Improving your longevity prospects
So you want to live as long as possible - well, who doesn't! To make a significant impact on your potential lifespan
Stop smoking
Take some exercise
Get social support and protection
Avoiding Smoking
a) Among British doctors those who smoked lost on average 8 years
of life.
b) Stopping smoking is biggest life saver
Smoking: survival after age 35 among smokers, quitters and never
smokers
Doll et al, BMJ 1994
Regular Physical Activity
a) People who take regular exercise and have high levels of activity
avoid heart attacks and stroke - and live longer.
b) Survival overall is also better - the figure shows that any activity
is better than none.
Effects of exercise on 15 year mortality: British Regional Heart
Study
Wannamethee et al, Arch Int Med 1998
Social Support
and Protection
a) Animals in the wild suffer predation and have little protection.
In zoos, they survival much better - and have a survival curve similar
to humans
b) Conditions for humans in the 19th century were much closer to
animals in the wild - the survival curves have improved over the
20 th century.
The effect of social factors: wild versus protected
Social Class and Survival
a) Social class is based on occupation - social class I are professionals
- doctors and so on, Social class V are unskilled manual workers.
b) The differences in survival between social classes are large
- amounting to nearly 1500 days difference between class I and V.
Social class and life expectancy : age 65
Anti-Ageing Treatments?
a) Starvation diets - work in mice but not in humans
b) Antioxidant vitamins - evidence from large trials show no benefits
c) Hormone replacement therapy - evidence from trials show no benefits
in survival
Scoring a Century
a) In the UK, the queen sends a birthday greeting to everyone who
reaches their 100 th birthday. This gives an indication of the ageing
of the population. In 1952 255 telegrams were sent out, but this
has risen dramatically
The rise of centenarians - end of an era? Or anti-Royalist sentiment?
Source: Buckingham Place, Anniversaries Office
Summary
If you want to maximise your lifespan then:
- Avoiding smoking, taking exercise, and social protection will all
help ensure a healthy old age
- The effects of love and
happiness do not require evidence and merit greater promotion
- The
health gains of the past century will be impossible to match
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