Schoenhofen and colleagues (2006) did a case series in which they sought to report phenotypic characteristics of 32 super-centenarians - people who are 110 years old or older.
These subjects were between 110 and 119 years old and 41% of them required little assistance (care) or were independent.
Looking over the medical history of these participants, it's important to mention the following conditions - number represents no. of subjects having the condition historically:
- Myocardial Infarction - 2 subjects (remember, the total number is 32 subjects)
- Stroke - 4
- Treated Hypertension - 7
- Type 2 Diabetes - 1
- Hypothyroidism - 5
- Osteoporosis - 14
- Cataract - 28
- Parkinson's Disease - 1
- Cancer - 8 (all cured)
So, it appears that osteoporosis and cataract were common conditions in these subjects (44% and 88%), while they had little to no heart disease and only a fifth of them were taking hypertension medication. Diabetes and Parkinson's were almost inexistent.
As per the researchers:
"Data collected thus far suggest that supercentenarians markedly delay and even escape clinical expression of vascular disease toward the end of their exceptionally long lives. " [source]
Since we are on the weekend, I'd suggest reading the entire scientific report of Schoenhofen et al. (2006) because it's a very light, relatively non-technical read:
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Cristi Vlad Self-Experimenter and Author
I wonder what the dietary remedy for cataracts is.
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Good question. I'm not sure if there is one...
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Interesting facts though in my family it went a little different.
Some of my great-great aunts ( yes, I have a big family ) lived to be centenarians. And they all had great eyesight, each and every one of them sewed or drew or read until maybe a week before they passed away. Only one of them never wore glasses :)
They all passed away because of myocardia infarction, or like we want to think it was just old age. :)
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That's interesting - if not entirely surprising - that they would be free from many of the diseases other succumb to. But I wonder whether there are controllablr characteristics they might have shared that got them to their incredible good health. (Though my instinct screams "chance!")
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I'd say there are underlying genetic characteristics that come to their help. In terms of lifestyle, they are all over the place, some even smoke until the end of their lives, so yes, 'chance' is a good descriptor for an aspect of it.
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looks like the eyesight is the one most affected by aging, to live to a hundred years is a big feature
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Apparently so. But we have treatments for that. And osteoporosis is a condition that can be improved with diet, lifestyle, and medication.
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We can rarely see 100+ aged people in our surrounding
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