Laugh, and Live Longer

"The Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish ... just five millimetres tall, never dies unless eaten. Its other name is the 'immortal jellyfish'. The bowhead whale -- one of the largest mammals on Earth -- can live to two hundred. Its sheer size ought to make it more prone to cancer, but it manages to dodge the disease thanks to specific genes that control its cell-division cycle and guard against it."
"You might ask what relevance this has to us [humans]. The point is that we assume we will only live 70-odd years, but if we look at nature there are mechanisms that allow animals to survive far longer. Scientists hope this knowledge can one day be transferred to helping humans [longevity]."
Dr. Duncan Carmichael, The Daily Telegraph

"The number of centenarians -- people who are 100 years or older -- in the United States has grown 60% since 1990, to about 61,000 people, and will continue to increase in coming decades, according to the Census Bureau. In another 10 years, the number will more than double to over 130,000 people, and it's expected to double yet again to 274,000 in 2025."
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Bowron Lakes Canoe Circuit, British Columbia

Consume a healthy diet, exercise regularly, laugh as often as possible, moderate your emotions, get out into natural surroundings, take seasonal flu shots, make the most of your life. This is simply common-sense advice. Stress takes its toll so make an effort to cope, to respond to stress with a modicum of restraint; accept what you cannot change. Defy the natural human tendency to lead a sedentary lifestyle. Make intelligent choices about the food you eat and sidestep the appeal of convenience, 'fast' foods in favour of unprocessed whole foods.

It's good advice. But for most people it takes an effort to be mindful of what should be natural but what in fact has been left behind in our time-shortage lifestyles, distracted and busy. It takes thought and it takes determination and it means you must constantly remind yourself until it becomes well engrained as habit, to live sensibly. Living sensibly doesn't mean depriving yourself of guilty pleasures, it simply means doing all things in moderation, with an emphasis on knowing and acting on what in the final analysis will keep you healthy.

We're all literate, we've all seen the health cautions, we all know that sugar, refined carbohydrates, unhealthy fats and too much salt intake have their deleterious consequences over time. It's up to us, ourselves, to care enough about ourselves to make wiser choices. A year ago the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study meant to focus on the effects of lifestyle behaviours on health of 135,000 people from 18 countries over a decade forced a second look at cutting out saturated fats, eating cereals and whole grains.

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Researchers discovered that people who ate butter and eggs experienced fewer strokes and lived longer than those in whose diets butter and eggs were absent. Stunningly that contingent of study subjects who ate cornflakes died at a younger age. Now, nutritionists point to sugar and refined carbohydrates as dietary enemies linked to obesity. That, in addition, antioxidants have been overhyped. Taking vitamin C and E is not, after all, the cure-all that science had spoken of.

It was thought since the 1960s that our cells are damaged by free radicals, that antioxidants attack those free radicals, protecting us. Now, it seems that our cells have their own powerful antioxidant system, SOD (superoxide dismutase) so taking antioxidants has the effect, it would seem, of provoking our own SOD system to become lazy, and it fails to do what it is meant to. The solution? Daily exercise to stimulate the SOD system, a more powerful antioxidant than supplements.

Exercise reduces stress, it stimulates brain growth, diminishes risk of acquiring diabetes and and cuts the chances of heart attacks, maintaining at the same time our muscles and nerves, essential for longevity. Similarly exercising your brain by challenging it to learn new thing has a similar effect. Want to stay younger for a longer period of your extended life? Exercise. The average age in advanced countries has gradually spiralled upward for decades. People are now more likely to reach their late seventies and early eighties; each generation living longer than the one before.

And, it now seems, we have reached the height of that upward progress. People now are dying from Alzheimer's and diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Not just in the United States but in other advanced countries of the world. Of course, as we live longer we're more susceptible to chronic diseases threatening mortality; heart disease, stroke and cancer become more common with age. Our environment, with the use of industrial and agricultural chemicals adds to that potential.

Increasingly, as people age, influenza and pneumonia become mortal threats. Cardiovascular issues, the onset of dementia and various cancers increase as we age. And the obesity pandemic sweeping the world adds to the health threats. Obesity leads to diabetes, and diabetes leads to high blood pressure, neurological problems, kidney failure, eyesight complications. And then we have the super-agers, people who have always been physically active, who eat well, and who take on the years gracefully.

Scientists have discovered that among people who live to 100 and beyond there are many centenarians with longevity genes which have been named gerontogenes. These are rare attributes, but scientists hope in the future to transfer those genes to others. On the other hand, it may be possible that a greater swath of people are imbued with longevity genes since each of us has an estimated 20,000 genes, most of them dormant. The goal then becomes to switch on our longevity genes.

It's possible that extreme stress and our reaction to it has the effect of leaving those genes in their dormant state, while exercising, eating and living well incites them to manifest themselves and exercise their attributes. It is entirely feasible that living well; acquiring sufficient daily sleeping hours, eating a more conscientious diet, exercising often will work to invite any longevity genes we have, to get on board. One thing is certain; by living well we will also be living more healthy lives while elongating those lives.

"Research on centenarians is challenging myths about aging, such as that the older you get, the sicker you have to be."
"Many [centenarians studied] were relatively healthy well into their 90s. About 15 percent live independently, and about 30 percent are cognitively intact, with the rest displaying a range of mild to severe cognitive impairments."
Thomas Perls, MD, geriatrician, director, New England Centenarian Study, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center