Longevity

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…

Those of us with a Type A personality are usually driven to pursue success, even at great cost. So, as we grow older, the question becomes: How do we age “successfully”? What’s the measure of success- or failure? Well, according to geriatrician Leslie Kernisan, of Better Health While Aging, knowing whether…

We’ve all experienced the sensations: not feeling as energetic as usual, forgetting some common thoughts, feeling more susceptible to aches and pains. And we ask ourselves: Is this normal aging? Or is something wrong? Well, in a recent piece in Kaiser Health News, writer Bruce Horovitz lays out some general…