How to live a long life….
Welcome to our health & self help blog.
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-13-2006
How to live a long life….
Yesterday’s news about longevity seemed to me to give some great tips on how to live a long life.
First, the researchers who did the study said that they found 7 factors that seemed to be of most importance in determining longevity.
The article said they were listed in the order of importance. However, as you’ll see, all but the most important one interact with each other, so the order of the other 6 is less useful in terms of ranking. But it’s quite useful in terms of using the principles to live longer.
1. Don’t smoke & avoid second hand smoke.
Smoking literally does so many bad things that completely avoiding it adds years to your life. And, it tends to make you sick & degrade your quality of life even well before it kills you years early.
It increases your level of homocysteine significantly. And, the amount of homocysteine that puts into your blood has been found to accelerate aging, damage your brain, & to harm your circulation, which tends to trigger things like stokes, heart attacks, impotence, peripheral artery disease& even foot amputations.
I’ve even read that smoking lowers the level of your protective HDL cholesterol & makes what you have left over not work as well to protect you.
Small wonder that smoking kills many more people from cardiovascular disease than it does from cancer.
A study I saw reported recently found that smoking produces cancer by damaging the DNA in your cells & then disabling your cell’s ability to repair the damage on top of that.
The states that had the highest longevity tend to bear this out also. California & Minnesota, which were in the top 10 longest lived states, have led the nation in banning smoking from public places. And, Utah, & to some extent, Colorado, also in the top ten have a strong anti-smoking lean due to their high numbers of Mormons who generally do not smoke.
2. Alcohol. People who drink regularly but relatively lightly, 3 to 9 drinks a week, seem to have the best health.
But people who drink more, or considerably more, than 14 drinks a week -- tend to become fatter, be in more serious car accidents, including fatal ones, & get more cancers. And, they also are more likely to develop high blood pressure. They also may lose jobs & get divorced or land in jail due to the consequences of their heavy drinking.
And, NONE of those things help you live longer. So either abstain or only drink one or two drinks a day.
3. Obesity. This one is both a cause of life threatening diseases & a result of doing the wrong things in the other factors in this list.
To become fat, people drink too much, drink & eat things with high fructose corn syrup, eat foods with transfats, eat far too few vegetables, & get far too little exercise.
And, both those actions or nonactions & obesity tend to cause things like heart disease & type II diabetes which degrade your quality of life, increase your medical expenses, & may well kill you early besides. There is also some evidence obesity & lack of exercise tend to cause cancer or make harder to survive cancer.
4. High Blood Pressure. Being fat & most of the things that tend to make you fat also tend to give you high blood pressure. And, high blood pressure damages your heart & sharply increases your risk of all kinds of strokes.
And, although there have been some recent improvements, many of the drugs to control high blood pressure tend to degrade your quality of life. Plus, they cost money people with desirable levels of blood pressure don’t have to spend.
Also, people who have excessive stress or who handle it poorly, tend to get high blood pressure; but high & unrelieved stress damages your health directly as well in many ways.
5. Bad Cholesterol levels.
We now know that avoiding low levels of the protective HDL form is more important than lowering LDL or total cholesterol. But, since high LDL IS harmful, the most useful cholesterol measure is the ratio of HDL to LDL or to total cholesterol.
People who eat transfats, who eat too much fatty meat, butter, & cheese -- all with high saturated fat content, who get too little exercise, or smoke, or who fail to take B vitamins & other supplements that raise HDL or lower LDL, & those who eat too little vegetables, tend to have bad cholesterol ratios.
Mercifully, all these causes are reversible.
6. Diet. The different cuisines around the world that produce good health & longevity differ in many ways; but they all have some things in common. The Mediterranean diet is the best. But many Asian cuisines like Japanese & Chinese are almost as good.
They all feature lots of vegetables & a large variety of vegetables. That seems to be the most important thing they have in common.
They tend to use a lot of onions & garlic. They are relatively low or very low in meat, cheese, & saturated fat.
And, they often feature fish & seafood.
The extra virgin olive oil used in the Mediterranean diet is not only a fat that tends to give you higher HDL readings & lower LDL readings, the antioxidants in it, due to it being less refined, tend to protect your health.
And, these cuisines have a relatively low level of refined carbohydrates & sugar –AND, virtually no high fructose corn syrup or transfats.
People who eat that way tend to NOT be fat & to rarely get cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, & get far fewer cancers.
In the top 10 states, Hawaii, the number one state, & California have, I think, more people who eat this way.
7. Exercise.
Exercise tends to prevent obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, & cancer. And, it directly increases your level of the most protective fraction of HDL.
And, regular exercise also literally helps you to think better & tends to make you much more stress proof & stress resistant.
I suspect that states like Hawaii, California, & Colorado make the top 10 list in part because more people there exercise outdoors for recreation.
And, in Iowa, the Dakotas, & Minnesota, & in the New England states in the top 10, people tend to get extra exercise dealing with the snow in the winter.
Next time, we’ll cover a couple of additional factors that may help account for the longevity in Iowa, the Dakotas, & Minnesota -- & in the New England states in the top ten.
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-13-2006
How to live a long life….
Yesterday’s news about longevity seemed to me to give some great tips on how to live a long life.
First, the researchers who did the study said that they found 7 factors that seemed to be of most importance in determining longevity.
The article said they were listed in the order of importance. However, as you’ll see, all but the most important one interact with each other, so the order of the other 6 is less useful in terms of ranking. But it’s quite useful in terms of using the principles to live longer.
1. Don’t smoke & avoid second hand smoke.
Smoking literally does so many bad things that completely avoiding it adds years to your life. And, it tends to make you sick & degrade your quality of life even well before it kills you years early.
It increases your level of homocysteine significantly. And, the amount of homocysteine that puts into your blood has been found to accelerate aging, damage your brain, & to harm your circulation, which tends to trigger things like stokes, heart attacks, impotence, peripheral artery disease& even foot amputations.
I’ve even read that smoking lowers the level of your protective HDL cholesterol & makes what you have left over not work as well to protect you.
Small wonder that smoking kills many more people from cardiovascular disease than it does from cancer.
A study I saw reported recently found that smoking produces cancer by damaging the DNA in your cells & then disabling your cell’s ability to repair the damage on top of that.
The states that had the highest longevity tend to bear this out also. California & Minnesota, which were in the top 10 longest lived states, have led the nation in banning smoking from public places. And, Utah, & to some extent, Colorado, also in the top ten have a strong anti-smoking lean due to their high numbers of Mormons who generally do not smoke.
2. Alcohol. People who drink regularly but relatively lightly, 3 to 9 drinks a week, seem to have the best health.
But people who drink more, or considerably more, than 14 drinks a week -- tend to become fatter, be in more serious car accidents, including fatal ones, & get more cancers. And, they also are more likely to develop high blood pressure. They also may lose jobs & get divorced or land in jail due to the consequences of their heavy drinking.
And, NONE of those things help you live longer. So either abstain or only drink one or two drinks a day.
3. Obesity. This one is both a cause of life threatening diseases & a result of doing the wrong things in the other factors in this list.
To become fat, people drink too much, drink & eat things with high fructose corn syrup, eat foods with transfats, eat far too few vegetables, & get far too little exercise.
And, both those actions or nonactions & obesity tend to cause things like heart disease & type II diabetes which degrade your quality of life, increase your medical expenses, & may well kill you early besides. There is also some evidence obesity & lack of exercise tend to cause cancer or make harder to survive cancer.
4. High Blood Pressure. Being fat & most of the things that tend to make you fat also tend to give you high blood pressure. And, high blood pressure damages your heart & sharply increases your risk of all kinds of strokes.
And, although there have been some recent improvements, many of the drugs to control high blood pressure tend to degrade your quality of life. Plus, they cost money people with desirable levels of blood pressure don’t have to spend.
Also, people who have excessive stress or who handle it poorly, tend to get high blood pressure; but high & unrelieved stress damages your health directly as well in many ways.
5. Bad Cholesterol levels.
We now know that avoiding low levels of the protective HDL form is more important than lowering LDL or total cholesterol. But, since high LDL IS harmful, the most useful cholesterol measure is the ratio of HDL to LDL or to total cholesterol.
People who eat transfats, who eat too much fatty meat, butter, & cheese -- all with high saturated fat content, who get too little exercise, or smoke, or who fail to take B vitamins & other supplements that raise HDL or lower LDL, & those who eat too little vegetables, tend to have bad cholesterol ratios.
Mercifully, all these causes are reversible.
6. Diet. The different cuisines around the world that produce good health & longevity differ in many ways; but they all have some things in common. The Mediterranean diet is the best. But many Asian cuisines like Japanese & Chinese are almost as good.
They all feature lots of vegetables & a large variety of vegetables. That seems to be the most important thing they have in common.
They tend to use a lot of onions & garlic. They are relatively low or very low in meat, cheese, & saturated fat.
And, they often feature fish & seafood.
The extra virgin olive oil used in the Mediterranean diet is not only a fat that tends to give you higher HDL readings & lower LDL readings, the antioxidants in it, due to it being less refined, tend to protect your health.
And, these cuisines have a relatively low level of refined carbohydrates & sugar –AND, virtually no high fructose corn syrup or transfats.
People who eat that way tend to NOT be fat & to rarely get cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, & get far fewer cancers.
In the top 10 states, Hawaii, the number one state, & California have, I think, more people who eat this way.
7. Exercise.
Exercise tends to prevent obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, & cancer. And, it directly increases your level of the most protective fraction of HDL.
And, regular exercise also literally helps you to think better & tends to make you much more stress proof & stress resistant.
I suspect that states like Hawaii, California, & Colorado make the top 10 list in part because more people there exercise outdoors for recreation.
And, in Iowa, the Dakotas, & Minnesota, & in the New England states in the top 10, people tend to get extra exercise dealing with the snow in the winter.
Next time, we’ll cover a couple of additional factors that may help account for the longevity in Iowa, the Dakotas, & Minnesota -- & in the New England states in the top ten.
posted by David at 1:09 PM
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