Survive to 85...or More


Mid-life Choices Can Set the Path


A day


• Normal blood sugar • Normal blood pressure • Not overweight • Physical strength


The biggest individual risks came


from smoking, having more than three alcoholic drinks a day, having high blood


t middle age, there’s a fork in the road for a man’s health. One way leads to a two-in-three chance


reaching age 85. The other cuts those odds to about one in five. A road map for that healthy old age


comes from a remarkable study of 5,820 American men of Japanese descent. Studied since 1965, when they were an average 54 years old, the surviving men now range in age from 85 to 105. The study of these men uncovers six


signs that point toward a healthy old age. They are:


• No smoking • No more than 2 alcoholic drinks a


sugar, or high blood pressurehigh blood pressure. Men who have all six risk factors have


only a 22% chance of living to 85 -- and only a 9% chance of being healthy if they live that long. The healthiest men are nonsmoking,


strong, lean, moderate drinkers with nor- mal blood sugar and blood pressure. Such men have a 69% chance of


surviving to age 85 and a 55% chance of being healthy then, find Bradley J. Willcox, MD, of the University of Hawaii and Pacific Health Research Institute, Honolulu, and his colleagues. “Our questions were, ‘What is


healthy agingaging?’ and ‘How do you get there?’” Willcox tells WebMD. “I am encouraged very much by our


findings. I think that there is a tremendous number of things we can do to age more healthily.”


By Daniel DeNoon. The findings appear in the Nov. 15 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.


How A Man Can


MARCH 2007


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