Never follow health tips from world’s oldest people, scientists say
The death of the world’s oldest person, Maria Branyas Morera, at the age of 117, will have many wondering about the secrets of an exceptionally long life. However, scientists say it is better not to take advice on longevity from centenarians themselves.
According to the Guinness World Records website, Branyas believed her longevity came from “order, tranquility, good relationships with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people.”
However, Richard Faragher, professor of biogerontology at the University of Brighton, said that in reality scientists are still trying to understand why some people live to be over 100.
Faragher said there are two main theories, which are not mutually exclusive.
The first, he said, was that some individuals were simply lucky. In other words, just because centenarians had certain habits did not mean those habits determined their lifespans—a flaw in logic known as “survivorship bias.”
“Just because you survived smoking 60 cigarettes a day doesn’t mean smoking 60 cigarettes a day is good for you,” Faragher said.
The second theory, he said, was that centenarians had specific genetic traits that enabled them to live longer – in other words, they were more robust as a result of their genetics.
Faragher said both theories, however, led to the same warning: “Never, ever take health and lifestyle tips from a centenarian.”
He added: “What you see with most centenarians, and these are generalizations, is that they don’t exercise very much. Often their diet is quite unhealthy,” noting that some centenarians were also smokers.
“This flies in the face of the wealth of epidemiological evidence we have about how to extend healthy life expectancy,” he said, adding that a large study has shown that not smoking, exercising, drinking in moderation and eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day can extend life expectancy by up to 14 years.
“The fact that (centenarians) do a lot of these unhealthy things and still just stroll through (life) indicates that they are either lucky or generally (genetically) very well endowed,” he said.
Branyas acknowledged that luck had played a role in her long life, while her daughter Rosa Moret once attributed it to genetics. “She has never been to the hospital, she has never broken any bones, she is fine, she has no pain,” Moret told regional Catalan television in 2023.
Faragher added that many of the possibilities raised for why centenarians live longer could actually be examples of reverse causality. For example, the idea that a positive mindset can help you live a very long time could be rooted, at least in part, in the fact that people are more optimistic because they are in better health.
“When was the last time you had a really positive frame of mind and still had a toothache?” he asked.
Faragher added that one problem was that when looking at centenarians, there was a tendency to focus on things that might have helped their survival. “But we don’t consider the dis-enablers,” he said.
Prof David Gems, a geneticist at University College London, said that while gender was an important factor in lifespan – women age more slowly than men – he agreed that luck was important. He noted that one example was the natural variation in the rate of ageing.
“I work with nematode worms that only live for a few weeks,” he said. “The worms are genetically identical to each other and they are kept under identical conditions, but the first worms die of old age after about 10 days and the last worms after about 30 days.”
While a little luck at the individual level may explain why some people live past 100, experts say there are known factors that can improve life expectancy at the population level, including improvements in health care and hygiene.
“Starting about 100 years ago, we saw huge gains in life expectancy, driven by improvements in reducing the chance of children dying,” said David Sinclair, director of the International Longevity Centre, who noted that this was largely due to the introduction of vaccinations and clean water.
“What we’ve seen over the last 20 years, and what we’ll see over the next 20 years, is a similar focus on aging,” Sinclair said, adding that this has included improvements in vaccines against flu and shingles, statins and other medications that could help increase life expectancy in older adults.
But he said governments also needed to take action to help people make healthier choices – choices that would ultimately help them live longer – adding that many people lived in environments where it was difficult to exercise, eat healthily or avoid pollution.
Even if someone has an income of more than 100%, life does not necessarily consist of nothing but balloons and popping birthday cakes.
As Sinclair noted, news stories about centenarians were generally positive, but it often turned out that these people faced challenges, such as living alone for years.
“Reality is not always as positive as it seems,” he said.