Planning to live a much longer life

“Live much longer?” You ask.

Yes, if you are basically healthy now there are real actions you can take to live longer—even if you are 65, 75, or 85. You may have seen these recommendations from scientists and other experts, but, I ask, are you actually doing anything about them? And even if you are now living with a chronic health condition there is good news for you. (More about this later.)

What is your life expectancy?

But first, let’s start this with average life expectancies for people in good health at various ages, according to government and private actuaries:

• If you are a man age 65, you are expected to live for 18 or 19 more years. For a 65 year old woman, add 20 years.
• If you are a man age 75, you are expected to live for another 10 to 12 more years. For a 75 year old woman, it is 12 to 13 years more.
• If you are a man age 85, you are expected to live another 6 years. For women age 85, add 7 more years.
• The official data does not get down to only a 1 year of added life expectancy until one is 113 years old!

Now, on to the ways to increase a lifespan. I’m starting with #1 today, more coming in the next few days. (And I’m pretty sure you never saw #6 before.)

Good genes give you a head start on long life

1. Be born with good genes.
   Yes, our genes appear to count for about 25% of lifelong good health according to researchers. You don’t have control over this, so the longer you live give thanks to Mom and Dad. And, if 25% is due to genes, that means 75% or more of living long is due to your choices and lifelong behavior — which is where items 2 through 5 on this list come in.

What to do about chronic or inherited health problems

If you have a family history of some illness or health problem, please don’t ignore it or think it is hopeless and that you are doomed. Tell your primary care doctor about it. Get annual check-ups AND keep an eye out for the big medical breakthroughs that are coming—thanks, Medical A.I. If you hear of a breakthrough for a health issue that runs in your family, read more about it, then ask your doctor about it at your next annual health check-up.

How to keep up to date with miracle medical breakthroughs

An excellent way to keep track of innovations in treatment of diseases is to sign up for a Google Alert for the topic/health condition that concerns you and you will be notified of all news items around the world about it as they are reported. And “around the world” is very important because of surges in medical developments in China, Japan and Europe. One example is the popular diabetes-weight-loss drug, Ozempic, developed and made by a company in Denmark. Aricept, a dementia treatment, was developed in Japan. So take a minute now and sign up for the Alert.

Okay. In the next post we move onto Items 2, 3, and 4 of How to Live a Longer Life where you have more control and, I have to confess, one of them is a failing for me.

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