The "unique" relationship appears to be primarily that those living to 100 developed significantly lower rates of chronic disease - cardiovascular and metabolic - in their younger years, than those who died earlier.
In other words, healthier people live longer. Nothing "unique" or surprising in this article that I could find.
Rates of these chronic diseases are rapidly increasing. ~48% of US adults have hypertension (chronic cardiovascular disease) and ~38% have pre-diabetes (chronic metabolic disease). Particularly concerning is 33% of children age 12-17 have pre-diabetes.
Understanding the most prevalent causes of these diseases should be IMHO the top priority for anyone who cares about health.
My hunch is that #1 and #2 would be low exercise and poor food.
For exercise it's obvious what to do.
For food it's a big debate.
My hunch is that the problem must lie in foods or aspects of foods that are new to the human diet. So I discourage eating anything that requires industrial processes to create and thus was never eaten by people before the industrial revolution. This includes probably 95% of prepared or packaged food sold in the US. In particular refined flours, refined sweeteners, and refined oils, and then all the stuff with un-natural sounding names.
I'm aware that many institutions of science and health declare that for cardiovascular disease, the villain is natural fat and salt. I've spent a lot of time looking at their rationale for this. I think they are wrong and that this conclusion is based on badly done and poorly interpreted science.
pedalpete · 2h ago
I had the same thought about the article. It basically does say "healthy people live longer", even if you try to slice what they are saying differently. The "how do they delay disease" or "why do they get diseases later" still ends up with the "they're healthy longer". Of course, it's important to answer these other questions, but this article only states that these are questions that need to be answered, so not groundbreaking.
On your exercise and diet, yes they are important, but I believe sleep is the primary driver, and that is why I work in neurotech and sleep.
Of course, there is a strong relationship between diet, exercise, and sleep. They are the 3 pillars of health.
However, you can have a poor diet for month, or a lack of exercise for years before you notice the detrimental health benefits. One night of poor sleep, and we all know how bad that feels. It isn't just how you "feel" your bodies vital systems such as insulin and inflammatory responses are impaired immediately.
A person can continue to have a good diet and exercise regularly to maintain (or slow the decline) of fitness. But the restorative function of sleep naturally declines. It isn't sleep time, but the neurological processes such slow-wave activity, directly linked to the flushing of metabolic waste from the brain, hormonal responses, the list goes on and on.
At https://affectablesleep.com we enhance the restorative function of sleep without altering sleep time. We're building on over a decade of research with more than 50 published peer-reviewed papers.
What is yet to be studies, and is one of the things I'm most interested in, is if we can boost restorative function early in life, do we delay or reduce the amount of decline as we age.
prmph · 3h ago
> In other words, healthier people live longer. Nothing "unique" or surprising in this article that I could find.
Did you really read the article to the end? because it explores interesting questions beyond simply "healthier people live longer".
From the article:
> Some questions researchers have long pondered is whether one of the keys to a centenarian's resilience mainly lies in their ability to postpone major diseases, or whether they're simply better at surviving them. Or, could it be that they avoid certain diseases altogether?
lithocarpus · 3h ago
Yes I did. This is the same question I'm pondering:
What is it that causes some people to not get chronic cardiovascular and metabolic disease?
Hence my comment honing in on what are the likely biggest causes of these diseases and thus how to avoid getting them.
I agree with the article actually that figuring out how to be healthy, ergo how to avoid these diseases, is a good way to live a longer healthier life. I was just saying it's not surprising or unique.
litoE · 1h ago
According to George Burns "Once you get to be 100 you have it made because very few people die past age 100."
In other words, healthier people live longer. Nothing "unique" or surprising in this article that I could find.
Rates of these chronic diseases are rapidly increasing. ~48% of US adults have hypertension (chronic cardiovascular disease) and ~38% have pre-diabetes (chronic metabolic disease). Particularly concerning is 33% of children age 12-17 have pre-diabetes.
Understanding the most prevalent causes of these diseases should be IMHO the top priority for anyone who cares about health.
My hunch is that #1 and #2 would be low exercise and poor food.
For exercise it's obvious what to do.
For food it's a big debate.
My hunch is that the problem must lie in foods or aspects of foods that are new to the human diet. So I discourage eating anything that requires industrial processes to create and thus was never eaten by people before the industrial revolution. This includes probably 95% of prepared or packaged food sold in the US. In particular refined flours, refined sweeteners, and refined oils, and then all the stuff with un-natural sounding names.
I'm aware that many institutions of science and health declare that for cardiovascular disease, the villain is natural fat and salt. I've spent a lot of time looking at their rationale for this. I think they are wrong and that this conclusion is based on badly done and poorly interpreted science.
On your exercise and diet, yes they are important, but I believe sleep is the primary driver, and that is why I work in neurotech and sleep.
Of course, there is a strong relationship between diet, exercise, and sleep. They are the 3 pillars of health.
However, you can have a poor diet for month, or a lack of exercise for years before you notice the detrimental health benefits. One night of poor sleep, and we all know how bad that feels. It isn't just how you "feel" your bodies vital systems such as insulin and inflammatory responses are impaired immediately.
A person can continue to have a good diet and exercise regularly to maintain (or slow the decline) of fitness. But the restorative function of sleep naturally declines. It isn't sleep time, but the neurological processes such slow-wave activity, directly linked to the flushing of metabolic waste from the brain, hormonal responses, the list goes on and on.
At https://affectablesleep.com we enhance the restorative function of sleep without altering sleep time. We're building on over a decade of research with more than 50 published peer-reviewed papers.
What is yet to be studies, and is one of the things I'm most interested in, is if we can boost restorative function early in life, do we delay or reduce the amount of decline as we age.
Did you really read the article to the end? because it explores interesting questions beyond simply "healthier people live longer".
From the article: > Some questions researchers have long pondered is whether one of the keys to a centenarian's resilience mainly lies in their ability to postpone major diseases, or whether they're simply better at surviving them. Or, could it be that they avoid certain diseases altogether?
What is it that causes some people to not get chronic cardiovascular and metabolic disease?
Hence my comment honing in on what are the likely biggest causes of these diseases and thus how to avoid getting them.
I agree with the article actually that figuring out how to be healthy, ergo how to avoid these diseases, is a good way to live a longer healthier life. I was just saying it's not surprising or unique.