There are some lifestyle changes you can make to improve your chances!
People get older and older these days. And with the recent death of the oldest person in the world (who died at age 118), some people wonder how they themselves could live to be that old. According to the United Nations, there are round 593.000 centenarians – people who live to be a hundred – on the planet. And it turns out, there is something you can do to increase your chances of becoming one of them.
Genetics
Unfortunately, one of the things that you can not change, are your genes. And genetics play a part in whether or not you grow up to be one hundred years old. Or even older. S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told The Washington Post: “You can’t make it out that far without having already won the genetic lottery at birth. So, rule number one is going to be genetics.” If your parents have lived a long live, then chances are that you will too.
Environment and lifestyle
But fortunately for the people among us who haven’t lucked out on the gene lottery, there are other ways to improve your lifespan too. Genes don’t determine everything. Your genes only account for about twenty-five percent. The other seventy-five percent, depends on where you live and the lifestyle choices you make. Because your environment, what you eat, whether you regularly exercise and the social contacts you have, matter. According to Jamie Justice, an assistant professor of gerontology at Wake Forest University, health care is also very important. She told the Post: “If you have a better health-care system, you’re going to have a higher life expectancy.”
Location is an important factor for longevity. If you live in a war zone, a very polluted area, a country where sitting is how people spend most of their days; your health is going to be influenced in different ways. Luigi Ferrucci, the scientific director at the National Institute on Aging, said that “… the stress of life directly affects some of the biological mechanisms of aging. We are discovering that the secret of good health is not only in our behavior but it’s also in what our society does to enhance the health of our population.”
Advice
The best advice Ferrucci says he can give is to: “… get up early in the morning and go out.” Het told the Post: “That is really the best gift that you can give yourself if you want to achieve longevity.” So, if you plan on reaching that 100 year milestone, you might want to go out for a walk right now!
Read more: The oldest person in the world dies at the age of 118
Source: The Washington Post | Image: Unsplash, Danie Franco