To live long, avoid certain risk factors

The November 15, 2006 JAMA reports on a study done in Hawaii of men of Japanese ancestry. The news on life style choices is always a bit grim, isn't it? Men who lived to be 85 and healthy, most likely in middle-age weren't overweight, didn't have high blood pressure, didn't smoke, or use alcohol excessively. Oh yes, and usually they had more education and a spouse.

One of the shortcomings of the study is that they were all ethnic Japanese. And it's just a guess on my part, but I would think living in Hawaii should give a person some sort of health boost just from climate and beauty.

"Midlife risk factors and healthy survival in men," by Bradley J. Willcox and others, JAMA, vol. 296, no. 19, p. 2343-2350.

From the abstract: "Of 5820 original participants, 2451 participants (42%) survived to age 85 years and 655 participants (11%) met the criteria for exceptional survival to age 85 years. High grip strength and avoidance of overweight, hyperglycemia, hypertension, smoking, and excessive alcohol consumption were associated with both overall and exceptional survival. In addition, high education and avoidance of hypertriglyceridemia were associated with exceptional survival, and lack of a marital partner was associated with mortality before age 85 years. Risk factor models based on cumulative risk factors (survival risk score) suggest that the probability of survival to oldest age is as high as 69% with no risk factors and as low as 22% with 6 or more risk factors. The probability of exceptional survival to age 85 years was 55% with no risk factors but decreased to 9% with 6 or more risk factors."