How To Live Forever (your individual mileage may vary)

Posted On August 4, 2011

I read a very silly study conclusion today. Ready?

Lifestyle doesn’t matter. If you want to live a long healthy life, you only need to have the genes of the Ashkenazi Jews. There. Problem solved.

This work, published this week in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society involved 477 Ashkenazi Jews aged 95 to 122 who were living independently. Three-quarters were women.

Ashkenazi Jews? Um, Why?
This group was chosen because they are more ”genetically uniform than other populations, making it easier to spot gene differences”.

What Did The Study Do, Actually?
They looked at the Ashkenazi group versus a control group who had the same lifestyle habits:

height-weight ratio
smoking
exercise level
and diet

The comparison group came from 3164 people born about the same time as the centenarians and were examined between 1971 and 1975.

Some Notable Findings?

1. 24% of those who were long-lived, drank alcohol daily, compared with 22% of the general population

2. 43% of those who were long lived exercised regularly compared with 57% of the general population.

Bottom Line?

Your genes are your tendency, not your destiny. I heard a popular radio personality quote this study today, to tell the listeners that they should blow off all this “health living” stuff because “it doesn’t matter what you do … it’s all about your genes“.

This is obviously goofy AND dumbo.

You might have genes that make you more susceptible to heart disease (or LESS susceptible), but you can certainly mess that up if you smoke, if you eat carcinogens, if you pig out on sugars all day every day.

The idea that a person’s lifespan is NOT affected by their lifestyle is uninformed by reality.

The truth is in the middle. Your genes set your tendency, but your destiny determines your place within that window — either toward the healthy side or toward the unhealthy side.

Here is the link to the article:

For more information: Click here to visit Will Clower’s website.