Think you’ll live a long life because your parents and grandparents did? Think again – longevity is much more to do with the way you live your life than the healthy genes you inherited.
If you’re relatively healthy and a non-smoker at the age of 50, you stand a reasonable chance of reaching 90, say researchers who have been tracking a group of 855 men, who were born in 1913, since 1963. The odds increase further if you are still physically active at the age of 54.
Of the original 855 participants, 111, or 13 per cent, were still alive at the age of 90, and it had everything to do with lifestyle choices, and nothing to do with genetic inheritance, say researchers from the University of Gothenburg.
(Source: Journal of Internal Medicine, 2010; doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2796.2010.02331.x).
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