http://news.yahoo.com/100-olds-just-unhealthy-rest-us-111004075.html
Link

After all this time, turns out you don't have to be some alfalfa-eating joyless asshole to live to 100 or older. You don't even have to exercise.

So have fun being miserable with your high-fiber-no-red-meat diets, if that's what you want to do. Because genetics really doesn't give a shit.

TV dinners are the key. Oh, and twinkies. I work for a 96 year old woman, and that is the majority of her diet..has been for nearly three decades now.

I really find it rather entertaining that that one 107 year old woman had been smoking for 90+ years.

It kind of makes me wonder how many cigarettes a day she smoked..or if she had to wear an oxygen mask between smoke breaks..

I'm willing to bet she didn't even have any issues. Some people just don't feel ill effects from smoking. Not to long ago, there was a man in New York (died since) that was 117, and he said he quit smoking on his 100th birthday, not because of ill health effects, but because they were getting too expensive. He had started when he was 14 or so. Yeah, I'm not saying smoking doesn't have any ill effects, but it just goes to show, it's genetics more than anything else, it seems. Oh yeah, he spent most of his life working in a steel mill around a furnace, too. I'm sure those coal fires he stood next to weren't too great for his lungs either. He was in perfectly fine health, if not just a little slow to get around. (If I'm 117, I'm damned well going to take my time moving around as well... you youngin's can wait.)

My great grandfather lived to be 102. He smoked from age 14 until he died and probably NEVER went a day without eating at least ONE meal that was cooked in bacon grease.

@ Music God..lol at least the bacon grease was probably relatively fresh. My ggma stopped canning her own foods back in the 60s but she had so much of it stock-piled in her basement that she lived off of it until she died in 2002. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see how any of it would have been good after 40 years. I suppose it was though, since she didn't die from severe food poisoning..

The way I see it, if I'm going to die I want to die happy and lived my life the way I wanted. I do try to care to extent what I eat but I indulge at least once,twice... a week in some bad food. lol

True, but I still feel people should eat healthier. Americans already eat way too much shit as it is, now it's like an open invitation to OCB. :p

My grandfather lived to be 90 something eating a healthy diet of black coffee, cherry koolaid, pizza and nutty bars. :)

Ahhhhh, this just made my night lol ;D

Err...no shocker here, but I really don't want to try and extend my time any longer than necessary. I want my letter from the Queen (100) and then I'd happily kick the bucket. Even 100 is pushing it in my eyes.

If I could be 100 and still have the vitality of a 30 year old - then I'd consider it. But I don't know that many 100 year olds (actually I don't know any) that are doing anything other than sitting on the couch knitting (if arthritis hasn't kicked in) or watching TV (if their hearing and eyesight hasn't failed them)

All I'm saying is - old, old, OLD people aren't exactly running around enjoying life, maybe they are, but for arguments sake most of them are in retirement villages; living off mushed food and so on.

I don't want to be old. I don't want to have other people taking care of me like that. I don't want to be sitting around thinking about the days of yester-year. I don't want to be pining over great-grand-children who never come see me because they can't draw themselves away from the computer for 10 seconds OR sitting around complaining about how young people are disrespectful and rude.

Old people have it rough!

But like I said, if I could be 100 and have the vitality of a 30 year old. I'd be quite happy.

I have no desire whatsoever to live to be 100. I have no desire to live to be 90... in fact, any time after 70 and I'm good to go.
I work in a bingo hall, where old age is rife, and death is the number one topic of conversation. It makes me sad when I see some frail, feeble old person who's only joy in life is to gamble away their pension. The vast majority of them are so miserable with their old-ness that they do nothing but whinge and complain about everything. It seems to me that its rather exhausting being old.
And then there's my gran, who I have to help bathe, and I think I don't ever want to get to the stage where I need someone to wipe my arse and wash my privates.
Nope.. I'd rather not. I'll stick to my excessive intake of coffee and occasional take-away/binge drink thank you.
I may even worry less about packing int he cigs.
And if I'm still alive at 70, at least there's the hope that euthansia will eventually be legal in my country....

I think I have to agree with you. Working at a hospital has made me see the tiredness in the families eyes and the frustrations of seeing their family back again. So many times a day I hear "We were just here last week!" or "I was here for 2 weeks and now I'm back again". It's very frustrating to watch and sad that I actually hear people murmur of waiting on family members to just "die already" because they are such a burden on their families. I never want to be a burden on my family and I swear I'll care for mine if they can no longer for themselves. But it's depressing to watch.

I eat whatever I want, I just watch the size of the portions. And I don't sit on my ass all day. That's pretty much all ya got to do.

Don't even have to do that, according to the report. It's just a crapshoot of genetics, it seems.

Yeah, they had a BBC documentary a couple of years ago on this sort of thing. They found a community of Jews who lived into their nineties and hundreds, and it was because they had some longevity gene or something. They merrily smoked and drank and ate fatty foods. Also, the thing about antioxidants has been found to be a load of crap - antioxidants don't make you live longer at all.

On the other hand, research done on mice found that this longevity thing could be mimicked if the mice were fed only a third of their normal nutritional intake. These mice's lifespan increased significantly, so there are some people in the States who are experimenting to see if this might apply to humans - an American couple are eating barely anything and have a strict exercise regime. And apparently their bodies are now like younger bodies. Dunno about their quality of life though! Still, they got to be featured on a documentary, and apparently being on TV is a dream many people have, so maybe they have achieved a life dream! ;D

Love me some Jews ♥