The number of people aged 100 or over residing in the United States has doubled since 1990, and is 16 times the number of centenarians in 1950.
Many centenarians are remarkably robust. The New England Centenarian Study (NECS), initially a collaboration between Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, now moved to Boston University Medical Center, has found that:
One quarter of the 169 study subjects—all of whom were at least 100—were completely free of any significant cognitive disorders and even surpassed the research interviewers on some mental tests.
Fifteen percent still lived independently in their own homes.
Some still held jobs.
Medical expenses for centenarians are significantly lower than for those in their sixties and seventies.
Most are uncommonly healthy until the very end of their lives.
Conventional wisdom says people inevitably decline into worsening health and senility when they reach their eighties, nineties, and beyond. In reality, centenarians, 80% of whom are women, are actually more healthy as a group than people 20 years their junior. They have somehow managed to weather the stresses of life and avoid major threats like heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's disease.
http://www.thirdage.com/ebsco/files/13400.html
If you turn 100 this year, you were 10 years old when the US entered WWI, 22 years old when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression started, in your 30's before much of Lamar County got electricity, 38 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked, in your 50's when your house was finally air conditioned, and endured the stress and turmoil of the social upheaval of the 60's and 70's and cold war as you approached and entered retirement.
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7 comments:
Imagine how much the dollar bill changed in 100 years, as a youth you could by candy for the whole town with just one, now you can have one in your pocket and say "I'm broke", and I will agree with you.
Rev.MJB
I would love to read an essay written by one of these good people. id like to hear what they would have to say about the state of our government, schools, society in general and discipline as compared to 80 or so years ago.
POWP
38
Of course, all this longevity is one of the primary reasons the Social Security system is approaching bankruptcy. Our wonderful politicians never expected people to last much past 70, let alone reaching 100.
My hat is off to anyone who can outlive government expectations. Death & Taxes may be inevitable, but it is nice to be able to cheat.
AMEN TO THAT 4:57!!!
And POWP you know they would say they would drag these crooked bastards out in the street and hang em', they keep pushin' and it might happen anyway.
Rev.MJB- the power is in the people!
Good ole southern cooking will not help your chances of reaching 100 years old.
NO good old southern cooking may not help you to attain the ripe old age of 100 but it sure does a lot towards helping. The same cannot be said for the steroid injections done to meat that is causing the children of today to be obese and overdeveloped for their age. Think about it! Children spend most of their time sitting in front of the television and eating out at fast food places.
I'm so wrinkled and saggy at 60, I hate to think what I would look like at 100. But if I had my mind and a quick wit then look out, because who's going to tell me what to do. I would be too old to be bothered by today's petty annoyances.
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