Want to Live to Be 100?
Heed this advice and you just might make it

BY CAMILLA CORNELL

That Jessie Garratt died at 102 is remarkable in itself—currently, there are only about 4,000 Canadians 100 or older. But the way the Toronto woman lived is perhaps even more remarkable. Garratt remained in good shape until well into her 90s. At 83 she travelled to Japan and joined a family for a traditional meal, seated on the floor.
At 90, Garratt wrote her first book—a memoir—and in her mid-90s was still making an annual three-month pilgrimage to Naples, Fla. “Until she died last year, the only medication she took regularly was eye-drops for glaucoma,” says her daughter Sally Vernon.

For many of us, Garratt represents an ideal we’d like to achieve. Not only did she make it to 100 and beyond—she got there with her health and faculties largely intact.

The good news is that more and more of us have a chance of achieving a ripe old age. According to Statistics Canada, people over 79 are expected to be the fastest-growing population group in Canada over the next few decades. By 2051 the number of centenarians is expected to rise to 57,000.

The bad news? In old age, many of us are likely to deal with debilitating health problems such as heart disease, cancer and arthritis.

But don’t get depressed. A growing body of research points out that it’s never too late to make lifestyle changes that increase your chances of living a long and healthy life. Here’s the latest on how to turn back the clock:

Heave ho. Scientists once believed that nothing could be done about the withering of muscles associated with aging. Although aerobics, running
and other cardiovascular workouts are a boon for the heart and lungs, researchers discovered that such activities can’t prevent the loss of muscle strength and bone density that affects our mobility, flexibility and balance as we get older.

Then, in 1990, a study was published by the August Krogh Institute in Denmark that indicated there was one group of aging athletes who maintained the strength of men half their age: weight lifters.

Studies from Tufts University in Boston, Mass., confirmed that muscle and bone loss could be stopped and even reversed through weight training. After lifting weights twice a week for a year, a group of postmenopausal women in their 50s and 60s made gains in bone density, and their scores on strength tests soared to levels more typical of women in their late 30s.

Walk it off. Even if you’re 50 and have never taken part in a physical activity, a brisk half-hour walk three times a week can “basically reverse your physiological age by about ten years,” says Gareth Jones, director of the Canadian Centre for Activity and Aging in London, Ont.

His source? A three-year study of 220 retirement-age men in which half didn’t exercise and the other half walked briskly for 30 minutes three times a week. After a year, the exercise group showed a 12 percent increase in aerobic power and a ten percent increase in strength and hip flexibility—equivalent to what they would have lost over a decade had they not exercised at all.

Get out of the ’burbs. David Berrigan, a cancer-prevention specialist at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, has discovered that people who live in houses that are at least 27 years old are about 50 percent more likely than people who live in newer houses to walk over 11⁄2 kilometres some 20 times a month.

The reason? Older houses tend to be located in older neighbourhoods that incorporate a mix of homes, workplaces and shops, as well as denser, more-interconnected networks of streets. “That means people walk places,” he says. In many newer neighbourhoods, destinations are simply too far away, so they hop in the car.

It’s never too late to butt out. If you stop smoking by age 30, your survival rate can rival that of lifelong nonsmokers, according to a report in the British Medical Journal. Quit by 50 and you have half the risk continuing smokers have of dying in the next 15 years.
Even if you’ve already developed a smoking-related health condition, you’ll benefit. “People who quit smoking after having a heart attack reduce their chances of having another by about 30 percent,” says Dr. Neville Suskin, a cardiologist at the London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario.

Related Links The following links are for informational and educational use only. Reader's Digest does not endorse or guarantee any information contained therein. Improving your quality of life as you age, from Go60.com: http://www.go60.com/ Information on diet for healthy senior years, preserving your memory, staying socially connected, hea,thy sleeping habits, from HELPguide.org: http://www.helpguide.org/aging.htm Staying healthy as we age is a state of mind and body, from Manulife Financial and the Ontario Government of Ontario at: http://successfulaging.ca/tips.php Seniors health information fomMayoClinic.com: http://www.mayoclinic.com/findinformation/ conditioncenters/ centers.cfm?objectid=00047499-621C-1B37-8D7E80C8D77A0000 Eat well, stay well; senior nutrition from the U.S. Institutes of Health: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ nutritionforseniors.html Nutrition for older adults: http://www.eatright.com/feature/0901.html Staying active and fit for life, from the U.S. National Institutes on Aging: http://www.nia.nih.gov/health/agepages/exercise.htm Information on Alzheimer’s from the Alzheimer's Prevention Foundation: http://www.alzheimersprevention.org/ Alternative and Anti-Aging Medicine, from the Journal of Longevity: http://www.journaloflongevity.com/JOLWeb/journal.html Canada’s Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Active Living for Older Adults: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/paguide/older/index.html Aging Well--A Health and Wellness Village for Mature Adults: http://agingwell.state.ny.us/

Be a nutritional all-star. If you’re looking to turn back the clock on your body, Shanthi Johnson, associate professor of nutrition at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., advises eating a broadly based diet that packs a nutritional punch:
• Dark-green, leafy vegetables such as spinach, rapini and Swiss chard (calcium, iron, folate and beta-carotene).
• Sweet potatoes (folate, beta-carotene, vitamins A and C, and fibre).
• Blueberries and other dark berries (vitamin C, iron and fibre).
• Yogurt (calcium, protein and phosphorus).
• Beans (iron and a high-fibre form of protein).
• Whole grains (higher in fibre than white bread, with more B vitamins, vitamin E, selenium and zinc).
• Nuts (according to a recent study from Penn State University in University Park, Penn., eating them more than five times a week could cut death rates from heart disease by 25 to 39 percent).
• Salmon, tuna and other cold-water fish (omega-3 fatty acids).

Pop a pill. A vitamin pill, that is. As we age, Johnson points out, our bodies become less efficient at absorbing nutrients. A multivitamin with minerals will help you get them, she says, though it’s no substitute for a healthy diet. “Foods contain important components like fibre that you won’t get from a pill.”

On top of your multivitamin, Jeffrey Blumberg, associate director of the nutrition research centre at Tufts University, recommends: calcium to help build strong bones; vitamin D to aid in the absorption of calcium and the prevention of osteoarthritis; and vitamin E to boost your immune response and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s.

Unclog your brain. New research indicates that a low-fat diet can protect your ability to learn and remember. Carol Greenwood, nutritionist and researcher with the Kunin-Lunenfeld Applied Research Unit in Toronto, discovered two years ago that when lab rats ate a high-fat diet, they showed severe impairment on learning and memory tasks—a finding that has since been proven for humans as well.

Go for 30 winks instead of 40. While too little sleep can leave you exhausted, too much isn’t healthy either, according to University of California, San Diego, researchers. They followed more than a million Americans for six years and discovered that people who snoozed eight hours a night had up to 13 percent increased mortality over those who slept seven hours, while those who slept four hours had a risk of death that was as much as 17 percent higher.

Challenge your mind. Stimulating mental activities like learning a foreign language, reading a challenging book, playing bridge or attending a lecture may keep you mentally alert as you age, says Angela Troyer, a psychologist specializing in aging and memory at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto. “People who do more of these things in older adulthood tend to develop dementia at a lower rate.”

Make music. Musical training fundamentally changes the development of children’s brains, according to neuroscientist Christo Pantev. But he believes aging adults can benefit from taking up (or returning to) an instrument, or at least listening to their favourite tunes.

The reason? Intense musical training forces the brain to recruit additional resources, working against some dementing processes. While the theory remains unproven, Pantev and his colleagues at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto recently got funding to study changes in the brains of children and aging adults that result from musical training.

Go to church. At last count, nearly 1,000 studies indicated that those who went to church, synagogue or mosque were healthier than their nonattending counterparts—and tended to live longer by seven years, according to one study.

While Jeff Levin, an epidemiologist and author of God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality-Healing Connection, contends that some positive health effects extend from the restrictions religious groups may place on smoking, drinking and premarital or extramarital sex, the numbers hold up even when those factors are taken into account.

Levin believes that church provides a social network that supports the aging and ill, and is a source of comfort when you’re down.

Help someone else. Neena Chappell, social gerontologist with the University of Victoria’s Centre on Aging in British Columbia, says several dozen studies show that people who devote time to community efforts are happi-er and healthier in later years. “There are probably a couple of things going on,” she says. “One is that you’re making friends and have a social circle; the other is the psychological benefit of feeling useful and needed.”

Pick a pet. Seniors who own pets are less likely to be depressed than those who don’t, according to a 1999 study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Cindy Adams, a professor and specialist in the human-animal bond at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, believes positive effects stem from the fact that pets force us to focus on something other than ourselves. “It takes our minds off our own aches and pains,” she says.

Look for the silver lining. One quality most centenarians share, according to the large-scale New England Centenarian Study, is an ability to not dwell on difficulties. Stress provokes a physiological response that’s hard on the body, says Hymie Anisman, professor of neuroscience at Carleton University in Ottawa. Your body pumps out adrenaline and cortisol, which are meant to help you
cope with danger in the short term but which can damage your immune system, heart and brain when you’re constantly keyed up.

So look for the silver lining. Your son may be flunking university, but at least you’ll save next year’s tuition.

Reach out and touch someone. If you can’t stand to jog and refuse to swear off chips and dip, here’s good news: A poker game with your pals may be equally beneficial.

When Thomas Glass, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, tracked participation by almost 3,000 people aged 65 and up in a range of activities over 13 years, he found that social engagements may add as much to your life span as healthy measures such as cutting cholesterol or lowering blood pressure.

ILLUSTRATION: © JAMES TURNER