabled in old age.

"The longer you are overweight, the worse off you are," she said. "Obesity puts a lot of stress and strain on the joints and on being able to function independently."

When people reach about 65, doctors can make a fairly accurate prediction of whether they will become disabled by conducting a walking-speed measurement and a low-tech mobility test. Patients have to perform tasks such as standing on one leg with eyes closed for 30 seconds or getting up from a chair, without using hands, as many as 10 times. A low score means an increased risk of disability and death.

Never too late

But even sedentary older people can benefit from more exercise.

"A well-designed program combining aerobic, strength, balance and flexibility exercises can make a difference for those who are at high risk of losing mobility," said Guralnik, the National Institute on Aging researcher, noting that tests for much older people are less rigorous.

Scientists have prolonged lifespan in simple organisms such as yeast by manipulating genes. But researchers say that's a distant prospect for humans, given the medical and ethical issues involved.

As for the substantial risk of developing dementia, studies show that regular exercise reduces that likelihood by 30 percent to 40 percent.

Other factors affecting advanced age aren't as obvious: Really old people typically don't get too stressed out.

"I don't think that much bothers me," said Eliason, the retired pediatrician.

Thompson recalled being so sick in years past that she begged God to come and take her. But she takes comfort in memories of her late son, in seeing her granddaughter, who lives in Raleigh, and in her close relationship with staff members at Aversboro Assisted Living in Garner, where she moved last year.

"I try to take everything as it comes," Thompson said.

thomas.goldsmith@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-8929


(Sidebar:)

AGING WELL

Two studies earlier this year showed that certain factors may not only lengthen lives, but also provide more late-life years free of disability.

* A study of New England centenarians showed that more than seven in 10 lived with an age-related disease for 15 years or more. Researchers say that means that staying active, or escaping disability, may be more important to long life than remaining disease-free.

* A Boston-based study showed that men at age 70 had a better than even chance of living to 90 if they exercised moderately two to four times a week and did not smoke, have high blood pressure, weigh too much or have diabetes.

On the flip side, if any of those five good-health factors turned negative, it reduced the probability of living to 90 by about 10 percentage points. A man with all five bad markers has a negligible chance of living to 90, the researchers said.

FRIENDS AND A MISSION

It's been said that the only people who want to be 100 are in their late 90s.

For those who'd like to shoot for that level, aging expert Dr. Robert Butler cites three general factors that could help:

* Find purpose: Dote on grandchildren, follow a sports team, or forge an active faith life -- all provide a larger purpose to life that keeps people engaged.

* Foster social networks: Maintain a group of close friends. This is often more difficult for men than women.

* Develop healthy habits: Everything you've always heard -- exercise, don't smoke, drink alcohol moderately. In author Michael Pollan's mantra, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Surveyed Centenarians' Top Aging Tips

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/29/health/webmd/main4303731.shtml

10 Healthy Aging Tips From Centenarians
Relationships, An Active Mind, Humor Make The List In Centenarian Poll

July 29, 2008

(WebMD) Staying close to family and friends, keeping your mind active, and having a sense of humor are keys to healthy aging, centenarians say in a new poll.

The poll, conducted by phone, included 100 U.S. centenarians. Here are their top 10 tips for healthy aging - along with the percentage of how many said the tip is "very important" (they could call more than one tip "very important"):

1. Stay close to your family and friends: 90%

2. Keep your mind active: 89%

3. Laugh and have a sense of humor: 88%

4. Stay in touch with your spirituality: 84%

5. Continue looking forward to each new day: 83%

6. Keep moving and exercising: 82%

7. Maintain a sense of independence: 81%

8. Eat right: 80%

9. Keep up with news and current events: 63%

10. Keep making new friends: 63%

"If I could leave any message, never stop learning. Period," centenarian Maurice Eisman says in the poll report.

"I think the worst thing is stress, and you can avoid a lot of it by the way you manage your life," adds 102-year-old Marianne Crowder of Palo Alto, Calif.

Some of the centenarians - who were actually as young as 99 - have picked up some modern ways: 19% use cell phones, 12% have used the Internet, 3% say they've dated someone they met online, and 45% could identify 2005 American Idol winner Carrie Underwood.

When asked to pick a favorite celebrity to invite to a "fantasy dinner party," Bill Cosby was their top pick, followed by Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey. Britney Spears and Howard Stern were their least favorite choices; most knew who Spears and Stern are.

GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media polled the centenarians by phone in April and May for Evercare, a health care coordination program for the elderly and people with long-term or advanced illnesses or disabilities.

Because the poll only included centenarians in good health, the results may not apply to everyone in that age range.

By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang


* * *

Why oh why does staying close to your family have to always pop up? Is it too late to get a new family...?

Early Observations in Poon's Georgia Centenarian Study

http://www.ovpr.uga.edu/researchnews/95su/centena.html


Hale and Hearty at 100
by Judy Purdy

There's a new notion about old age: Advanced years don't have to be empty years. Even the oldest old can lead productive, fulfilling and independent lives.

As more and more people pass the century mark without a second glance, they are setting examples that are changing our ideas about aging.

At 104, Mary Sims Elliott was working on her autobiography, writing poetry and trying to influence her church's position on social issues. Now she's 105 and her autobiography, titled My First One Hundred Years, was just published.

At 105, Geneva McDaniel taught aerobics daily at her senior citizens center. Now she's 107 and recruiting residents of her retirement community to exercise with her.

At 106, former sharecropper Jessie Champion and his 86-year-old wife, Fronnie, were weeding and harvesting their garden. Recently, Fronnie passed away and now Jessie, now 107, lives and gardens with his daughter.

These vibrant centenarians are among more than 150 who have volunteered for the Georgia Centenarian Study, a decade-long project that explores not just why some people live so long, but how they do it so successfully.

"We want to see what influences longevity and adaptation in old age," said Leonard W. Poon, who directs the UGA Gerontology Center and heads the study. "The primary focus is to understand patterns specific to each age [group] and to individuals in their 60s, 80s and those over 100 years of age who are community dwelling and cognitively intact."

Since 1988, Poon has directed the study that includes nearly a dozen faculty from the University of Georgia, the Medical College of Georgia and Iowa State University, along with dozens of graduate students. Representing many academic fields, the researchers study "expert survivors" -- people who've passed their 100th birthday, live independently or semi-independently, are active in their communities and enjoy relatively good physical and mental health -- and compare them with people in their 60s and 80s.

"We all have stereotypes of what a centenarian should be," Poon said. "But there's no such thing as a typical centenarian."

Nonetheless, the researchers have drawn a composite picture of an expert survivor in the Georgia study. She is a female with a grade school education who:

* lives by herself or with her children;
* has an income of $4,000 - $7,000;
* has vision and hearing problems;
* takes two medications a day;
* wants to avoid institutionalization;
* is feisty and wants to have her way; and
* is generally satisfied with life.

By and large, expert survivors also are focused on the here-and-now and are just as active in mind as in body. Just how these spry individuals got to be so old is a puzzle for centenarians and researchers alike.

Some of the oldest old chalk it up to luck. And some, including Jennie V. Williams, 105, say the "good Lord" isn't through with them yet. Others, like Mary Sims Elliott, say they're just too busy to die.

Clues to Longevity

After intensive analysis of biological, psychological and social factors that may contribute to successful aging, the researchers haven't found any fountain of youth. While they have charted some striking similarities among expert survivors, the researchers also have observed many differences.

"You can't make generalizations about these very exceptional people because each one is different," Poon said. "Centenarians continue to surprise us so that now surprises are the rule."

Among the surprises is that "some centenarians turn us down because they are too busy to participate. They are on college boards or run their own businesses," said Martha Bramlett, an assistant professor of nursing at the Medical College of Georgia who manages data acquisition for the study.

No two centenarians are the same. "For as many optimistic people, we find as many who are grumpy," Poon said. "Successful aging has many, many components."

"Centenarians are far more different than they are alike," said Peter Martin, a former UGA faculty member who co-directs the study and is now a professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State. "There are many paths to longevity, and each situation is very different."

Take a family history of longevity, for instance.

"People aren't likely to live long just because their parents did," Poon said. "It seems the genetic contribution is important for some centenarians who come from a long line of long-lived people. But we have as many people who do not come from long-lived families."

Funded by the National Institute for Mental Health, the study couldn't come at a better time. Post-retirement citizens may be in the minority now, but that trend is changing fast. Senior citizens are already the fastest growing segment of the American population, and the 85-plus group may be the fastest growing among senior citizens, Poon said.

By the year 2025, the number of people under age 20 is expected to equal the number of those 65 and older, according to reports published by the Joint Congressional Committee on Aging.

"People 65 and older are just now becoming a population for us to think about in terms of health care, jobs and the economy," Poon said. "When that of proportion is the same as the young people, this becomes very significant in terms of the work force, health care and retirement."

The research team's findings will have effects that ripple far beyond the families of silver-haired Americans. Their findings will help scientists, medical and social agency personnel, and elected officials better understand the aging process and prepare for the centenarian population explosion that demographers and census takers have predicted.

"The research will help our country provide the services needed as more people survive to be 100," Poon said.

Like centenarians everywhere, those in Poon's study come from all walks of life. Some have doctoral degrees; others never finished grade school. Some live alone in spacious homes; others are so poor they lack even the basics such as a refrigerator. Several have a wealth of family and friends they call on for aid; others rely on their wits to build a support network of friends and neighbors.

Regardless of their lot in life, though, expert survivors face similar challenges unique to their age group. With few road signs to guide them, they have adjusted to diminished physical strength, faced the deaths of numerous -- often much younger -- loved ones and found answers to life's meaning and purpose long after retiring from conventional roles as breadwinners and parents.

The centenarian research project looks specifically at how physical and mental health, intelligence, memory, coping skills, personality traits, attitudes, nutrition, spirituality, family history, support systems and religious beliefs influence a long and independently lived life.

During phase one of the two-phase project, the researchers ask participants a battery of questions and collect bundles of data on everything from what they ate for breakfast to what makes them happy or sad. Then they compare the relative significance of each variable -- both for individuals and for age groups -- to determine which ingredients are important in the recipe for longevity.

Phase One: Many Roads to Longevity

So far, what the researchers have found in phase one is that no one variable stands out as more important for longevity. Moderation, however, "seems to come up frequently and to be practiced over one's lifetime," Poon said.

That may help explain why expert survivors are so hale and hearty.

"We were surprised to find very little depression among the centenarians," said Martin, who directs the project's personality, life events and coping component. "These people have a high degree of self sufficiency and are confident and resourceful in their ability to overcome obstacles and problems.

"They describe themselves as I-can-do people. In fact, overall, their mental health and life satisfaction are very high," he said.

But don't expect them to conform.

"Instead of growing more alike, people become more distinct, more differentiated, more individualized and unique as they grow older," said Philip Holtsberg, one of Poon's doctoral students. "And the longer they live, the more pronounced those differences become."

Even past the age of 100, though, centenarians still conform on some things, like good health. About 50 percent of them try to avoid fats in their diets, said Mary Ann Johnson, who heads the study's diet and nutrition component. They also eat more fruits and vegetables, get slightly more vitamin A and carotene, and consume about the same amount of calories and fat as their younger counterparts.

Among centenarians, age, however, is not the primary predictor of nutritional risk, those factors that may contribute to poor nutrition such as wearing dentures, taking medications that upset the stomach or smoking. Emotions play a bigger role.

"How you feel -- happy or sad, understood or misunderstood -- is more important," said Johnson, a UGA professor of foods and nutrition. "Aspects of mental health and the number of illnesses, more than age, predicted nutritional risk among centenarians."

Expert survivors tend to be healthy and proud of it. Surprisingly, the researchers found no significant differences among people in their seventh, ninth and 11th decades in the number of medications taken, trips to the doctor or hospital, or recent illnesses.

More than 60 percent of the centenarians rated their health as good to excellent; an even higher percentage said it was as good or better than five years ago, said Martha Bramlett of the Medical College of Georgia.

"We know we get a skewed view of the health of centenarians in general because we only look at those who are still community dwelling," Bramlett said. "But our check-ups confirm that they are in remarkably good health. One gentleman, David, who is 105, still reads without glasses and has 20-25 vision. Julia, a retired seamstress still threads her own needles at 100."

Successful agers also know the value of daily activity and mobility, and make an effort to get exercise, Bramlett said.

Take Frank, 101, who drove to his job at the courthouse every day until his recent cataract surgery. Now he often walks to work. Then there's Sara, 101, who works all week keeping her own yard, flower beds and home tidy and neat. On weekends she travels to Atlanta to clean house, do laundry and babysit with her great-grandchildren so her granddaughter, who has health problems, can rest.

The research team also looked at the influence of religious beliefs on physical well-being as well as on other factors. Although all three age groups scored high on the importance of religion in their lives, the researchers found this had no strong correlation with physical or mental health, personality or life satisfaction. This finding may be influenced, in part, by the uniform level of high religious influence in all three age groups, said Bradley C. Courtenay, a UGA professor of adult education who examined the relationship between religion and longevity.

Coping with hardship or loss, though, is another matter, Courtenay said. Expert survivors rely more on spirituality and a deep trust in God and less on non-religious methods than the other groups do.

"Centenarians tend to have a philosophy and keep with it, but they don't tell people about their philosophy," Courtenay said. "They think everybody is supposed to have their own, so they're not imposing."

The Second Time Around

Now that researchers have a "group snapshot" of people in their 60s, 80s and 100s, they want a clearer picture of how each age group as well as each individual within the group changes with the passing of time.

"Because people's life experiences influence the aging process, we don't know whether it's age or peer-influenced differences we are observing," Poon said. Phase two of the study provides a sharper focus on which changes are related to aging and which are peer-influenced, such as having been the same age during the Great Depression or World War II. Researchers re-test 60- and 80-year-olds after five years, 100-year-olds after 18 months.

"There are few longitudinal studies with centenarians because once they reach 100, we're finding that life expectancy is only about 12 to 20 months, and if we wait too long, then we may lose them," Poon said.

Sadly, that already has happened with some, including Elva "Speegie" Spangenberg, a centenarian well-known to Atlantans, who died last December at age 107. At 98, she began a new career as a tour guide at Rhodes Hall, an Atlanta historic site that was seven years her junior--but had to retire her post because of a fall about a year before her death.

"We've had counseling sessions for our testers to make sure they could deal with a centenarian's death. They get very attached to the centenarians. It's like a family member dying," Poon said.

Phase-two testing of the centenarians, which is a repeat of the tests used in phase one is often hard to conduct for other reasons, too -- mainly because of their physical and mental decline. Poon predicts only about half of the original group will be able to participate.

"Those who are still around for the second round of tests are often too frail to be tested for any length of time," he said. "We are finding that 18 months often is too long."

Poon illustrates the point by recalling "one lady who played ragtime piano for the testers on their first visit. Her functional mental state was practically perfect," he said. "Eighteen months later she could not answer many of the same questions. It was heartbreaking to see her go from living an independent life in her own apartment to one in a nursing home."

Poon wants to expand the study to include institutionalized centenarians and compare them to the community-dwelling individuals. He also wants to continue studies of dementia among the oldest old, a project he began last summer with researchers at the University of Lunde, Sweden.

For now, though, those plans are on hold; he and his team of researchers still have plenty of phase-two data to collect, not to mention mountains of data from both phases to analyze. Then there's the monograph on centenarian health issues that he and researchers from France, Hungary, Japan and Sweden plan to publish next spring.

"I think longevity around the world is an important issue," he said. "Researchers from different countries look at it somewhat differently, but we also have common hypotheses and approaches."

In the meantime, Poon et al. have been adding more centenarians to their study. But finding people who meet the study's criteria isn't easy.

"We go to a lot of chicken dinners, talk to a lot of people and pass the word along through churches, senior centers and such," Poon said.

Potential participants must be screened to make sure they're cognitively intact. And that brings up another problem for centenarian researchers: The questionnaires, surveys and other tests they use were designed for and validated on much younger people. They may not hold true for older populations.

"Any time you use a survey, it has to be validated for that particular population," Poon said. "These people are outside of the range of an average life span. Since no one has tested 100-year-olds with these instruments before, we just don't know whether the tests work for the oldest old," Poon said.

Despite the necessary ground-breaking efforts, Poon said he is optimistic that the research will provide useful information. Although it's still too early to draw hard-and-fast conclusions from the phase-two data, a preliminary glance shows "tremendous amounts of individual differences," Poon said. "The changes in our centenarian group are very dramatic over the 18 months of study.

"As centenarians get closer and closer to death, I think a very different picture will emerge in terms of their functioning, but I could be surprised again. Some centenarians may maintain this profile of an independent, functioning person. After all, they've had this pattern for 100 years and 18 months may not change it," he said.

Even among the 80-something-year-olds, the researchers already have seen "a fantastic amount of change," Poon said. "They have already lived beyond the average age, and then we add five years to that."

Learning to Cope

While the researchers are interested in describing centenarians' physical and mental function, they are even more curious about how centenarians have compensated for their diminished abilities.

Poon speculates that the "cohort effect" -- common experiences shared by people born at the same time -- also will have a strong influence on how groups of people change over time.

"The influences of the environment, the context in which you grow up and the value system that holds you up all of these years will be very important," Poon said. "And we know your critical development stage in your 20s and 30s are important."

However, people in their 70s and older are in their last stages of development, which can be the most trying -- and the most rewarding. The longer people live, the more difficulties and losses they face. In addition to losing loved ones -- siblings, children and friends -- centenarians face the loss of career, mobility, respect and attractiveness. They even lose the feeling that they are making a contribution; often they're viewed as "has beens."

"The last stages of life may hold challenges to find ego integrity -- a wisdom or feeling that your life has made sense -- and not to give into despair," Poon said, drawing on ideas proposed by psychologist Erik H. Erikson who is noted for his work on ego integrity and ego development.

Despite the fact people cannot change many traits -- like personality or cognitive ability -- even at 100, people are still able to change some things.

For example, researchers have learned the importance of studying compensatory mechanisms like resourcefulness, which "may be a key ingredient to functioning independently or semi-independently in the community," Poon said.

Although few of us may live long enough to blow out 100 candles, we can still learn pointers from those who have, like the benefits of learning to cope with loss, adopting a positive outlook or finding a central purpose in life. The most important lesson centenarians can teach us may be that we're never too old to learn.

"No matter what your age, the memory is still trainable," Martin said. "You can teach an old dog new tricks. Centenarians can still use their minds, reflections and personality skills to compensate for or overcome problems."

And that's a good take-home message for us all. Especially since today's baby boomers are tomorrow's centenarians.

For more information visit www.thecentenarian.co.uk/home.htm

Okinawan Quick Summary - CNN Transcript

http://www.okinawaprogram.com/news/20041214_cnn.html

This is a transcript from a CNN morning show, courtesy of the above website.


Dr. Craig Willcox on CNN, American Morning

From CNN: American Morning

DEC-14-2004

The following is an edited* transcript from the December 14th broadcast of CNN's American Morning, with comments and corrections added by Dr. Craig Willcox, co-creator of the Okinawa Diet™ and co-authtor of The Okinawa Program and The Okinawa Diet Plan:

HEMMER: Time to page the good doctor. Sanjay Gupta all the way from Tokyo now. On the Japanese island of Okinawa, living longer has become a fact of life.

I will talk to Sanjay in a moment about that. First, though, some background from here in Japan and CNN's Atika Shubert.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Guess how old Makato Nakamatsu (ph) is? Seventy? Eighty? Ninety, maybe? Try 100 years old.

This sprightly great grandmother of 13 is just one of more than 800 centenarians living in Okinawa, the largest verifiable and healthiest concentration of 100 year olds in the world.

On the islands of Okinawa, diseases like cancer, diabetes, and hypertension are rare. Healthy seniors are seen actively at work fishing and farming, seemingly immune to old age.

Okinawa is home to the world's oldest and healthiest people and part of the secret seems to be right on this fishing boat. Elderly fishermen who work late into their lives and of course eat the daily catch. And that turns out to be part of the secret of the Okinawa fountain of youth: staying active and eating well.
That, according to Dr. Craig Willcox, who has studied Okinawa's centenarians for more than a decade.

DR. CRAIG WILLCOX, GERONTOLOGIST: I think they just came up with the right formula, Okinawa. They're doing a lot to either avoid or delay these diseases associated with aging.

SHUBERT: We asked Dr. Willcox to show us how the Okinawans do it. He took us to the market.

WILLCOX: Let's have a look at this. Wow. See that purple color?

(I was pointing out the lycopene content of dragon fruit as well as other Okinawan fruits and vegetables, such as watermelon and sweet potatoes, that are extremely high in carotenoids, anti-oxidants and essential vitamins and minerals - DCW.)

SHUBERT: First, eat lots of colorful fruits and veggies. That means carbs too, but unrefined. Brown rice or whole wheat.

(It is important to eat whole carbohydrates that are high in fiber and that have been refined as little as possible in order to maximize nutritional content as well as minimize the negative effects of unrefined carbs on blood sugar levels. Eating carbs low on the Glycemic Index as well as minimizing quick-release carbs in the diet will keep you healthy and slim throughout life (See pages 33-37 and 89-95 of The Okinawa Diet Plan as well as pages 92-101 of The Okinawa Program for a more in depth explanation of the importance of eating the right carbohydrates) - DCW).

WILLCOX: The traditional diet is very vegetable heavy. Over 70 percent of the daily color intake came from vegetables.
(The staple of the traditional Okinawa Diet was the sweet potato, a nutritional powerhouse and great source of unrefined carbohydrates. Also loaded with beta-carotene, B vitamins, C, E, calcium, potassium, iron and fiber. Over 200 case-control studies have shown that people who consume a diet higher in vegetables suffer from lowers rates of chronic diseases, including cancer, and live longer. - DCW).

SHUBERT: Second, eat moderate portions of protein, especially heart healthy fish and tofu. But also a surprising Okinawan favorite: pork. But just a little.
(The traditional meat in Okinawa was pork but its consumption was limited to ceremonial occasions. Thus, the Okinawan elders have consumed very little meat over the course of their lives. Even now their meat consumption remains less than a quarter of what most people eat in North America. - DCW).

WILLCOX: The way that this is prepared in a traditional Okinawan style would be to boil this down and keep pouring it off until you pour off all the fat.

SHUBERT: Third, follow Okinawan table etiquette. Eat until you are 80 percent full and no more. That keeps calories in check.

Is that the secret to Nakamatsu's exuberant good health? She's certainly happy to share her healthy lunch, but also recommends daily exercises. Apparently when you live past 100 you know some pretty good dance moves. And if you do all that, she says, she'll come visit you when you turn 100.

Atika Shubert, CNN, Okinawa, Japan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: What a life for her. We're paging the good doctor now. Sanjay Gupta, at the CNN Center.

How are you, Sanjay? Good morning. Tell us about this fountain of youth. How you doing? GUPTA: Good morning. Yes, really interesting, obviously. Okinawa (is) a great place to look at as far as centenarians go. A couple of facts to point out.

First of all, with regards to Okinawa. So they live longer, lower rates of Alzheimer's. If they leave the island, those things go away. Why, is the question? Atika sort of mentioned a couple of these things.

(Okinawans consuming a meat-heavy diet in Brazil live 17 years shorter on average than those who consume the traditional diet in Okinawa. Okinawans who migrate to Hawaii and consume an East-West blend of foods, or East-West fusion diet tend to live almost as long as Okinawans in Okinawa - DCW).

Vigorous physical and mental exercise throughout their lives. A diet low in fat and salt. High in fruits and vegetables.

Also a couple of other interesting things that we found in our research on this -- soy, a significant part of the diet, 60 to 120 grams of soy daily and eat only until you're 80 percent full.

(Soy founds are high in flavonoids and people who consume high amounts of soy products have generally been found to suffer from lower rates of hormone-dependent cancers such as breast and/or prostate. Women who consume more soy have usually been found to have a decreased incidence of menopausal related symptoms such as hot flashes, as well as lower rates of osteoporosis - DCW ).

Atika mentioned this, it's called hara-hachi-bu, Bill, that's the name of it -- it's called eat only until you're 80 percent full. That's going to make you eat fewer calories. Really important.

(As we point out in The Okinawa Diet Plan, eating foods that are low in caloric density has been shown to increase life expectancy - DCW)

Also an important sense of social belonging. Everyone from the youngest in this community to the oldest in this community has a sense of place and is respected as such, Bill. All these things seem to have a factor as well.

(As we pointed out in our first book, The Okinawa Program, strong social support networks are associated with longevity--DCW)

HEMMER: Yes, is this exclusive only to Okinawa, Sanjay, or do you find if you put out the map of the world do you find other areas of the world where you see similar aging rates?

GUPTA: Well, Okinawa is one of the best, certainly, around the world, but there are other places around the world that have high concentrations of centenarians. Take a look: Okinawa topping the list but also Nova Scotia, Canada, for example. Sardinia, Italy as well.

(Okinawa has the highest age-validated centenarian population in the world at 47 per 100,000 population vs about 10 per 100,000 in the US. - DCW)

If you want to look around the world as far as life expectancy Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan all around 81. Japan as a country 81.

Canada 80, France 79. USA 77. China 72 and Botswana only 30. The reason it's so low in Botswana really has to do with high infant mortality rates there, Bill.

(These rates differ according to whose data you use but Japan comes out on top in very case. Of the Japanese, the Okinawans are the longest-lived at 78 years for men and 86 years for women on average. Botswana also is suffering from the AIDS epidemic and has lost approximately 10 years of life expectancy in the past couple of decades - DCW)

HEMMER: What about personality traits, Sanjay? Do you see any common link that would conclude any research as to why some people are living longer than others?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, there are some significant personality links and this is probably one of the most interesting things about it. If you look at the personalities of people. Strong but flexible characters. They tend to be more dominant in terms of their personality.

Also a bit suspicious. Suspicious of those around them, sometimes. But they're very practical minded. And tend to be more relaxed in general. Another important thing that we found as well, Bill, is that the people who lived longer oftentimes had helpers or people that they associated with who were much younger than them. That was both their -- they got some help from those young people as well as sort of a passageway into being young themselves, perhaps making them live longer, Bill.

(As we pointed out in our first book, personality and longevity experts seem to agree that a positive outlook, as seen in optimistic, emotionally stable, and flexible personalities is a definite advantage for coping with stressful life circumstances. They tend to be emotionally resilient and strong-willed types. Through personality testing we found that Okinawan centenarians tended to score high in “self-determination” and “self-confidence” and low in “tension” and “time-urgency.” See pages 245-251 of The Okinawa Program for further information on personality and longevity. - DCW)

HEMMER: How about that woman in the story that Atika showed -- she was just vibrant -- absolutely.

Hey, thanks, Sanjay. Very interesting stuff. Eighty percent filled and then stop. Talk to you later. Oh, I like that too. We'll talk to you later.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080505120818.htm


The Secret To Long Life May Not Be In The Genes

ScienceDaily (May 6, 2008) — A research on the bone health of one of the oldest persons in the world, who recently died at the age of 114, reveals that there were no genetic modifications which could have contributed to this longevity. The research team, directed by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona professor Adolfo Díez Pérez, pointed out a healthy lifestyle, a Mediterranean diet, a temperate climate and regular physical activity as the reasons for his excellent health.

The research team studied the bone mass and analysed the genetics of a man with enviable health who at the time of the study was 113 years old. The research was carried out with four other members of his family: a 101-year-old brother, two daughters aged 81 and 77, and a nephew aged 85, all of them born and still living in a small town of the island of Menorca. The research findings were recently published in the Journal of Gerontology and reported that the man's bones were in excellent conditions: his bone mass was normal, there were no anomalous curvatures and he had never sustained a fracture.

With regard to the genetical analyses, researchers were unsuccessful in finding any mutations in the KLOTHO gene, which is generally related to a good level of mineral density and therefore healthy bones. Neither did they find any mutations in the LRP5 gene, which is associated with longevity. None of the members of the family who participated in the study presented any mutations in this gene.

The results of the research do not rule out the possibility that other genetic mutations could positively influence longevity. However, researchers do point out the fact that the excellent health of this family, and of the 113-year-old man in particular, is probably due to a Mediterranean diet, the temperate climate of the island, a lack of stress and regular physical activity. The article underlines the fact that until the age of 102, the man cycled every day and looked after the family orchard.

This research was directed by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona professor Adolfo Díez Pérez, researcher at the Municipal Institute of Medical Research (IMIM) and doctor at Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, with the participation of IMIM researchers Leonardo Mellibovsky, Pau Lluch and Xavier Nogués, and researchers from the Department of Genetics at the University of Barcelona Mariona Bustamante, Susana Balcells and Daniel Grinberg.

Adapted from materials provided by Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.

'How to Live to 100'

Copy of this 11-year old article found here:
http://www.bumc.bu.edu/Dept/Content.aspx?DepartmentID=361&PageID=5900

Newsweek
How to Live to 100
Decrepitude isn't inevitable. New research shows we all have the tools to live longer lives and die faster deaths.
June 30, 1997

By Geoffrey Cowley


At 104, Angeline Strandal doesn't place much stock in doctors. "If they start poking around you," she says, "they'll only make you sick." The Massachusetts centenarian does go in for a physical once in a while, but she hasn't been seriously ill since the time she came down with appendicitis--in 1925. "People ask me what I eat," she says. "I'm a vegetarian, more or less. I never smoked. I don't drink either. That's one of my good qualities. And I keep my bedroom window open 365 days a year." Strandal has outlived 11 siblings and a husband, who died back in 1931, but she still cooks every day except Sunday for her 67-year-old daughter and her 69-year-old son. She also catches a daily mass on TV, roots faithfully for the Boston Red Sox and loves nothing more than a good heavyweight fight. "Every day I ask God to give me one more day," she muses. "And believe it or not, he does."

We baby boomers may soon find ourselves emulating Angeline Strandal, or someone like her, as devoutly as we once did Jim Morrison. We've watched our parents or grandparents die in their 70s--often sick, lonely and helpless--and we're beginning to sense that life should be longer and richer than that. "When the boomers started turning 50, it was like the start of the Oklahoma land rush," says Dan Perry, director of the Washington-based Alliance for Aging Research. Surveys by Perry's organization suggest that today's 50-year-olds are suddenly serious about living to 100, and keen to get there in reasonably good health.

"They don't want to spend any time at all in a nursing home," he says. "The fear of losing independence and the ability to fend for oneself is overwhelming."

Well, it turns out we may have a say in the matter. A growing body of research suggests that chronic illness is not an inevitable consequence of aging, as we've long believed, but more often the result of lifestyle choices that we're perfectly free to reject. "People used to say, 'Who would want to be 100?' " says Dr. Thomas Perls, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and director of the New England Centenarian Study. "Now they're realizing it's an opportunity." So are booksellers and magazine publishers. "Live long, die fast," the dust jackets urge us. "Dare to be 100." Many of us will fall short of that number simply through bad genes or bad luck. And high-tech medicine isn't likely to change the outlook dramatically; drugs and surgery can do only so much to sustain a body once it starts to fail. But there is no question we can lengthen our lives while shortening our deaths. The tools already exist, and they're within virtually everyone's reach.

Life expectancy in the United States has nearly doubled since Angeline Strandal was a kid--from 47 years to 76 years. And though centenarians are still rare, they now constitute the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. Their ranks have increased 16-fold over the past six decades--from 3,700 in 1940 to roughly 61,000 today. And the explosion is just getting started. The Census Bureau projects that one in nine baby boomers (9 million of the 80 million people born between 1946 and 1964) will survive into their late 90s, and that one in 26 (or 3 million) will reach 100. "A century ago, the odds of living that long were about one in 500," says Lynn Adler, founder of the National Centenarian Awareness Project and the author of "Centenarians: The Bonus Years." "That's how far we've come." If decrepitude were an inevitable part of aging, these burgeoning numbers would spell trouble. But the evidence suggests that Americans are living better, as well as longer. The disability rate among people older than 65 has fallen steadily since the early 1980s, according to Duke University demographer Kenneth Manton, and a shrinking percentage of seniors are plagued by hypertension, arteriosclerosis and dementia. Moreover, researchers have found that the oldest of the old often enjoy better health than people in their 70s. The 79 centenarians in Perls's New England study have all lived independently through their early 90s, taking an average of just one medication. And when the time comes for these hearty souls to die, they don't linger. In a 1995 study, James Lubitz of the Health Care Financing Administration calculated that medical expenditures for the last two years of life--statistically the most expensive--average $22,600 for people who die at 70, but just $8,300 for those who make it past 100.

These insights have spawned a revolution in the science of aging. "Until recently, there was so much preoccupation with disease that little work was done on the characteristics that permit people to do well," says Dr. John Rowe, the New York geriatrician who heads the MacArthur Foundation's Research Network on Successful Aging. Over the past decade, Rowe's group and others have published hundreds of studies elucidating the factors that help people glide through their later years with clear minds and strong bodies. The research confirms the old saw that it pays to choose your parents well. But the way we age depends less on who we are than on how we live--what we eat, how much we exercise and how we employ our minds.

The Magic of Exercise

Suppose there was a potion that could keep you strong and trim as you aged, while protecting your heart and bones; improving your mood, sleep and memory; warding off breast and colon cancer, and reducing your overall risk of dying prematurely.

Respectable studies have shown that exercise can have all those benefits--even for people who take it up late in life. Experts now agree that most of the physical decline that older people suffer stems not from age but from simple disuse. When we sit all day, year after year, our bones, muscles and organ systems atrophy. But exercise can preserve and even revive them.

When Dr. Ralph Paffenbarger started tracking the health of 19,000 Harvard and University of Pennsylvania alumni back in the early 1960s, many experts thought vigorous exercise was downright dangerous for people over 50. But by monitoring the volunteers' activity levels and health status over the years, the Stanford epidemiologist turned that wisdom on its head. In a landmark 1986 study, Paffenbarger showed that the participants' death rates fell in direct proportion to the number of calories they burned each week. Those burning 2,000 a week (roughly the number it takes to walk 20 miles) suffered only half the annual mortality of the couch potatoes, thanks mainly to a lower rate of heart disease.

The alumni study wasn't set up to gauge the benefits of any particular exercise regimen, but subsequent studies have shown that different activities bring different rewards. Everyone now agrees that aerobic exercise preserves the heart, lungs and brain. And researchers at Tufts University have recently shown that weight lifting can do as much for the frail elderly as it does for high-school jocks. When Dr. Maria Fiatarone got 10 chronically ill nursing-home residents to lift weights three times a week for two months, the participants' average walking speed nearly tripled, and their balance improved by half. Two had the audacity to throw away their canes.

Miriam Nelson, another Tufts researcher, has since shown how a series of simple strength-training exercises could help keep women from resorting to canes in the first place. She recruited 40 volunteers--all past menopause, none taking estrogen--and split them into two groups. Half continued life as usual, while the other half went to Tufts twice a week to pump iron. Over the course of a year, the women in the control group suffered a predictable loss of bone density, but the weight lifters enjoyed slight increases. They didn't lose weight (that wasn't the goal), but they lost fat, and many ended up measurably stronger than their daughters, who were 30 to 40 years younger. Dorothy Barron, who was 64 when she joined Nelson's experiment, says the experience not only remodeled her body but gave her more energy and confidence than she had had since her youth. Five years later, she still lifts weights--and she has added power walking, horseback riding and white-water rafting to her hobbies. When people ask why she pushes herself so hard, she replies, "I'm too old not to."

Eating to Nourish Long Life

We all know that living on fat, salt and empty calories can have a range of nasty consequences, from obesity and impotence to hypertension and heart disease. Yet we seem to forget that there are other ways to eat, and that people who adopt them stay younger longer. George and Gaynel Couron will never forget that lesson. The Sacramento, Calif., couple gave up eating meat back in the early 1920s, when they became Seventh-day Adventists. They eventually strayed from the church and its dietary edicts, but they returned to both in 1943, when George suffered a heart attack. Today he's 100 years old, and Gaynel is 98. They've been married for 81 years and have 14 kids ranging in age from 58 to 80. They have slowed down a bit (they're not planning any more children), but George still takes great delight in growing and eating his own tomatoes, melons, beets, squash and black-eyed peas. As he puts it, "We're still perking along." No one can say exactly what role food has played in the Courons' good fortune, but the age-reversing effects of a plant-based diet are not in question. In controlled studies, San Francisco cardiologist Dean Ornish has shown that a diet based on low-fat, nutrient-rich foods not only prevents heart disease--the Western world's leading cause of early death--but can help reverse it. And other studies suggest that dietary changes could virtually eliminate the high blood pressure that places 50 million older Americans at high risk of stroke, heart attack and kidney failure.

"Hypertension is not an inevitable part of aging," says Dr. Boyd Eaton, an Atlanta-based radiologist who has written extensively on nutrition and chronic illness. "It's a disease of civilization." You wouldn't know that from watching people age in this country. Hypertension afflicts a third of all Americans in their 50s, half of those in their 60s and more than two thirds of those over 70. But preindustrial people don't follow that pattern. Whether they happen to live in China or Africa, Alaska or the Amazon, people in primitive settings experience no change in blood pressure as they age, and the reason is fairly simple: they don't eat processed foods. Dr. Paul Whelton of Tulane University's School of Public Health has spent the past decade tracking 15,000 indigenous Yi people in southwestern China. As long as they eat a traditional diet--rice, a little meat and a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables--these rural farmers virtually never develop hypertension. But when they migrate to nearby towns, their blood pressure starts to rise with age. "Their genes don't change when they move," Whelton says. "Their diet does."

What makes processed food so harmful? Salt is one key suspect. When you subsist mainly on fresh plant foods--as our ancestors did for roughly 7 million years--you get 10 times more potassium than sodium. That 10-to-one ratio is, by Eaton's reasoning, the one our bodies are designed for. But salt is now showered on foods at every stage of processing and preparation (a 4-ounce tomato contains 9 mg of sodium, 4 ounces of bottled tomato sauce nearly 700 mg), while potassium leaches out. As a result, most of us now consume more salt than potassium. "Modern humans are the only mammals that do that," says Eaton, "and we're the only ones that develop hypertension." Correcting that imbalance takes some effort, but it doesn't require moving to the bush. In fact a recent clinical study suggests that dietary changes can reduce blood pressure as markedly as drug treatment, and can produce results in as little as two months. In the study (known as DASH, or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), researchers at several institutions placed volunteers on one of three diets. Those on a low-fat menu that included 10 daily servings of fresh fruits and vegetables, plus two servings of calcium-rich dairy products, reduced their systolic and diastolic readings by 5.5 mm and 3.0 mm, respectively. And those suffering from hypertension got reductions of twice that magnitude. "We suspected this was possible," says nutritionist Eva Obarzanek of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the federal agency that sponsored the study. "Now we know the size of the effect."

Researchers have since shown that a simple potassium supplement can bring similar if less dramatic benefits. That's worth knowing, but keep in mind that potassium is just one of countless age fighters found in real food. The antioxidant vitamins in a tomato or a green leaf can help boost immunity and slow the corrosion of aging cell membranes, and the B vitamins may help protect your heart. By eating plants, you also bathe yourself in cancer-fighting phytochemicals, bone-saving calcium and the fiber needed to maintain the colon and modulate blood sugar. Best of all, you can down them by the bushel without getting fat.

Staying Connected and Engaged

Exercise and good food may help keep you going, but successful aging is also a psychological feat. Loneliness, for example, can speed your demise no matter how conscientiously you care for your body. "We go through life surrounded by protective convoys of others," says Robert Kahn, a University of Michigan psychologist who has studied the health effects of companionship. "People who manage to maintain a network of social support do best." One study of elderly heart-attack patients found that those with two or more close associates enjoyed twice the one-year survival rate of those who were completely alone.

Companionship aside, healthy oldsters seem to share a knack for managing stress, a poison that contributes measurably to heart disease, cancer and accidents. Researchers have also linked successful aging to mental stimulation. An idle brain will deteriorate just as surely as an unused leg, notes Dr. Gene Cohen, head of the gerontology center at George Washington University. And just as exercise can prevent muscle atrophy, mental challenges seem to preserve both the mind and the immune system. But what most impresses researchers who study the oldest old is their simple drive and resilience. "People who reach 100 are not quitters," says Adler of the National Centenarian Awareness Project. "They share a remarkable ability to renegotiate life at every turn, to accept the inevitable losses and move on." Merle McEathron knows all about accepting losses. She's 102 today, but she was just 7 when she found her mother dead on the floor at her childhood home in Vincennes, Ind., felled by a heart attack. As the oldest girl in the family, Merle had to raise her baby sister and take over cooking and cleaning for her father and two older brothers ("I stood on a box to reach the range," she recalls). She married at 15, but her man left her at 25, so she started a general store and worked there long enough to put both of her sons through college. The boys were grown by the time World War II came along, but she found other ways to stay busy. She worked as a house mother at the Cadet Club, a military social center, where young airmen took her flying in small warplanes after hours. And when the war ended, she got in her Buick and headed for Arizona.

She was 51 years old by the time she hit Phoenix, but the move brought many adventures, including three more husbands. After dumping one (a dance-hall sax player with a roving eye) and outliving the others, she moved herself into the Eastern Star retirement center to avoid getting lonely. A doctor assured her she would never walk again when she broke her leg four years ago, but she got herself a walker, made her way down to the exercise room and worked the injured limb until she could get around on a cane. Then she threw away the cane. She now walks a mile and a quarter each day, and every September she travels to Indiana for a reunion at the Cadet Club. When she gets there, she climbs over the wing of a restored World War II training plane, crawls into the cockpit behind the pilot and rides that baby into the sky.

With Anne Underwood and Mary Hager
Newsweek 6/30/97 Lifestyle/How to Live to 100

* * *

I emphasized the entire last section because I read this article a long time ago, but I still think about that woman regularly. Screw what the doctor tells you! Such quacks.

New England Centenarian Study Basic Summary

http://www.sunjournal.com/story/262078-3/LewistonAuburn/Doctors_advice_on_living_to_100/

Doctor's advice on living to 100

- Staff Writer Bonnie Washuk
Tuesday, April 22, 2008

BOSTON - The number of people who live to 100, like Lewiston's Libby Goldman, is low, about 1 out of 8,000, says Dr. Thomas Perls, director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University's Medical Center.

Of those who live to be 100, "the larger numbers aren't doing so well," Perls said Monday. Only 20 percent are lucid.

Those in that minority can keep going to 101, 102, 103 and beyond, "as long as their minds are sharp," Perls said.

"Some people say, 'Who would want to live to 100?' I say most of us," if the disabilities associated with old age are compressed to the very end of life, he said.

The vast majority of those who live to 100 have lived independently through their early 90s, Perls said. The world's oldest known person today is Edna Parker of Shelbyville, Ind., who celebrated her 115th birthday April 20. People who live to 110 are "supercentenarians" and are rare, Perls said.

There are three common traits of centenarians, according to research in the New England Centenarian Study:

• Good genes. They have "significant genetic advantages" and lack genes that predispose them to diseases, Perls said. Longevity often runs in families.

• Good health habits. Most don't drink or smoke, and they exercise. They're not overweight.

• They manage stress well. Perls guessed that Libby Goldman was "gregarious and optimistic." People who live to 100 "find humor in their daily lives." They have stress, but "they seem to be able to let go of it easily."

To learn more about the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University's Medical Center, go to: http://www.bumc.bu.edu/Dept/Home.aspx?DepartmentID=361


* * *

Not too helpful, as it's all stuff we knew. I think stress is the biggest problem for most people. The good news is that if you're exercising and eating properly, stress is less likely to be a problem anyway. And what better excuse to block out time for your favorite activities and to hang out with good friends?

Centenarian Blue Zones

Source: http://www.startribune.com/17163371.html

Centenarians: Living, learning

By RANDY A. SALAS, Star Tribune

Last update: March 31, 2008 - 5:53 PM

By Gianluca Colla

Dan Buettner with 100-year-old Felipe Gudoy, in Costa Rica's Nicoya penninsula.

Aging only has an accelerator pedal, Dan Buettner says -- there is no brake. So the key to living longer is simple: Don't step on the gas.

But how do you do that? For a clue, the Minneapolis author and explorer traveled the world to find so-called Blue Zones, places where the people live much longer and in greater number than is the norm. He and a team of researchers then studied those people to find common links that might translate into a longer life for anyone.

The result is Buettner's new book, "The Blue Zone: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest" (National Geographic, $26).

In three years of research, Buettner found four Blue Zones, places where people have up to a three times better chance of living to 100 than we do: Okinawa in Japan, a mountainous region in Sardinia in Italy, the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, and Loma Linda, Calif. He joined with the National Institute on Aging to come up with a methodology to understand each region's culture of longevity and then backed it up with epidemiology studies.

"It's not just Dan Buettner's observations," he said.

Dr. Greg Plotnikoff, director of the Institute for Health and Healing at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, joined Buettner in Okinawa to vet the author's field work there. He praised Buettner's big-picture approach to studying the centenarians.

"It's not just 'What did you have for breakfast Mrs. Jones?' It's the whole context," Plotnikoff said. "This is why I'm such a big supporter of Dan's work. He's starting from a different perspective."

The gist of Buettner's findings, which he will discuss Wednesday during a sold-out book-launch presentation at Minneapolis Central Library and Friday at the SweatShop Health Club in St. Paul, should be good news to most people.

"Typically, when Americans think, 'I want to live longer or stay younger,' they jump to supplements or to diets or to exercise programs," Buettner said. "But the biggest 'Aha!' for us was that the things that truly give you extra quality years and make you look and feel younger now are easy and don't cost anything."

Dr. Steven Miles, a geriatrician and a professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota, said he generally agrees with the tips derived from Buettner's findings.

"On the other hand, you really don't need to go and look at exotic subcultures to derive these rules," Miles said. "They can be derived relatively easily right here at home."

Buettner condensed the lessons in "The Blue Zone" to five tips:

1. Be naturally active.

That means gardening, walking with friends, playing with the kids and other everyday activities.

"The type of physical activity you enjoy is probably much better for you in the long run than anything else you can do, such as running marathons or triathlons or pumping iron," Buettner said.

Also consider changes that force spontaneous exercise, such as getting rid of the TV remote control so you have to get up whenever you want to change the channel or using a shovel instead of a snowblower.

2. Hang out with the right people.

If you spend your time with people who eat fast food and don't exercise, you're likely to pick up the same habits.

"This has a huge, profound impact on your lifestyle," Buettner said. He cited the extensive Framingham Heart Study, which found that obesity can be "socially contagious."

3. Reduce calories.

Before each meal, elders in Okinawa recite an adage to remind themselves to stop eating before they're full. You can do that more easily by replacing your 12-inch dinner plates with smaller ones.

"Every single meal, you'll cut 20 to 30 percent of the calories," Buettner explained, "because a big cue for telling us whether or not we're full is, is our plate empty?"

He added that University of Minnesota research suggests that people who eat a big breakfast tend to eat fewer calories throughout the day than people who skimp on their morning meal.

4. Restrict meat intake.

The easiest way to do this, Buettner said, is to stop buying meat at the grocery store. That will cut meat from your daily life but still allow you to eat it on special occasions or when you dine with your family and friends.

"The longest-lived people in the world eat meat less than four times a month," he said. "I think not eating meat adds an easy half a dozen years to your life."

5. Have a sense of purpose.

Two ways to do so are reconnecting with your religion and volunteering.

"As your job wanes down and your kids grow up, that's when it's hugely important to have a sense of purpose," Buettner said.

He's working on a new project about happiness and said he has found that 80 percent of the things that optimize your lifestyle also make you happier.

"By just putting a little more energy in the right areas of our life, it will have a huge payoff," he said.

"The power is in the repetitiveness, in doing it for a long time and making it your lifestyle. The key is to change your environment -- your social environment, your work environment -- because that will last. A diet won't. An exercise program won't."

Here's to a long life.

Randy A. Salas • 612-673-4542


* * *


If the link is still active, I highly recommend following it for the captioned photo gallery; among the pictures are a 99-year old man waterskiing (his secret, it says, is his physical activity, eating small portions of good food, and that his weight is the same as it was when he enlisted in the service for WWII) and a centenarian woman who starts every morning by walking a mile through the halls of her building, then goes to the gym to cycle for 6-8 miles, and finishes off with weight training. If those pictures don't inspire you, you're doomed!

The Okinawan adage they recite before eating is a concept known as "harahachibu," or eating only until one feels 80% full. My mother always struggles to remember that one ("hairy hotsy boo-boo?").

Centenarian Ex-Dancer Still Works Out

http://www.sunsetbeacon.com/archives/richmondreview/2002editions/Nov02/Hunt.html

Centenarian Still Dances to the Joyous Sounds of Life

by David Ryan Alexander

She was once a dancer for Lawrence Welk, lived through both World Wars and the Great Depression, and has outlived several of her own grandchildren. On Nov. 4, Richmond District resident Alby Hunt will celebrate her 100th birthday.


Her advice for living so happily for so long and maintaining energy and clarity of mind: "Always keep moving. Don't sit still, and don't let anybody always take you by the hand. You have to do it for yourself."

With that she leaned back in her rocking chair for an extra boost and launched herself onto her feet. Once landing, she proclaimed, "I'm almost 100 and I don't have any cane or any walker," and then proceeded with her signature jig dance, swiveling her hips and her arms with a broad smile across her face.

From her youth Hunt has always been a dancer. She recalls her days in Chicago when she danced for Lawrence Welk and the Navy dances she attended with her girlfriends where she met her husband.

"I'm so happy I'm still on my own two feet. I was always a dancer," she said.

In fact, one of the first items she requested when she came to St. Anne's Home for the elderly at the age of 90 was a workout video. She quickly encouraged many of the other residents to participate. They still work out to it five times a week.

Hunt still makes the effort to maintain her appearances, and is sometimes mistaken to be only 75 years old by people that do not know her. She wears large glasses that display her bold eyes, that are both alive and aware, and her mouth is always as eager to smile as her still-agile legs are to dance. Although she is small in size, the bounces she makes with each step defy both her age and her height.

A typical day for Hunt includes regular meals and socializing, but it also consists of regular exercise.


Right after breakfast and lunch she makes her way to the exercise room and workouts on her favorite machine. When she is finished some of the other residents often offer their assistance getting her off the bicycle, but she brushes them away and sprightly climbs off on her own. After a 10-minute rest on the nearby sofa, she continues on with her day.

In addition to the constant activity that Hunt has always filled her life with, she also finds the secret to long life in her love for raisins.

"I've eaten raisins everyday of my life for years," she said.

Besides raisins, she still eats most of whatever she wants, including her favorite food, cake, without the frosting.

Having been the oldest of eight children, Hunt remembers how much her mother relied on her to help out with all of her young siblings.

From a very early age she had to take on a great deal of responsibility and was constantly running about trying to take care of everything. In particular, she was always in charge of hanging up the laundry for their family of 10.

All of the children were raised in Chicago, so during the winter she would have to climb into the attic to hang up all of the clothes to dry. She attributes this chore to the beginning of a life of constant activity.

Hunt and her husband raised two daughters, who are both still alive and living in California.

About eight years ago, while on an outing with residents of St. Anne's, Hunt's heart unexpectedly faltered and she was rushed to the hospital, where she was given a pacemaker.

When she came back to St. Anne's after her release from the hospital, the first thing she recalled saying was, "Now I'm going to live forever."


* * *


So we see she has a great sense of humor and is constantly active--with formal exercise, dance, and keeping busy with chores. She embodies what she advises with her "earnest personality" (as described by a researcher from another article) that spurs her to up and do what she knows she needs, e.g., immediately getting an exercise video at the nursing home. She didn't wait for anybody for take care of her own needs; you ultimately are responsible for you.

Raisins have lots of important nutrients that may contribute to the health benefits observed in red wine, though red wine, when fermented properly (most manufacturers usually cut corners), loses all the sugar content while further enhancing the nutritious phytochemical properties. One added benefit of raisins themselves though is that they can be high in salicylates. If you'll recall, aspirin, widely touted for its health benefits, is a salicylate. Women tend to be resistant to aspirin's benefits while still suffering side effects like intestinal damage, so dried fruits high in salicylates may be a better bet.

There are some factors helping Alby Hunt that we can't control, such as her small body size, her sex, and being a first born child. But her lifestyle should inspire us all to increase quality and quantity of life by vigilantly exercising. If she's 100 and makes herself go workout after every breakfast and lunch, why can't you kids who are a quarter of her age?