Came across this article reporting that the largest factor in determining one’s longevity ins heredity. NYT has a similar one, but I am not a subscriber.
My read is that I have a good chance of living into my 90s, based on my grandparents’ ages.
However, I am much more concerned with quality of my senior years than quantity. Therefore am doing my reasonable best to take care of myself.
1 Like
My grandfather on my dad’s side made it to 85, as did my grandmother on my mom’s side. But in my family line deaths have happened between 62 and 75. I’m 68 so I’m expecting mid to late 70’s. I also care more about quality than length. If I can’t recognize my daughter or grandson, I want them to withhold food, because I’m no different than a dog at that point.
Aren’t the two people you mentioned in your family line? I’m confused.
My dad had his first heart attack at 35, lived to 71. Had quit smoking, then restarted. Lung cancer, along with the heart stuff.
Yeah, quality is more important than quantity, but it would be nice to have some of both. I have shit to do. Too many people I know retire and die within 5 years.
Yep. the only two that made it to 80’s. My mom and her siblings (4) were in their mid 70’s (her brother died at 42). My dad’s only brother, whom I share the wonderful diabetes, died at 62 and dad at 74. My sister died at 68. My grandfather on my mom’s side was 63.
My dad died at 84, after suffering from COPD (emphysema) for his last 20 years. My mother died 2 years later at 87. She had afib, but I think she just decided it was time.
I had a bit of a panic attack recently - my best friend who was 10 days older than me died in November, but he had health issues. My exes cousin was 67 with no health issues and she died a couple of weeks ago. I think of her when I heard the Saturday “Social Security Strategy” guys on the radio. My exes cousin was 67…waited until then to retire and claim social security. That was in December. She got two checks and died. I retired in 2019 and have been getting my limited social security checks all this time. They say the break even age is around 80, which I don’t expect to make. And even if I do, the past 7 years have been the best years of my life. But I can feel changes.
Genetics are funny. My grandfather died at 90 something and smoked four packs a day.
My other grandfather died in his 60’s but it was due to radiation exposure. His father lived to his 90’s.
My dad died at 53 it smoked and didn’t take care of himself. I think excessive drinking is a root cause for many deaths.
I don’t know the scope of my dad’s smoking, but he usually had a Pall Mall or Old Gold fired up. When he was 64-65, his doctor told him that if he didn’t quit he has already had his last birthday. He did, but had to take daily breathing treatments after that (nebulizer 3x a day).
My grandather that made it to 85 smoked. His wife died at 62 (he was 73) and he had he had pneumonia. Back then you could smoke in hospitals and they finally put a guy in his room on oxygen to try to keep him from smoking. So he took an ashtray and sat on a gurney in the hall. A doctor passed and told him he would live to be 100 if he gave those up. He asked him if he ever thought he might not want to be 100. He gave up cigs, but not his pipe. He had a main aortic aneurysm (surgery was still not routine back then) that burst on him. They said he was dead before he hit the ground. That’s how I hope to go…with all my wits, living on my own and fast.
Big time. Alcohol is far more poisonous than most people seem to realize.
Dose makes the poison always, so a bit is fine occasionally. But some people drink every single day.
My father drank heavily. My grandparents did not. I know that isn’t a huge sample size but alcoholism runs rampant In my family. All the alcoholic fied young. The ones who drank in moderation lived long lives.
I’ve learned from researching diet and exercise stuff that the presence of alcohol essentially shuts down one’s metabolism so that the body can dedicate all available resources to detoxifying the bloodstream.
This produces a byproduct (acetaldehyde) that is also toxic, and a carcinogen.
Doing this often is a quick way to chronic injury and inflammation, as the body is unable to tend to its daily needs, as well as unable to repair the damage caused by other factors (suboptimal nutrition, inadequate sleep, etc).
Young people develop bad habits due to their peer culture, as well as the naive belief that they are invincible.
Middle aged and elderly people who continue to behave this way are accelerating their aging process tremendously and inviting a much earlier death.
I think quantity is the main issue. A few drinks isn’t harmful. A few drinks a month is fine. Drinking every night. Not so much.
Then there are studies like this
“We don’t have any concrete, irrefutable evidence to show that it’s a good idea to drink wine, almost medicinally, to help lower risk of heart disease or cardiac events.”
There’s always exceptions that prove the rule, and it would be interesting to see a study on those exceptions.
Two that I have first-hand knowledge of.
One is an old IBM friend who is 92 and lives alone in a house on pilings on the Gulf coast. I just spoke with him last week and he was recovering from a fractured pelvis that happened last September when he stepped backwards to let someone pass and fell down the steps of the DMV office as he was going in to register a car. He spent a week in the hospital, then a wheelchair for 4 months and was just transitioning to a cane last week. When I worked with him he was a daily drinker of hard liquor and lost a middle-aged son to alcoholism.
Another is an extended family member who smoked unfiltered cigarettes daily all his life and died at age 93. He was also a Downwinder survivor from the 1940’s atomic bomb tests.
I heard one researcher say recently, if you look at any study that shows health benefits of alcohol, it was funded by the alcohol industry.
I’m not sure how you think this constitutes an exception to what I said.
I didn’t say alcoholics will die earlier than others. I said they will die earlier than they otherwise would have.
Of course there are genetic variations that differentiate the level of damage per a given behavior among individuals.