There's a lot of information in this NYT story, but the key graphs are these:
Living past 90, and living well, may be more than a matter of good genes and good luck. Five behaviors in elderly men are associated not only with living into extreme old age, a new study has found, but also with good health and independent functioning.
The behaviors are abstaining from smoking, weight management, blood pressure control, regular exercise and avoiding diabetes. The study reports that all are significantly correlated with healthy survival after 90.
While it is hardly astonishing that choices like not smoking are associated with longer life, it is significant that these behaviors in the early elderly years - all of them modifiable - so strongly predict survival into extreme old age.
Details can be found at the link. If only science could come up with an easy and painless way to do all of this.
RLC
