Even in your 80s, it’s not too late to adopt healthy habits that could help you live to 100 and beyond. That’s the encouraging message from a groundbreaking new international study, which found that older adults who maintained healthier lifestyles had significantly better odds of becoming centenarians.
The research, published in JAMA Network Open, suggests that simple lifestyle choices like not smoking, exercising regularly, and eating a diverse diet can boost your odds of reaching the century mark – even if you make all of these changes in your later years. It’s a hopeful finding that challenges assumptions about the impact of lifestyle changes for the very old.
“Adhering to a healthy lifestyle appears to be important even at late ages, suggesting that constructing strategic plans to improve lifestyle behaviors among all older adults may play a key role in promoting healthy aging and longevity,” the study authors write in their report.
Methodology
To investigate the link between lifestyle and extreme longevity, researchers tapped into data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, one of the largest studies of very old people in the world. They identified 1,454 individuals who lived to at least 100 years-old, then matched them with 3,768 control participants of similar age and background who died before reaching 100.
The team constructed a “healthy lifestyle score” (HLS) based on three key factors:
- Smoking status (never, former, or current smoker)
- Exercise habits (current, former, or never exerciser)
- Dietary diversity (based on regular consumption of fruits, vegetables, fish, beans, and tea)
Participants received 0-2 points for each factor, for a total possible score of 0-6. The researchers then compared the lifestyle scores of centenarians to those who didn’t reach 100 to see if healthier habits were associated with greater longevity.
Results
Making these healthy choices produced striking results. Those with the highest lifestyle scores (5-6 points) had 61% higher odds of becoming centenarians compared to those with the lowest scores (0-2 points). This association held up even after accounting for factors like education level, marital status, and pre-existing health conditions.