11 things people who live to 100 have in common

Living to be 100 requires a fair amount of luck, it’s true. But people who make it past the century mark also share some healthy habits that we could all benefit from. Here’s what we know centenarians have in common.

If you have at least one parent who lived to 95 or older, you have a better shot at a healthier (and presumably longer) life yourself, a 2017 study published in The American Journal of Cardiology found. Researchers reported that subjects with at least one parent living past age 95 had 29 per cent lower odds of having hypertension, 65 per cent lower odds of having a stroke, and 35 per cent lower odds of having cardiovascular disease than those whose parents died before age 95. That held true even when – and here’s the surprising thing – there were significant differences in social-economic status, physical activity, diet, and other lifestyle habits. “They were no more likely to eat low fat and only a small number were vegetarians,” says endocrinologist, Dr Sofiya Milman. While only about 25 per cent of longevity is related to genetics, that fraction seems to be the driving force behind how far those lifestyle habits (the remaining 75 per cent) can take you.

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Longevity is complex. “Multiple genes are related to how long we live,” says professor of psychiatry, Dr Dilip Jeste. He’s also part of a team studying residents in Cilento, a region in Italy where the elderly live exceptionally long healthy lives. “In other words, if you have genes for certain types of fatal cancers, then the other genes that promote longevity may have less of an influence.” To hit the centenarian jackpot, an array of genes needs to be working together in your favour, but “there’s a lot more under our control than we think,” he adds. For example, take a set of twins with genes that predisposed them to lung cancer. If one smoked and one didn’t, the smoker would be 5.4 times more likely to develop lung cancer than the other, thus significantly hurting his chances at longevity.

Chalk this up to those longevity genes. “Many centenarians get age-related diseases, such as cancer, at a much later age,” says Dr Milman. In a joint study between Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Boston University School of Public Health, she and a team of researchers found that the age at which their centenarian subjects experienced certain diseases were delayed between 18 and 24 years. So could escaping serious illnesses by the time you reach 100 be an indication that you’ve got some more good years ahead of you? Perhaps. In a 2008 issue of The Journals of Gerontology, researchers who examined supercentenarians (age 110 and older) found that most were independent in terms of daily life activities at the age of 100 and few were in nursing homes or other forms of assisted living before the age of 105.

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Physical activity throughout life, including your senior years, is associated not just with good health, but longevity as well. A National Institutes of Health study reports that just 2.5 hours of moderate activity a week could extend your life by 3.4 years. It turns out, some of the regions around the world with standout longevity are close-knit communities in rural areas. For these folks, work is often more physical than a desk job, and they’re probably not spending hours in a car every day. The Okinawa Centenarian Study, which followed residents of the Japanese village that boasts one of the world’s highest centenarian ratios, notes that regular physical activity throughout most of the centenarians’ lives (in conjunction with other healthy habits) allowed them to have “impressively young, clean arteries.” They didn’t lift weights or run 5Ks; they simply made fitness part of their lifestyle, whether it was taking strolls or tending to the garden. And in Villagrande, Sardinia, where men live about as long as the women (which is a rarity – typically, women outlive men), researchers attribute their day-to-day physical activity – most were shepherds in this mountainous region – to the men’s impressive longevity.

Places brimming with 100-year-olds have an unspoken custom: eat mindfully. “I’m stuffed” is just not something you’d hear at the table. They also tend not to eat alone and instead share their meals with family and friends, notes Dr Jeste. In Okinawa, for example, elders may even say, before a meal, “Hara hachi bu,” a Confucian concept that means “eat only until your stomach is 80 per cent full.” The upshot? The elderly Okinawans consumed about 7900 kilojoules a day throughout their lives. Australians consume an average of 8700 kilojoules. Why is that a problem? It seems that over-eating over-stresses our metabolic systems, while kilojoule restriction (as long as we get the necessary nutrients) is associated with lower levels of oxidative stress, inflammation, insulin sensitivity, and other conditions that speed up the ageing process. In fact, as authors of a joint Harvard-Salk Institute paper write, “At present, calorie restriction remains the most robust [i.e., evidence based] strategy for extending health and lifespan in most biological models tested.”

The diets of these regions populated with healthy older people are different, but what they do have in common, says Dr Jeste, is what they don’t eat. “You don’t see a lot of high-fat or high-sugar foods.” For example, in Sardinia, the Mediterranean diet prevails; it’s rich in fish, fruits, vegetables, and healthy oils, all typically locally sourced. This is also true in Cilento, which boasts a diet especially rich in olives and rosemary. While Western foods have infiltrated Okinawa in recent years, its diet traditionally consists of only a little fish and pork, and plenty of vegetables, beans, tofu, seaweed, and complex carbohydrates, particularly purple and orange sweet potatoes.

In areas with higher-than-usual concentrations of centenarians, seniors are often an integrated part of their community. For some, church provides that connection. In Loma Linda, California, the only Blue Zone town (locations around the globe known for longevity and good health) in the United States, the seniors are Seventh-day Adventists; in Sardinia, they tend to be devout Roman Catholics. Religion encourages its believers to carve time during the week to go to church, which is not only a chance to strengthen their connection to God but to mingle with family and friends. As centenarian women interviewed in the Sardinia study repeatedly mentioned, it’s their ties to their family and God that’s kept them alive and kicking for so long.

Maintaining quality social bonds, whether with fellow parishioners, family, or friends, have been linked to better health, while social isolation has been associated with an increased risk of inflammation in adolescents and worsened hypertension in old age. Studies published in the Journal of the American Heart Association and Cancer have also associated a strong social network (of the real, as opposed to virtual, kind) with better recovery from disease, including breast cancer and heart attack.

It’s probably not a coincidence that in areas with an unusually high number of centenarians, the culture is one that truly respects the elderly. In Sardinia, seniors are part of everyday society, not shuttled off into retirement and nursing homes. As a child of an elder interviewed in Cilento told researchers: “We always come to our father. He is still our point of reference and an example for us, for the way he takes things.”

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Part of the advantage of living in a rural, close-knit community is that you have open land, perfect for gardening or strolling. You can walk to a neighbour’s house (or even to work or run errands), and the air is fresh and clean. It’s pleasant. And while Loma Linda, California, is hardly a rural village, it’s populated by Seventh-day Adventists, who specifically promote getting outside in their official manual: “…we live intelligently in accordance with health principles of exercise, respiration, sunshine, pure air, use of water, sleep, and rest.”

Why is being outside so helpful? “Multiple factors come into play,” says Dr Jeste. While some may partly credit vitamin D from sunshine for lengthening life, he believes that other factors may have more to do with it. “When you’re outdoors, you’re being active,” he says, whether you’re gardening or walking to or from somewhere. “You’re also looking at trees and nature. You’re more apt to interact with other people than feeling isolated. All this can promote happy feelings.” That, in turn, promotes a positive outlook on life.