Live Long and Prosper
by Walt Larimore, MD
I spent my first year of medical practice in the Smoky Mountains of rural western North Carolina. There I had the privilege of caring for a number of patients who were in their nineties—and several who were over one hundred years old. Caring for these men and women taught me much about what it means to be a highly healthy person.

Margaret had just turned ninety when we first met. “I’m tired of traveling all the way to Sylva to see the internist,” she told me during our first appointment. “And,” she added, “my doctor over there is so old. I’m afraid he’s not going to be around much longer!”

“How old is he?” I asked.

She giggled, putting her hand over her mouth, blushing. “Oh, honey, he’s barely sixty. He just doesn’t know how to live very well. And I think he’s working himself into an early grave! If he had just listened to me.”

I smiled to myself. Here was a woman thirty years older than her physician, predicting his death. Barely one month later, I saw his obituary in the newspaper.

Margaret had my attention, and over the next four years I listened and she taught. Hardly a visit went by where she didn’t share her wisdom. Here are some of what my office staff called “Margaretisms”:

• When asked why she always seemed so up, never moody or down, even when an illness flared, she exclaimed, “I’m too blessed to be stressed or depressed!”
• When talking about a local politician who had been accused of an ethical indiscretion, she quipped, “Forbidden fruits create many jams.”
• She told me that she exercised twice as much as most people: “Every day I walk an hour along Deep Creek and I walk twenty-four hours with the Lord.”

One afternoon I noticed my nurse, Beth, doubled over in laughter as Margaret was leaving the office. I had prescribed a mild medication to help her with occasional insomnia. She also was taking a laxative sporadically for bouts of constipation. She had pointed out to Beth, “Honey, whatever else you do, never, never, under any circumstances, have a patient take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.” Then she took off out the door to conquer the world.

Margaret had a number of physical and mental ailments, but minor “mechanical” problems aren’t too noticeable in an “older vehicle” that has been well cared for and is otherwise running efficiently. And Margaret was running efficiently.

Margaret had a number of similarities with her long-lived friends, as well as with other elderly folks from various cultures who, because of their longevity, have been studied. Leonard W. Poon, the lead researcher in one of the largest studies of centenarians ever conducted, reported that centenarians find meaning in life’s trials and respond effectively to problems. They’re not “wallowers.” Margaret was no wallower!

Some of the longest long-lived groups of people in the world are said to be among the Georgians of the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia, the Vilcabamba Indians of the Ecuadorian Andes, the people of the Hunza Valley in Kashmir, and residents of Okinawa, Japan. Not only are they long-lived, with significant numbers of individuals exceeding one hundred years of age, but medical studies also accent the high quality of life of most of the centenarians in these cultures. As scientists have tried to identify common elements, they’ve reported the following characteristics of these non-American centenarians:

• They exercise regularly and consistently. Walking and other forms of active exercise are part of their everyday lives.
• They avoid highly processed foods. In fact, virtually none of their food is highly processed, as are many of our junk foods and fast foods here in the United States.
• They eat a nutritious diet. They don’t overeat, and their diet is high in fiber, whole grains, nuts, and “good” fats (and in some cultures, yogurt or soy) and low in calories, salt, saturated fats, and refined sugars. Health-enhancing fish also is an important staple of the diet in some of these cultures.
• They drink lots of water. In most of these cultures, the water is usually from wells or mountain streams and has a high mineral content.
• They consume plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
• They avoid loneliness. Relationships within their communities with neighbors, family, and friends are vital.
• They practice and enjoy regular sex—usually with their spouse, who is their longtime partner in a mutually monogamous relationship, even after the age of one hundred.
• They live with and depend on their extended families, who offer cradle-to-grave security and support. The concept of a nursing home is not only unheard-of, it would not be tolerated.
• They seldom use alcohol or tobacco products.
• They intensely respect their elders. And when they become elderly, they enjoy the admiration, honor, esteem, and affection of their families and of society.
• They lead active, fruitful lives well into their second century. There is no retirement. They may slow down a bit, but they never stop.
• They emphasize relationships and harmony over the pursuit of wealth or success. Many of these people would be considered poor by Western standards. Yet they consider themselves wealthy and satisfied.

 

A group of more than one hundred centenarians living within an eight-town radius of Boston, Massachusetts, were the subjects of a study initiated in 1994. These are some of the important characteristics they share:

• Significant obesity is rare.
• Smoking history is extremely rare.
• They score low in a type of personality testing that measures neuroticism (based on a preliminary study). A lack of neuroticism translates into not dwelling on problems and therefore managing stress well.
• They have a history of showing signs of aging very slowly and markedly delaying or even escaping age-associated diseases, such as heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Ninety percent of the centenarians studied are functionally independent for the vast majority of their lives—up until the average age of ninety-two years. Rather than the incorrect perception that the older you become, the sicker you get, these centenarians teach us that the healthier you’ve been, the older you get.
• Many centenarian women have a history of bearing children after the age of thirty-five and even forty. A woman who gives birth after the age of forty has a four times greater chance of living to one hundred than women who do not. It’s probably not the act of bearing a child in one’s forties that promotes long life, but doing so may be an indicator that the woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly and that the rest of her body is just as healthy.
• At least 50 percent have close relatives and/or grandparents who lived to a very old age, and many have exceptionally old siblings. Male siblings of centenarians have an eleven times greater chance of reaching age ninety-seven than other men born around the same time, and female siblings have an eight and a half times greater chance of achieving age one hundred than other females born around the same time.
• Many children of these centenarians (age range of sixty-five to eighty-two) appear to be following in their parents’ footsteps.

 

I think the most reassuring of the NECS findings is that while the centenarians share certain characteristics, they are not all alike. In fact, they have a wide range of different characteristics—their ethnicity, religion, level of education (no formal schooling to postgraduate study), socioeconomic status (very poor to very rich), dietary patterns (strictly vegetarian to extremely rich in saturated fats), and exercise (none to daily).

Researchers tell us that the odds of living to one hundred years of age are increasing every year. There are already many thousands of centenarians alive today, and at least half of them are well enough to live independently. There are about 50,000 people over the age of one hundred in the United States alone—almost three times as many as there were in 1980.

Are they just lucky in the “good genes” department? Or is their health due to the way they live? While scientists continue to debate the factors that are most likely to assist us in becoming centenarians, most now say that long life is not just a result of good genes. Genes are important, but even more important are the decisions we make about a variety of daily lifestyle issues—eating, sleeping, diet, exercise, work, leisure, and our relationships. Some experts believe that as much as 80 percent of what controls how long you or I will live is related to our lifestyle choices, not our genes.

In large measure you determine your own destiny with regard to becoming and remaining a highly healthy person. Family history and genetics play a role, to be sure, but it is increasingly obvious that our lifestyle decisions play a much larger role. The Bible teaches that it is our sacred duty to be proactive about our own self-care.

From God’s Design for the Highly Healthy Person by Walt Larimore, MD