Unlocking natural keys to longevity
SCIENTISTS have made several advances in search for natural keys to longevity.
Top of the pack are: people who live in highly walkable, mixed- age communities may be more likely to live to their 100th birthday; at least 3.9 million early deaths are being averted worldwide every year by people being physically active. Sedentary behaviour independently predicts cancer mortality but replacing sitting time with 30 minutes of activity was associated with lower risk of cancer death; and not smoking and being social engaged throughout older age are common traits of New Zealand centenarians.
The new study conducted by scientists at Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, United
States ( U. S.) suggests that where people live has a significant impact on the likelihood that they will reach centenarian age.
Published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and based on Washington State mortality data, the research team’s findings suggests that Washingtonians who live in highly walkable, mixed- age communities may be more likely to live to their 100th birthday. They also found socioeconomic status to be correlated, and an additional analysis showed that geographic clusters where the probability of reaching centenarian age is high are located in urban areas and smaller towns with higher socioeconomic status, including the Seattle area and the region around Pullman, Wash.
Study author, a second- year WSU medical student who took an interest in the topic after serving as a home care aide to his ageing grandfather, Rajan Bhardwaj, said: “Our study adds to the grow
Five keys to staying healthy ing body of evidence that social and environmental factors contribute significantly to longevity.”
Earlier research, he said, has estimated that heritable factors only explain about 20 to 35 per cent of an individual’s chances of reaching centenarian age.
The study’s senior author and an assistant professor who runs WSU’S Community Health and Spatial Epidemiology ( CHASE) lab, Ofer Amram, said: “We know from previous research that you can modify, through behaviour, your susceptibility to different diseases based on your genetics.”
In other words, when you live in an environment that supports healthy ageing, this likely impacts your ability to successfully beat your genetic odds through lifestyle changes. However, there was a gap in knowledge as to the exact environmental and social factors that make for an environment that best supports living to centenarian age, which this study helped to address.
In collaboration with co- authors Solmaz Amiri and Dedra Buchwald, Bhardwaj and Amram looked at state- provided data about the deaths of nearly 145,000 Washingtonians who died at age 75 or older between 2011 and 2015. The data included information on each person’s age and place of residence at the time of death,
CREDIT: https:// elsonhaasmd. com as well as their sex, race, education level and marital status.
Based on where the person lived, the researchers used data from the American Community Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, and other sources to assign a value or score to different environmental variables for their neighborhood. The variables they looked at included poverty level, access to transit and primary care, walkability, percentage of working age population, rural- urban status, air pollution, and green space exposure. Subsequently, they conducted a survival analysis to determine which neighborhood and demographic factors were tied to a lower probability of dying before centenarian age.
They found that neighborhood walkability, higher socioeconomic status, and a high percentage of working age population ( a measure of age diversity) were positively correlated with reaching centenarian status.
Also, according to a new study, people being physically active are averting at least 3.9 million early deaths worldwide every year. The study was published in The Lancet Global Health, last week, by researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh.
The team behind the study argued that too often people focus on the negative health consequences of poor levels of physical activity when theycould be celebrating the achievements of physical activity.
The team looked at previously published data for 168 countries, on the proportion of the population meeting World Health Organisation ( WHO) global recommendation of at least 150 minutes of moderate- intensity aerobic activity throughout the week, or 75 minutes of vigorous- intensity activity, or an equivalent combination. The proportion of the population meeting the recommended amount of physical activity varied substantially between countries, from 33 per cent for Kuwait, to 64 per cent for the United Kingdom, to 94 per cent for Mozambique.
By combining these data with estimates of the relative risk of dying early for active people compared to inactive people, the authors were able to estimate the proportion of premature deaths that were prevented because people are physically active.
They found that globally, due to physical activity the number of premature deaths was an average ( median) of 15 per cent lower than it would have been – 14 per cent for women and 16 per cent for men — equating to approximately 3.9 million lives saved per year.
Despite considerable variation in physical activity levels between countries, the positive contribution of physical activity was remarkably consistent across the globe, with a broad trend towards a greater proportion of premature deaths averted for lowand middle- income countries. In low- income countries, an average of 18 per cent of premature deaths were averted compared to 14 per cent for high- income countries.
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