Although lifestyle choices are crucial for good health, heredity may be more important for older adults

By Molly Young

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including exercise and diet, can be crucial to your quality of life. However, a woman who lived beyond 90 suggested that her food and habit choices didn’t negatively impact her all that much. Science says after the first seven or eight decades of your life, healthy lifestyle choices aren’t the only thing that can make you live longer.

A grandmother, Cheryl Downes, lived to 97 years old and claimed that she loved drinking beer and eating sugary snacks like ice cream and cookies until the very end. So why didn’t this impact her badly?

Although lifestyle factors are crucial in the first seven or eight decades of your life, scientists believe genetics tend to take on a larger role in later years.

Another woman, known as the oldest woman in Europe, claimed that the secret to living to 115 years old was ‘avoiding’ arguments.

While these are both interesting points, it seems that, in the end, living a long life comes down to genetics, as opposed to diet and lifestyle.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta spoke to CNN on how researchers estimate that genetics have around a 20% influence on our longevity. So, even if you don’t naturally have amazing genetic makeup, you can still do things in your control to help lead a longer and healthier life.

By implementing healthy habits like fitness, especially weight resistance exercise, avoiding smoking, getting enough sleep, and eating the correct diet, you can significantly mitigate your genetic risk for early death.

Although, lifestyle factors are especially crucial in the first seven/eight decades of your life. After that, scientists believe that genetics tend to take on a larger role.

This scientific fact may explain what was supporting Cheryl’s long life, despite the ice cream and cookie consumption.
Study shows genetics impact on lifespan

Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory conducted a pivotal study into aging and lifespan to uncover new details about how diets might make people live longer – but also their negative side effects.

Within the findings, researchers found that genetic factors had a far greater impact on lifespan than diets. This highlights how underlying genetic features, yet to be identified, play a major role in how these diets would affect an individual person’s health trajectory.

Moreover, they pinpointed genetically encoded resilience as a critical factor in lifespan.

Gary Churchill, who was part of leading the study, stated: “If you want to live a long time, there are things you can control within your lifetime such as diet, but really what you want is a very old grandmother.”
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Credit: The Focus