The Health Habits of Centenarians

CEBU, Philippines - Deborah Kotz With additional input by Angela Haupt You don't need to eat yogurt and live on a mountaintop to live long, but you probably do need to floss. One of the biggest factors that determine how well you age is not your genes but how well you live. A study published in 2009 in the British Medical Journal of 20,000 British folks shows that you can cut your risk of having a stroke in half by doing the following things: being active for 30 minutes a day, eating five daily servings of fruit and vegetables, and avoiding cigarettes and excess alcohol.

Researchers have also discovered that centenarians tend to share certain traits in how they eat, move about, and deal with stress - the sorts of things we can emulate to improve our own aging process. Of course, getting to age 100 is enormously more likely if your parents did. Recent research suggests that centenarians are 20 times as likely as the average person to have at least one long-lived relative.

Still, Thomas Perls, who studies the century-plus set at Boston University School of Medicine, believes that assuming you've sidestepped genes for truly fatal diseases, "there's nothing stopping you from living independently well into your 90s." If your deceased family elders were heavy smokers, they might have died prematurely without ever reaching their true potential lifespan. So go ahead and shoot for those triple digits. Here are habits you can embrace to maximize your lifetime.

1. Don't retire from active lifestyle. "Evidence shows that in societies where people stop working abruptly, the incidence of obesity and chronic disease skyrockets after retirement," says Luigi Ferrucci, director of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. The Chianti region of Italy, which has a high percentage of centenarians, has a different take on leisure time. "After people retire from their jobs, they spend most of the day working on their little farm, cultivating grapes or vegetables," he says. "They're never really inactive." If farming isn't for you, volunteer at your community activities. Conduct teach-ins on your line of expertise for young people, organize a regular neighborhood clean-up drive, or teach crafts at your public elementary school.

2. Floss every day. Regular flossing may help keep your arteries healthy. A 2008 New York University study showed that daily flossing reduced the amount of gum-disease-causing bacteria in the mouth. These bacteria are thought to enter the bloodstream and trigger inflammation in the arteries, a major risk factor for heart disease. Another research has shown that those who have high amounts of bacteria in their mouth are more likely to have thickening in their arteries, another sign of heart disease. "I really do think that people should floss twice a day to get the biggest life expectancy benefits," says Perls.

3. Move around. "Exercise is the only real fountain of youth that exists," says Jay Olshansky, a professor of medicine and researcher on aging at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "It's like the oil and lube job for your car. You don't have to do it, but your car will definitely run better if you do." Study after study has documented the benefits of exercise to improve your mood, mental acuity, balance, muscle mass, and bones. "And the benefits kick in immediately after your first workout," Olshansky adds. Don't worry if you're not a gym rat. Those who see the biggest payoffs are the ones who go from doing nothing to simply walking around the neighborhood or the local mall for about 30 minutes a day. Building muscle with resistance training is also ideal, or yoga classes can give you similar strength-training effects if you're not into weight lifting.

4. Eat a fiber-rich cereal for breakfast. Getting a serving of whole-grains, especially in the morning, appears to help older folks maintain stable blood sugar levels throughout the day, according to a recent study conducted by Ferrucci and his colleagues. "Those who do this have a lower incidence of diabetes, a known accelerator of aging," he says. (www. health.usnews.com)