How To Improve Your Average Longevity

The number of years of existence determined by heredity or genetics at the same time by certain environmental factors is termed as longevity. Average longevity and maximum longevity are the two types of longevity.

Average longevity – is commonly known as average life expectancy which refers to the age wherein half of the persons who were born in a specific year could have died. Maximum longevity is the oldest age in which any person lives. Average longevity is affected by both heredity or genetics and environmental factors.

Average life expectancy – also means life span. This differs with vulnerability to diseases, accidents, homicide or suicide. This is calculated for people at any age. With few exceptions, 30,000 days is the average life expectancy – 40,000 days if you are fortunate. Though, 2,000 years ago, the average human life span was less than twenty years or about 7,000 days.

Bacteria, accidents, predators, changes in weather and insufficient supply of dependable food source were the causes of short, dirty and vicious existences. This is so, if people survived birth. Infant death rates ranged from 300 or 400 per 1,000 live births in the eighteenth century, while there are only 7 deaths per 1,000 live births today.

Japan has the longest average longevity of 80 years, as reported by government figures. Likewise, in the United States, a baby who was born these days can anticipate to live up to 77 years. Fascinatingly these numbers keep on rising not only to those developed countries but all throughout the world.

Some environmental factors that affect average longevity:

1. Diseases like cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer’s disease

2. Lifestyle such as smoking and exercises

3. Toxins – environmental pollutants encountered primarily like air and water pollutants are continuing dilemmas. Poisons in fish, bacteria and carcinogenic chemicals in drinking water and airborne contaminants are major causes in shortening life span.

4. Social class – the impact of social class in life expectancy is the outcome of decreased access to goods and services especially on medical care that stresses out to most tribal minority groups, the poor and many adults.

The depressing part regarding most environmental factors is that people are responsible for them. Denying sufficient care to everyone continues to contaminate our environment, failing to attend the essential causes of poverty have indisputable consequences. They needlessly cut down lives and significantly increase the charge of health care.

Some significant factors effecting life expectancy includes: gender, genetics, access to health care, hygiene, diet and nutrition, exercises, lifestyle and crime rates. Recent increases in the rates in lifestyle diseases, like obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart diseases may radically slow down or reverse the tendency toward increasing life span in the developed universe.

Customary arguments have a tendency to favor socio-environmental factors also affect life expectancy; historically, men have usually consumed more alcohol, tobacco and drugs than women in most societies so they are more likely to die from plenty of associated illnesses like lung cancer, tuberculosis and cirrhosis of the liver.

Men are more susceptible to die from injuries, either it is unintentional like car accidents or intentional such as suicide, violence or war. Men are also at risk of dying because of most primary causes of deaths in the U. S. which include: cancer of respiratory system, accidents caused by motor vehicles, suicide, liver cirrhosis, coronary heart diseases and emphysema.

Based on socio-environmental effects on mortality, women still have prolonged life expectancy. This genetic difference happens since women have more resistance to sickness and other degenerative illnesses.

To improve average longevity, some of the ways to follow are:

1. Diet and nutrition – eating the right and nutritious food will help improve life span. Diseases like diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension, obesity and others can be avoided by taking balanced and nutritious foods.

2. Exercises – doing physical activities regularly, help people in lowering their weight and will get rid of related diseases because of weight.

3. Taking vitamins – it has been proven that taking good multivitamins will aid to add life span. Multivitamins act as fillers to the diet for nutrients and minerals that the body needs.

4. Lifestyle – by improving your way of living, like minimizing smoking, use of drugs and other vices.

The Secret of Longevity

AS A normal person, you would like to live for a long, long time. But how long can you expect to live? What is the limit of the human life span? Can you do anything to extend your life span? What is the secret of longevity? These are good questions, and finding the answer to them might help you to live much longer than seems possible at present.

Before looking for these answers, we have to clarify the difference between two important expressions: “life span” and “life expectancy.” Life span refers to the biological limit to the length of life. Life expectancy refers to the average number of years that a group of people born at the same time might be expected to live. Sadly, throughout history man’s life expectancy has fallen far short of his life span.

Life Expectancy at Various Times

“In a man’s length of days he may see and suffer many things that he much mislikes. For I set the limit of man’s life at seventy years.” These were the words of Solon, an Athenian statesman and Greek lawmaker who lived about 600 B.C.E. Thus, according to him, the life span was 70 years. However, according to data from burial inscriptions, about 400 B.C.E. the life expectancy in Greece was approximately 29 years.

In ancient times, apparently the life expectancy in various countries of Europe did not vary substantially from that in ancient Greece. Because of the high death rate at an early age, the average life expectancy fell far short of the life span. The box on the next page gives the average age at death in some European countries, providing a comparison of that of ancient times with the life expectancy about the year 1900 and at the present time.

Regarding the increase in life expectancy, James F. Fries and Lawrence M. Crapo wrote in their work Vitality and Aging, 1981, pages 74-6:

“The average length of life in the United States has increased from approximately 47 years at the turn of the century to over 73 years today, an increase of more than 25 years. . . . A critical look at these data, however, shows that the increase in life expectancy results from the elimination of premature death rather than by extension of the natural life span. When life expectancy is calculated from particular ages, the higher the age, the less is the increase. From age 40, life expectancy has increased relatively little. From age 75, the increase is barely perceptible. Beyond the age of 85, an increase cannot be confidently determined at all. . . . The best projections we can develop indicate that the median natural human life span is set at a maximum of 85 years.”

But what about the possibility of extending the life span significantly by diet, vitamins, drugs, and so forth? On page 18 of their work, Fries and Crapo explain:

“For hundreds of years, alchemists attempted to prepare rejuvenating elixirs, without success. Literally hundreds of substances, including herbs, drugs, vitamins, extracts of animal cells, fermented milk, and various serums and potions have been reported to have rejuvenating properties, without convincing evidence. In our own country, the traditional snake oil potions have fallen into disrepute, but we do still have our vitamins. Recently, the drug gerovital has been promoted by Aslan in Rumania as an agent to prevent aging. Gerovital, whose main ingredient is the local anesthetic Novocaine, has been used in treatment of Khrushchev [1894-1971], Sukarno [1901-1970], Ho Chi Minh [1890-1969], and other dignitaries. There exists, of course, no evidence that this agent has any such effects, and there are no a priori reasons to assume that it should. The persons cited as examples of prominent users by gerovital proponents all died, and at unremarkable ages.

“In 1974, Packer and Smith published a paper in a prestigious American scientific journal reporting experiments that seemed to show that vitamin E markedly prolonged the life span of normal human fibroblast cells cultured in a laboratory flask. Later, they retracted this claim, when neither they nor others were able to reproduce the experimental results. To date, no diets, lifestyles, vitamins, drugs, or tonics have been shown to extend the human life span. Of the 4 billion human beings who have lived and died, nearly every possible combination of diet, chemical exposure, and psychological life must have existed. The absence of super-centenarians argues strongly that there is no easy track to long life, or someone would have found it by now.”

Clearly, humans have not been capable of extending their life span, although particularly by reducing the number of deaths from childhood diseases, life expectancy has been extended somewhat. From the human standpoint, the hope of extending the life span is dim indeed. However, there is a sure hope that the human life span will be extended. By what means?

Longevity is the Quest of Many Individuals

 

Instead of worrying about the quality of life we are given (or self created) we are eager to extent our longevity. Evolutionary biologists, who theorize about why some organisms naturally live longer than others, ask if there is any reason to believe that maximum human life span, already at the upper end of longevity among mammals, could be increased at all even as researchers on aging, spurred by new experimental breakthroughs, increasingly ask, Why not. At present, the mean life expectancy in developed countries is about 70 to 80 years while the documented record for longevity is 122years. Separately, geneticists studying long-lived people appear to be narrowing in on a gene common to centenarians that promotes longevity.

Aging

Aging is inevitable and is something that all humans will have to eventually face. Aging is a summary term for a set of processes, which contribute to health deterioration and ultimately to death with the passage of time (calendar age). In other words any process, which contributes to age-related decline in performance, productivity and health is a component of the aging process that deserves our attention and intervention.

Radicals

Radicals can damage cells by reacting with cellular components; this type of damage is called oxidation and can result in serious injury to cells. The traditional theory that longevity and rate of aging are determined by metabolic rate and the rate of production of free radicals has had broad appeal as an explanation for why some animals live longer than others. Animals that live fast, so the theory goes, will die young, because high metabolism produces free radicals at a high rate. According to this model, which is known as the metabolic rate/oxidative stress theory, long-lived animals should have high concentrations of antioxidant enzymes in their tissues and low concentrations of free radicals. Antioxidants can cancel out the cell-damaging effects of free radicals.

Antioxidants

While free radicals attack our cells and pollute our bodies, antioxidants allow us to fight back. Antioxidants are compounds in fruits and vegetables that may be helpful in avoiding chronic disease. Examples of antioxidants include beta-carotene, lycopene, vitamins C, E, and A, and other substances. They act as “free radical scavengers” and hence prevent and repair damage done by these free radicals. Antioxidants also help reduce inflammation, keep arteries flexible, and preserve the genetic material every cell contains to prevent mutation. It is interesting to note that, in the normal concentrations found in the body, vitamin C and beta-carotene are antioxidants; but at higher concentrations they are pro-oxidants and, thus, harmful.

Prevention

In the medical and more reputable business community, anti-aging medicine means early detection, prevention, and reversal of age-related diseases. By using advances in antiaging medicine for disease prevention we can avoid certain conditions which would kill us early, however, this does not actually extend the maximum lifespan barrier. The role of antioxidants is a particularly popular nutrition topic in the media these days; in particular, their role in cancer prevention, anti-aging, and heart health. Resveratrol is a powerful agent in both prevention and treatment of many factors associated with decreases in our longevity and health. Resveratrol is the only natural product with such strong evidence to show it stops cancerous cell development at various stages. Resveratrol supplements may contain anywhere from 10-50 mg of resveratrol, but the effective doses for chronic disease prevention in humans are not known.

Supplements

Supplements are not a substitute for a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants are also widely used as ingredients in dietary supplements in the hope of maintaining health and preventing diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease. The anti-aging industry is offering a dizzying array of hormones and supplements. It is best to obtain these antioxidants from foods instead of supplements. If you are interested in taking antioxidant supplements, talk to your doctor about what is right for you.