The older you get, the healthier you have been.
That's the finding of research by the Boston University School of Medicine.
People who live longer and approach the absolute limits of human lifespan are those who delay, escape or survive disability and disease.
Boston's New England Centenarian Study found that about 15 percent of the study subjects managed to escape disease completely and had no discernable disease at age 100. About 43 percent of centenarians seemed to delay age-related disease until age 80 or later. Finally, 42 percent were survivors of disease before age 80.
The Boston began in 1995 and boasts one of the largest samples of centenarians ever studied.
No magic location
The study so far has found claims of regional longevity to be false. People do not live longer in Ecuador, the Russian Caucasus or in Tibet. However, the study found that many regions had more active 80- and 90 -year-olds.
Centenarians are lean, strong, extraverts and optimistic.
The study found that dementia and Alzheimers were not inevitable with aging and centenarians notably delayed or escaped the disease.
Although most centenarians lived a healthy, lean life, there is a genetic component in aging, researchers found. Exceptional longevity seems to run in families. 102-x
See page 23 for a list of famous centenarians. On the Web, it is page 10.