Does anyone know the secret to a long and healthy life?

THERE IS NO SECRET! Each day is a gift and you make it the best you can for yourself.

My Mom walked 2 miles daily, worked crossword puzzles, never wanted meat (until dementia)....lived on salads and baked veggies & baked potatoes without butter and sour cream. She watched her weight daily & watched my Dads. She was very healthy until her 80's & was diagnosed with b12 deficiency and it had affected the nerves in her legs.....she was diagnosed with dementia right after that......so much with living healthy. She passed at 90.
My Dad smoked unfiltered camel cigarettes for YEARS...his lungs were terrible. He worked his butt off all his life as a carpenter and a farmer. He lived to be 93.

His sister was 97 when she passed away last year....she lived by herself, drove herself to the grocery store, pharmacy and every Friday, she drove to get her hair done come heck or high water. (She secretly chewed tobacco) She moved her yard weekly, ate what ever the heck she wanted.....the day she died, she mowed her yard in the heat (July)...came in to rest & then was going back out to work some more and dropped with a stroke. She only took medication for hypertension.
Their other sister is 89.....she lives above me in the same house she was born and raised. She takes NO medication. Still works in the yard and loves to walk....eats what she wants.

So.......I think it boils down to when ever you time is up.....you are gone. I do feel genes play a big part.

My parents were married 70 years and they would tell you (if they were alive) that love kept them going. My Dad would be strong when my Mom was down & Mom would be strong when he was down...........then came that damnnastyword called dementia and everything changed. Mom couldn't be strong for him anymore and I watched him slowly give up.

I tell you all this much, I am going to do what I want to do, eat what I want to eat...go where I want to go, drink what I want to drink and enjoy my life.....when it is all said and done, dementia will probably take over and by then who gives a crabapple......you lived healthy and dementia took over your life anyway?? I want to go on to my Maker before that happens....I NEVER want my kids to go thru what I just experience with my Mom's journey..........NOPE, not gonna go there.

My grandmother was over 90 when she died, not healthy exactly but still involved in the community and able to live on her own until she tripped and broke her hip. Her sister lived to be over 100, but she had dementia the last 10 years or so and lived in a long term care home. Now my mom is 96, and she was also doing pretty well on her own until she was 90, but now is physically frail and has dementia. Odds are that I will have a very long life, escaping physical and mental infirmity would be a nice trick!
The UCIrvine 90 plus study has posted some interesting conclusions so far, I like the ones that say it is better to be overweight in your 70's and drink moderate amounts of alcohol and coffee, I think that is something I could manage! ;)

I agree genes are the #1 asset. After that don't fret about the length of life but the quality of it.
Celebrate every moment of life now, rather than planning on extending it. Don't put off doing things that are important to you until a better time. If they are in your head make this the time.
My late partner & I were together 20 years, he then proposed in December with a beautiful ring he designed and commissioned. Absolutely not his usual thing to do :~) Because he was 19 years older than me we decided to wait to marry until I turned 50 which would be 2 months later in Feb. So we set the date for Feb a year on just before my 51st birthday. We had such fun planning our wedding and a month long honeymoon traveling in Ireland.
He died unexpectedly in April exactly 4 months after we got engaged. That was 7 years ago and yes, I do regret that we waited. I was his wife in every way except for a piece of paper that sadly the absence of has caused my life to be very different to our plans.
So now I don't worry about a long life, just about doing what's important now.

I have two living aunts...one will be 102 in March..when someone asks her the secret of living so long she replies.."I don't drink and I don't smoke. I don't run around with older men and watch out for the younger, for they can't catch me.".
She makes all her beautiful quilts by hand; she calls out answers on those quiz shows; she memorizes her airport confirmation numbers, as well as any motel confirmations numbers; she can tell you the names and birthdays of all her children, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren; she has vivid memories of her past living experiences, jobs, homes, including names of bosses and and detailed information of job expectations. She worked for the same company most of her adult life. She can tell you exactly what medicines she is taking and the names of all the doctors she goes to. She walks to the hairdresser every Saturday morning. (a block)..she uses a walker mostly only outside. she lives in her own home and has for about 50 years and doesn not have 24 hour care.. but has a little home health care.

My other aunt, her sister, is 99. She has been in a nursing home for four years due to arthritis and a fall, so she can;t walk. But she was a geneologist and can tell you a lot of history, names, background, dates, etc. However, just recently, she has shown signs of mild memory loss. She would like to live on her own, but physically can't. The nursing home is clean and the staff are very kind and caring. She just wants privacy, as she has never been married and independent. marymember

It's What you put into it, cook, really cook heathy food,

. Contact with people, eating healthy, keeping up with your MD appointments, and a positive attitude will help a great deal.

Such a secret does not exist except in the idealistic seekers after an ever elusive fountain of youth which never did and does not exist.

I say this because by my junior year of college, I had reached a level of health via exercise and healthy nutrition that my dad described as semi Olympic. However, I wasn't training for anything. It was my way of dealing with stress in my life and I liked being in such good shape.

That same year I almost died from an almost fatal bicycle accident cause by a freshman not looking before he crossed the street where I was going down the hill and he stepped out from between two parked cars. My neurologist said that my pre accident health did help me, but he considered my living and living without any but the slightest degree of brain damage was a miracle. . It is a mystery to me why the very sick baby who the same group of folks who were praying for me were also praying for the baby, yet the baby died and I lived.

There are just too many variables of things that can go wrong in this fallen world.

Sometimes, we create our own bad experiences by our bad choices and poor judgement that leads us to make mistakes. Those actions are often not without some impact on others either directly or indirectly.

Likewise, somethings that happen to us are caused by the bad choices and poor judgement of others.

There are things that I consider about as pure an accident as one could be. My example is the death of my second cousin. She was doing her job of delivering the mail and suddenly dropped dead at the door when I random bullet hit her in the head and killed her instantly. Where did the bullet come from? A policeman's gun. Why was the gun fired? Because he was shooting at a criminal feeling the site of a crime. I'm sure the policeman felt bad and likely guilty, but it was not his fault. I don't believe that God caused this because God needed another angel in heaven. For one thing, people don't become angels.

Another cause of suffering and evil in the world which we in the west tend to deny comes directly from the evil one himself, Satan, who has always come to steal, kill and destroy.

So, long life is only a probability in light of things we don't have control of like heredity and other events in our lives caused by any of the four listed above, plus things we do have control of like the care we give to our bodies and minds over the years.

Also, a lot can be said for preparing for old age by the way we live now so that we have a sense of a life well lived instead of a sense of total despair. Overall, it matters more how we chose to respond to what takes place in our life than the events themselves. I often tell my young sons to seek to live well with the choices they make as they decide things and as they respond to what life throws at them. I believe that more important than just how long we live is how we are living when we reach old age.

So, I think it is better to aim at living well so that one reaches old age with a sense of contentment with one's life overall instead of seeking to just see how long one can possibly live.

Well, that's probably enough deep thought for several weeks! :)

A friend of my mother's is 95, lives alone, continues to work (she's a painter of some distinction) and is not even deaf. There's hope for us all.

Genes play a part but I believe what we eat plays a large part. Foods we buy today are sprayed with chemicals, processed and more chemicals added so a lot of what we eat is not real food but "food like". My mother is in a NH, close to 90, and has been a vegetarian for over 50 years - fruit, veggies and processed meals in a box just to heat in the microwave. She has parkinsons though there's no family history of it ... could it have been caused by ingesting all the sprays and toxic chemicals that have been sprayed on crops for years?

Until I moved into the country I had no idea just how much the crops were sprayed. Last summer the fields across the road were carrots. The farmer said "help yourself". Um, no thanks. They were always spraying them. The tanker said "water" but we had a wet summer such that I spent hours 2 or 3 times a week mowing with the tractor.

I've always been interested in homesteading and returning to a simpler lifestyle and, now in my 60s, I'm following that path on 2 acres in the middle of nowhere. Gardening some this year - beets, green beans, spinach, carrots and tomatoes. Blackberries I planted 2 years ago are fruiting now, asparagus that came with the house was steamed and frozen in the spring. Having a chicken coop and run built this fall and I'll start keeping chickens come spring ... my dogs like chicken too :) In the meantime I buy free range eggs on the next road.

Far too hot to can so I'm simmering tomatoes down to freeze for now. Bumper tomato crop - picking every day - and I've given a lot away, along with some beets. Carrots will be harvested and canned when it's cooler and I have a fall crop of beets coming in. Big pot of tomatoes simmering down and chicken bones, meat and veggie scraps in the crockpot on low for the past 24 hours to make stock. This tiny house smells wonderful.

Not the lifestyle for everyone and it's hard work but it has always been my dream. After a life time of the rat race, Bay Street and all that artificial stuff, sitting on the back deck with my critters drinking in the peace and quiet, just the sounds of nature and not another house for a mile in any direction, my soul is finally at peace..