Category Archives: Human Longevity

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The World Health Organizationreportedthelife expectancy of an Indian to be 70.8 yearsin its 2019-20 report. Over the lasttwocenturies, Indias life expectancy has increased consistently but is still lower than the global averageof73.4 years.

Human life expectancy depends on multiple factors.A 2018review studyassessing life expectancy in low and medium human development index countries investigated health indicators of83 nations from the World Bank, WHO, United Nation Development Fund and UNICEFdatabases. The authors reported socio-economic status, healthcare system, adult literacy rate, disease burden, andthe interaction of these factorsas major determinants of life expectancy.

Unhealthy food choicesand associated risks are among the leading causes of death globally.According totheWHOs latestfactsheet(13 April 2021), noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) contribute to 71per centof global deaths. Annually, around 15 million peoplebetween30and60 years ofagedie prematurely from NCDs85per centofthese deathsare from lower and middle-income countries. Cardiovascular diseases are the most prevalent cause of death acrossthe world, followed by cancers, respiratory diseases, and diabetes. These four groups alone are responsible for 80per centof all premature deaths. Potential risk factors for NCD include lack of physical activity, poor dietary choices, excessive consumption of alcohol, tobacco, stress, etc.

Also read: Women in India live longer than men but dont have healthier lives, finds new report

A2020 studyby Manika Sharma and colleagues comparingtheIndian diet with the EAT-LancetCommissionreference diet included samples from1.02 lakhhouseholdsinIndia and found that whole grains were contributing significantly more calories than the EAT-Lancet recommendations, whereas the consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, meat, fish and eggs were much lower. Protein share was only 6-8per cent,compared tothe 29 per cent recommendation.These outcomes were independent of the socio-economic status of Indian households.Even the rich Indians werenot found to consume optimum amounts of fruits, vegetables, and proteins in their diet. In fact, an average Indian household consumesmore calories from processed foods than fruits. Authors concluded the average Indian diet as unhealthy, lacking essential food groups.

Another national-levelcross-sectional surveyin2017-18 bythe National NCD Monitoring Surveystudiedthe prevalence of risk factors in 12,000 Indianadults.Itrevealedthat32.8per cent of respondentsused tobacco, 15.9per centconsumed alcohol, 41.3per centwere not physically active, 98.4per centconsumed less thanfiveservings of fruits and vegetables per day. The study also reported an elevated risk of blood glucose and cardiovascular diseases among participants.

Also read: In Indias booming junk food market, there is little room for nutrition

Blue Zones, aconceptdeveloped by National Geographic Fellow and author Dan Buettner, are thefiveregions of the world where people live longer, lead physically and mentally healthy lives,and aremore active compared to the rest of the world. Tolive longer, the Blue Zones adoptednineevidence-based lifestyle modalities that arethought to slowthe ageing process, diet being one of the most importantcomponents.

The Blue zone diet is wholeandmostly plant-based.Ninety five per centof the daily Blue zone diet is composed of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, olive oil, berries, oats, and barley. The diet recommends avoiding meat and dairy, sugary drinks, with no room for processed foods.

In contrast to the standard diet composition,Sardinia, one of five Blue Zones,followsa variation of the Mediterranean diet that includes all Blue Zone food groups along with moderate intake of fish and fewer intake of dairy, alcohol, and red meat.

Plant-based Blue Zone diets are rich in antioxidantsandanti-inflammatory polyphenols, which are reported topreventchronicillnessessuch as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

A 2015reviewby G.M. Pes and colleagues mapped historical evidence linked to male longevity among the Sardinian population and found that an inter-community nutrition transition to consuming more fruits and vegetablesandmoderate consumptions of meat led to significant health benefits to the ageing population by reducing mortality risk.

However, a wholesome, nutritious, antioxidant-rich diet isnt the only secret behind the Blue Zone longevity. Thepeopleliving therealso engagein high levels of physical activity, have low-stress levels, more social engagement, and a sense of well-being.

Eating like a Mediterranean is recommended as a part of longevity diet for the Indian population that includes more raw fruits and vegetables in salads; whole grains instead of polished rice; legumes, pulses, and beans in form of sprouts, salads, less spicy curry; healthy fats from nuts, seeds, olive oil, coconut, and avocado; along with limited intake of meat and sweets.

All processed foods like refined sugar, refined wheat flour, biscuits, instant noodlesshouldbe gradually eliminated from the daily diet.

Also read: Two-third Indians with non-communicable diseases fall in 26-59 age group, survey finds

Include these elements of the Mediterranean diet in your meals:

-Oats, barley, jowar, bajra, ragi, kodo millets, quinoa

-Dark green leafy vegetables like spinach, lettuce, drumstick leaves

-Nutslikealmonds, walnuts, figs

-Seedslikeflax, chia, pumpkin, sunflower, beans

-Legumeslikenavy beans, fava beans, chickpeas, lentils

-Dairyproducts likelow-fat cheese, yogurt, milk

-Fishlikesardines, salmon, trout, sea fishes

-Herbs and spiceslikemint, rosemary, sage, garlic, thyme, basil, and oregano.

To summarise, a vibrant, nutritious eating plan along with regular physical activity, sound sleep, and stress-free life is the key to acquiringa disease-free, long life.

Indians can start practising this one day at a time.

Dr Subhasree Ray is Doctoral Scholar (Ketogenic Diet), certified diabetes educator, and a clinical and public health nutritionist. She tweets @DrSubhasree. Views are personal.

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Original post:
How can Indians live longer? We need the Blue Zone diet - ThePrint

Who does not want to live a long, happy and healthy life? Unfortunately, there is no one formula that promises to increase your lifespan. However, there are some factors that can aid longevity. Developing habits that are conducive to a long life does help. As per research published in the journal Frontiers in Ageing Neurosciences, one lifestyle habit has been highlighted as the way to achieve longevity. As per the research paper titled, "Human longevity is associated with regular sleep patterns, maintenance of slow the first step towards working for longer life". Here are the three main findings of the study. - The maintenance of slow-wave sleep in the oldest-old individuals when compared to older adults.- The existence of strictly regular sleep patterns among the oldest old individuals.

- The occurrence of a favourable lipid profile in these individuals.

The signature of sleep ECG in the brain of oldest-old individuals was also described. These findings support the role of sleep and lipid metabolism control in the maintenance of longevity in humans.

For the unversed, a lipid profile is a blood test that measures the amount of cholesterol and triglyceride in the blood. High levels of triglyceride in the blood can increase one's risk of heart disease.

Thus, regular sleep can reduce the risk of heart disease, which is a major killer worldwide.

Here are some simple steps to sleep better:

Make a sleep schedule and stick to itGo to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Plan to sleep for at least 7-8 hours each day.

Say no to caffeine and nicotine before bedtimeNicotine, caffeine and alcohol can disrupt your sleep. Also, avoid heavy and spicy foods to avoid indigestion and get a peaceful sleep.

Create a restful environmentDark, cool and quiet places without a buzz of electronic activity help one fall asleep. Do not put a TV in your bedroom.

Say NO to day-time naps

Read more:
Living longer: This one daily habit is linked to a longer lifespan (and is free) - Times of India

People are fascinated by the extremes of humanity, whether its going to the moon, how fast someone can run in the Olympics, or even how long someone can live,says Michael Pearce from the University of Washington (UW) in the U.S., who recently led a study that estimates with almost a 100% probability that the present record for maximum reported age at death 122 years, 164 days will be broken by 2100.

And with a continuous expansion in the world population, the likelihood of breaking records is only rising, the researchers believe.

Published in Demographic Research, their study assessed the extremes of human life by studying longevity records of more than a thousand people from 13 countries across the world, as well as of almost 14,000 individuals, who died between the ages of 105 and 109. Using statistical modeling to analyze the data, the researchers found that a lifespan of 125 years, or even 130 years, is possible in his century.

Basically, the researchers based their findings on two factors: how the risk of dying flattens after age 110, and growth in the number of people to reach age 110 this century, according to an article in The Conversation by Pierce and his co-author on the study, Adrian Raftery, who is a professor of statistics at UW.

Related on The Swaddle:

Graying of Hair Due to Stress May Be Reversible, New Study Finds?

On the one hand, life expectancy is on the rise globally due to advances in healthcare, and due to these same advancements, the researchers believe there is a flattening of the mortality rate after people reach a certain age someone who hits 110 has the almost same probability of living another year as someone reaches the age of 114.

This is a very select group of very robust people, Raftery explained, adding that if theyve gotten past all the various things life throws at you, such as disease, [then] they die for reasons that are somewhat independent of what affects younger people.

However, it may be pertinent to note, here, that the study is based on data gathered before the pandemic hit, and claimed more than 43 lakh lives globally. And, in any case, as the researchers clarified, the maximum is not the average, and just because we may break records by the end of the century, doesnt mean everyone or even most people will live to be 110.

A study from June had found that while we may live longer now, we cant really slow the process of aging in any manner. Our findings support the theory that, rather than slowing down death, more people are living much longer due to a reduction in mortality at younger ages, Jos Manuel Aburto, one of the studys co-authors from the Oxford University, had told The Guardian.

Yet another study from May had found that even if a person manages to avoid dying of heart disease, cancer, or road accidents, the human bodys structural and metabolic systems do fail beyond a point that lies between 120 to 150 years; making 150 years the absolute longest a human being can live.

Related on The Swaddle:

Scientists Say Gut Microbes May Reverse Aging Process in Human Brains

But so many studies on the subject of human lifespans beg the question: what drives our desire to live longer especially at a juncture when climate change is expected to make life difficult in myriad ways?

Experts believe it could be because we dont understand death. So the prospect of not living triggers a kind of FOMO. The quest to live forever, or to live for great expanses of time, has always been part of the human spirit The most difficult and inscrutable thing to us as mortal beings is our own death We dont understand it, we dont get it, and as meaning-laden beings, we cant fathom what it means to not exist, Paul Root Wolpe, an American sociologist and bioethicist, told Time.

As for people like Teslas Elon Musk and Googles co-founder Sergey Brindriving researchin increasing longevity to the point of, perhaps, being immortal, ego may be an important factor. Obviously they believe the world cant possibly survive without their existence, and so they think their immortality is so critical to the survival of the world, Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and bioethicist, said.

Wolpe, however, notes that younger people have a harder time [dealing with the idea of dying] compared to older people. My youngest is upset that I do not want to be frozen and woken up in the future, Suzanne Moore, a columnist for The Guardian wrote last year.

According to Wolpe, older people dont care about living as long as younger people do because living longer doesnt make aging slower just as the study from June proved. What you see when you actually look at people at the end of life, to a large degree, is a sense of a life well-lived and a time for that life to transition itself, he notes.

Read more:
People's Lifespans May Increase In the Future. Why Do They Desire Longer Lives? - The Swaddle

First, it's important to note that everyone reacts to stress differently and you can't pigeonhole entire age groups. But generally speaking, research shows that your ability to manage stress isn't staticit waxes and wanes over time.

Part of this is inevitable and biological. Hormonal fluctuations during puberty and perimenopause can make us particularly susceptible to stress during these periods, for example. Past circumstances also play a role. Some people have had to go through more periods of stress and trauma than others, which can affect the way they react to hardship.

But interestingly enough, there is a growing body of research finding that our ability to regulate our emotions seems to improve with age. Take one study out of Stanford University, which included 184 adults of various ages. Starting in 1993, participants were asked to record their emotions (both positive and negative) multiple times over the course of a week once every five years. This data collection lasted 15 years, and the results were published in 2011.

At the end of the study, researchers found that, overall, self-reported emotional well-being increased with age. As participants got older, their outlooks also tended to even out and there was less variability between positive and negative emotions. And finally, those who experienced relatively more positive than negative emotions in everyday life were more likely to have survived over the study period, suggesting a link between emotions and longevity. "The observation that emotional well-being is maintained and in some ways improves across adulthood is among the most surprising findings about human aging to emerge in recent years," the paper reads.

Now, this study didn't focus on how stress, in particular, affects mood over time. But some shorter-term research focused on stress has also found that older adults tend to maintain a positive mood in the face of it than younger ones do.

Lifestyle physician and stress educator Cynthia Ackrill, M.D., suspects that this has to do with the widened viewpoint that age can bring. "You've been through a lot so you have a longer perspective to know that this too shall pass," she tells mbg.

AmyLorek, Ph.D., of the Center for Healthy Aging at Penn State Universityadds that, on average, older adults have accrued more self-awareness with time, giving them a better handle on their personal stressors.

"When we have a better understanding of our lives, we get better at selecting the things that are meaningful and important for us," Lorek says, adding that "older people actively opt out of things that are going to produce stress."

This may be true more generally, but again, Ackrill reminds us that stress is personal. While someone who has always practiced healthy stress management routines might find them strengthened with age, in her work she's seen the opposite to be true too. Someone with poor coping mechanisms might find that they have even more trouble handling stress as they get older. Some relaxing practices like exercise and social interaction can also become more difficult for older folks, especially if they have mobility issues or live alone.

The good news is that stress management is a skill that can always be trainedand it's never too late to practice it.

Read more:
The Link Between Stress & Longevity (And How To Stress Less As You Age) - mindbodygreen.com

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Read this article:
Genomic Biomarker Market Projected to Witness a Double-Digit CAGR During 2021 2028 | Bio-Rad, Beckman Coulter, Myriad Genetics, Thermo Fisher...

Wearing a dark polo-shirt, his jovial, unlined features are a good advertisement for the medicine he is peddling. His dark hair has only the odd streak of grey. He looks relaxed but then perhaps a holiday in Tuscany, from where he is calling, will do that for anyone.

As he waves his arms, another possible reason for his youthful demeanour becomes clear: he is plastered in wearable devices smart watches and rings which track his heart rate and sleep patterns. I just took out my continuous glucose monitor. His latest health check-up was just a couple of months ago. I didnt even have the colonoscopy, he says, deadly serious. The combination of full-body MRI and colo guard [an at-home colon cancer screening kit] was enough

I nod sagely as though I too have just pooed into a sample bucket and sent it off to a lab.

But hes not wrong that such tests do form part of an ongoing medical revolution. Early diagnostics prevention not cure are increasingly hardwired into healthcare provision, if only because stopping people becoming sick is vastly cheaper for governments than treating them once they do.

Many of us will already be surfing this wave of consumer health tech gadgets, from trackers in smartwatches to fingertip oxygen monitors deployed during Covid. In Youngs book they are producing a wealth of data which, when allied with growing computing power to crunch through it, form the first great pillar of how life will be extended in the near time. How can he be wrong? Personalised, predictive medicine is already with us.

Gene editing, organ regeneration and what he calls longevity in a pill are his other great hopes. The first of these, too, is here today. A renegade Chinese scientist has already created the first gene-edited humans twins born in 2018 whose DNA was tweaked to confer resistance to HIV. And I remain marked by an interview in 2019 with Sophie Wheldon, then a 21-year-old student from Birmingham whose life was saved by Car-T, a novel therapy which genetically modified her own white blood cells to attack her otherwise untreatable leukaemia.

Organ regeneration is more far-fetched, more far-off, even if Young has put his money where his mouth is, investing in Lygenesis, a company trying to grow functioning new organs (to replace failing old ones) using a patients own lymph nodes. So far the company is working on growing livers, but Young says they have many more organs in the pipeline. Human trials start in November.

As for longevity in a pill, such hopes are pinned on drugs like metformin, usually administered for diabetes, which in some patients can have a beneficial effect on other body systems too. But despite thousands of ongoing trials, its still far from being released as a regulated anti-ageing drug. That doesnt deter Young. When we perfect such processes, he believes, living to 150 or 200 years old will become as simple as getting vaccinated today. For the moment, however, and as Young himself admits, regular exercise is, for most of us, safer and more effective.

Indeed, there is no getting around the boring, unchanging truths of staying well longer. Young is most proud of the books final chapter, which offers 10 top tips to take advantage of the longevity revolution. Quit smoking is second on the list. Dont drink too much is there, too. Sleep and eat well. This is hardly revolutionary, though he is also a keen advocate of fasting (Every week Im fasting 36 hours from Monday evening to Wednesday morning), and plant-based diets. (I eat meat probably once every two or three weeks).

He thinks that such steps will help him overcome the cancer barrier, and the heart disease barrier, which is somewhere around 60 and 65 years. But he knows that hurdling those only means crashing into the neurodegenerative diseases barrier, which is around 80 or 90 years.

But there is a tech solution to dementia too, he thinks. And this is where things get more outlandish. If we want to help people to fight Alzheimers or neurodegenerative diseases, he says, integration between human brain and computer is the only way to solve it. He talks of Elon Musk, whose company Neuralink is working on just such a brain-machine interface with the goal of enabling people with paralysis to directly use their neural activity to operate digital devices. He mentions digital representations of the elderly avatars which could continue, compos mentis, as the physical persons dementia deteriorates, or even live on after they die. It sounds loopy, until he talks movingly of his grandfather, who died in 1995 and to whom he was close. He was instrumental for me. I would love to have the opportunity to have 30 minutes with a [digital copy] of him in the virtual world. Theres so many questions I would still like to ask.

See the article here:
Would you really like to live to be 200? - Telegraph.co.uk