Longevity

It’s been said that grandmothers “are wonderful mothers with lots of practice.” But since most species don’t live long beyond their reproductive years, it’s curious that older women often live decades beyond menopause. Now, two new studies out of Finland lend credence to the evolutionary purpose of older women for the well-being…

Perhaps more remarkable than just their stories of surviving the Holocaust, it turns out that Holocaust survivors in Israel are averaging a life span seven years longer than their native-born peers. In a new study published in JAMA, researchers have found that while survivors have higher rates of chronic illness…

Are you expecting to lead a long life because your parents or grandparents lived well into their later years? If so, you may need to come up with another strategy: As it turns out, genetics seems to play much less of a role in longevity than most people realize.  …

How long will I live? Perhaps not a question you routinely ask yourself, yet probably something that most of us have thought about. While there’s no easy way to determine your fate, there are multiple “longevity calculators” available online that can predict your potential lifespan, while also providing you with…

The statistics are dazzling: In the past 100 years, there’s been a 30-year increase in life expectancy. That’s amazing, and significantly attributable to advances in hygiene and public health, as well as medical advances. But, as University of Illinois epidemiologist S. Jay Olshansky writes in a recent article in the Journal…

From one perspective, the world appears to be entering dangerous, unchartered territory. The populations of most countries around the world are shrinking while at the same time they are aging. Fewer younger workers are available to support a larger number of retired older people. Fertility rates are at the lowest…