Do the most long lived people that you know have healthy lifestyles?

[Bumpitybumper]

I have been listening to a few podcasts lately that have really stressed the importance of healthy living and things like diet and exercise. None of them really have any tolerance for things that I think most of the population enjoy quite regularly like the odd biscuit or cake. They also don't think it's enough to eat a diet that would be traditionally considered healthy with 57
portions of fruit and veg as now the emphasis is on eating the right fruit and vegetables and nuts and seeds etc. You have to do a certain number of days cardio and strength training. It really is never ending.

It got me thinking that the people that I know that have lived the longest in relatively good health have generally been pretty active and eaten well but haven't really got anywhere close to the lifestyle that these health experts advocate. Is my experience unusual or have others found the same thing in their lives?

My granny smoked 60 a day for 70 years and lived to 92, so no!

A lot of my older female relatives have smoked like chimneys and lived a long time. I guess their diet was healthyish. I feel like a v large part of long life is genetics.

I think genetics, general mood, walking/exercise and being involved with either friends, families or groups can have a big impact as a person ages.
Then some people are better at following a doctor's advice re say losing weight, giving up cigarettes ect.
I know a lady who was a heavy drinker for years and now has altizmers but she has an older sister who is mentally still very sharp.
If you can avoid dealing with a lot of stress it helps. I think that we are far more aware now that both mental and physical health have to be looked after.

I have known people who despite being overweight, heavy smokers, drinkers or with bad eating habits that have lived to a good age. But as they got older they found out doing these things had impacted on their health. Say when it came to walking, doing physical tasks, remembering things or they get out of breath far quicker than a non smoker.
It one thing living to a good age but it a better situation if you can walk, look after yourself ect and are not just surviving but can physically enjoy your life.

Loneliness has been shown to really impact physical health .

Yes that’s exactly what I have been saying throughout this whole thread and I was interested to see more research out today so wanted to share it.

My H's family tend to be long lived. None of them have been overweight, but all smoked for decades, so I can't really advocate for all of their choices.

The short answer is no.

Yes. My husband's grandad lived to be 99 and he was very healthy. My grandad lived to be 95 and he was also very healthy.

Both my grandmothers lived past 90; one was pretty much fit as a fiddle till 100 and lived to 102. Didn’t really drink, didn’t eat much (but loved to feed others), was a raging hypochondriac and, thanks to the war and immigration status, never really a happy personality. Other grandmother, rural working class and strong as an ox, very sociable, loved her food, not an exerciser as we understand it. She wasn’t really a drinker either, one sweet sherry at Christmas type of thing. Sadly she had a stroke in her 90s and breaking her hip really ruined her quality of life in her last five years.

DH’s grandmothers and grandad both lived into their 90s too. Grandad was a keen gardener and grew most of his own veg; Granny F was diabetic late in life because of a sweet tooth, but still made it well into her 90s thanks to medication. Granny D had a hard domestic life till middle age but dodged most illness despite also being a hypochondriac. She didn’t die of anything in particular, just sort of faded away a few winters ago.

Only the 102 year old had ever smoked, and she gave it up in midlife.

This is a really fascinating thread .

The borough I live in has a 12 year disparity in life expectancy between the poorest and richest areas. They are 2 miles apart.
I work in social care and we looked into the main factors. They were:

1. Diet. (Poorer area high reliance on UPFs, high fat and sugar diets, little fresh veg/fruit, high rates of obesity, percentage of income spent on food was high but the amount was very very little. Shit food is cheap and cooking skills have been lost. Also the local shops are a fruit and veg desert.
2. Stress. Being poor can be very very stressful
3. Lack of exercise. Less options for sport, many things expensive (£4 to go swimming etc) lack of motivation, if you eat badly you feel bad and do have the mojo needed.
4. Smoking and drinking excessively.
5. Pollution is much higher in the poorer area.

The richer area ate hardly any UPF, much more homemade foods, smoked less, drank less and less binge drinking, excerised more.

Very insightful post and logical reasoning when you put it like that.

Wonder what more could be done to improve the quality of life / food and exercise choices in the less well off areas.

Give them more money is the obvious one

My neighbour lived alone until she was 100, when she died.
She didn’t smoke or drink.
she did her own housework and light gardening but never took any exercise.
She went to church weekly and the Women’s Institute weekly in a taxi.
She had an awful diet, everything out of tins and opened tins kept in fridge.
She baked cakes and pies using lard and tinned fillings.
She loved sweets and chocolate.
She was not overweight.
She always was very clean, well dressed with a light application of make up.
She was bright and intelligent up to her sudden death.
An amazing lady!

@Tinybrother

I take your point but would they rush out to buy the latest in season veg with their extra £20 per week?

Perhaps some education and community involvement to encourage better lifestyle.

My grandad is in excellent health for his age. He has always been very active. Food wise he also eats at the same times each day and always proper sit down meals. He does have a couple of biscuits in the afternoon though.
I think it’s his regular proper meals that have kept him at the same weight for his adult life.

I just add my mother. She is 86 and has never really cooked. She can’t cook. She lives on prepackaged salads which are left to go off in her fridge. Or she doesn’t put things in the fridge, just leaves them out ! She eats out occasionally when she goes for the puddings . Never done any formal exercise beyond walking . She does eat a lot of fruit though but any veg she eats is disgustingly over cooked .
She lives off cup a soup and rotten food. Has developed a heart condition in her last ten years for which she takes medication. Her high blood pressure disappeared when my father died. I think a lot of her longevity is due to living an outdoor life with unprocessed food when she was young. She also doesn’t get stressed as she just gets other people to do things for her!

More money would definitely be a good start. A basic universal income would be excellent. As would access to better affordable food and cooking skills taught properly in schools and to adults. If you don't drive and walk to the shops you need to be able to buy quality fruit and veg cheaply. Some places have had success with a veg/fruit van that drives area to area. Excerise is harder but in the area I live there is a fantastic female trainer who puts on free or subsidized classes in the local park. Lots of the women are very overweight and have done no exercise previously. She gets everyone challenging themselves against themselves. I sometimes go with a friend that couldnt even walk 5k, she's built it up now so that she can walk 8k. Running it is like unlikely to ever happen but that has been a big achievement.

Excerise in schools needs a massive overhaul too. My kids are extremely sporty and do loads and loads of sport outside of school since they were tiny. It used to really piss me off that they would be the kids picked for every sporting activity when really it should have been the children that parents didn't have the time, car, funds or inclination to take them to football/rugby/swimming etc. The school has a school football team which all the places were taken up with kids that already played football outside of school that is totally wrong in my book. Kids should also do the mile a day where every day they run or walk around to the playground. It's free, good for their mental health and behaviour and for some kids this is more than they will do otherwise. It's gets them in the habit of walking and can be a sociable activity.

In my experience it's people who had the best balance in life. Enough money to be comfortable, a good support network, regular walks and keeping busy, no faddy diets, moderate alcohol intake, never smoking or quitting smoking young (different generation). The magic seems to be in being moderate in all areas, the body does not like extremes. Obviously genetics and to a certain degree luck as well.

When I was a nurse, I had a patient who was 103. I was absolutely shocked when I saw her date of birth as I would have put her at late 60’s early 70’s. She was very slim and very active. Was Stil going out for daily walks. She ate mostly potatoes and beef and drank a glass of red wine and a bottle of bud every evening!

Total mixed bag in my immediate family. My great granny lived until 104, didn't drink or smoke. Started full time work as a housekeeper aged 12 and probably never ate convenience food in her life.
Her 2 daughters (my gran and aunt) both drank and smoked. My gran died suddenly from an aneurysm aged 63 and my aunt carried on partying until her late 80's eventually succumbing to dementia in her 90's. My mum also smokes and drinks, shit diet, never exercised and still healthy in her mid 70's.
I think it's just luck!

In my family as well.

My grandparents on both sides lived very long lives and didn't have any major illnesses until in their last year or so of life. With the exception of one of my grandfathers, all were overweight, never exercised and didn't at all have a "healthy" lifestyle.

A friend of mine died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 28 😞 He was very sporty and ran half marathons/triathlons etc.

You just never know 🤷‍♀️

One side of my grandparents smoked heavily and my dgd drank red wine and a whisky most nights. He died at 70. My dgm has COPD and doesn't have a great quality of life. She's 87 and hanging on. Has had cancer, does have a heart problem and other health issues.

My other side grandparents are about to go into their 90s. Walkers, healthy eating, active lifestyles with previous sailing and lots of gardening. My dgm has the same heart problem as my other dgm despite her lifestyle being SO much healthier than the others.

We’re a long lived family on both sides. My mother is 80 and will outlive the lot of us, to be fair she has lived a healthy life, but the rest…

My dad, 82 had a triple heart bypass two years ago, he smoked for years and was always hugely overweight. The doctor doing his op said reading his charts he expected to be presented with a man in his 60s. Both my grans smoked like chimneys all their lives. One died at 90, the other at 88. One grandad was killed in the war, but the other one was 96 when he died, an alcoholic who smoked. My mothers brother was run over at 85, would probably still be going strong if that hadn’t happened, also a lifelong smoker and heavy drinker. My Dad has three sisters and two brothers, all going strong and all smokers/drinkers.