I’d like to introduce this study about centenarians which was published in June. This interesting study was conducted in China to investigate the relationship between healthy lifestyle and likelihood of becoming a centenarian among individuals aged 80 years and older*1.
The authors used data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, a nationally representative and one of the largest prospective cohorts targeting people aged 80 years or older.
The sample comprised 5222 participants (61.7% women, average age: 94.3 years), including 1454 identified centenarians and 3768 controls (died before becoming centenarians) matched by age, sex, and year of entry. An average follow-up period was 5 years.
In this large-scale study, a healthy lifestyle score (HLS) was initially based on 5 lifestyle aspects (1. the status of smoking, 2. alcohol use, 3. exercise, 4. dietary diversity: the frequency of consuming five food groups, and 5. BMI) with higher scores indicating potentially better health outcomes. For the status of smoking and alcohol use, participants were assigned scores of 0, 1, 2 (never: 2, former: 1, and current: 0), and for exercise they were assigned scores of 0, 1, 2 (never: 0, former: 1, and current: 2). Dietary diversity was assessed according to the frequency of consuming five food groups: fruits, vegetables, fish, beans, and tea. Participants reported “almost every day”, “except winter or sometimes or occasionally” or “rarely or never.” for the intake frequency of each food group, and were assigned scores of 2, 1, or 0 accordingly. For BMI, participants were assigned scores of 0, 1, 2 for the underweight, overweight/obese, and normal weight as underweight has been associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality among people aged 80 years and older in China. The authors in this research observed that the overall healthy lifestyle score was associated with the odds of becoming a centenarian in people aged 80 years or older. When constructing a healthy lifestyle score for 100 (HLS-100) only including smoking status, exercise, and dietary diversity, more interestingly, they observed even greater odds in the association between healthy lifestyle behaviors and the likelihood of becoming centenarians. Adhering to a healthy lifestyle could be beneficial even at a very advanced age. The authors suggested that the assessment of healthy lifestyle behaviors should be customized in different age groups, and developing intervention strategies targeting lifestyle improvement to promote health and longevity may be universally beneficial across different life stages.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 80,139 centenarians, defined as people 100 years and over in the 2020 Census. This is a 50.2 percent increase from the 2010 Census. And as you can probably guess, the majority of them were female (78.8 %) *2. As for my home country, Japan, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, there were 92,139 centenarians in 2023. And approximately a 89 % of them was female *3. Considering the fact that the total population of Japan is roughly about 1/3 of the U.S. total population, Japan is indeed a super-aging country.
I want to think that we are getting smarter about making healthier choices regardless of our age. In any case, if we want to join the healthy centenarian club in the future, we should probably start living smart and healthy now!!
*1. Li Y, Wang K, Jigeer G, et al. Healthy Lifestyle and the Likelihood of Becoming a Centenarian. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(6):e2417931.
doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.17931
*2. The U.S. Census Bureau (2023). The Older Population: 2020 census briefs.
*3 The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare (2023). Press Release (in Japanese).
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