Interesting Facts

According to a study carried out by Imperial College London and the World Health Organization, South Korean women will be the first in the world to have an average life expectancy above 90. (The study predicts we will all be living longer by 2030 and the gap between men and women will have started to close in most countries. South Korea wins the race because South Koreans are better at dealing with hypertension, the country has some of the lowest obesity rates in the world, and in general it offers better equality, education, and nutrition, which has benefited most people.)

According to evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar, gossiping about others could help us to live longer. (He told the Cheltenham Science Festival that the most important thing that will prevent you dying is the size of your social network, adding "Language evolved to allow us to keep the oil of the social network flowing, keep us up to date, and tell stories which is really important for community cohesion." And he's not alone: Dr Matthew Feinberg, a researcher at Stanford University also said: “Groups that allow their members to gossip sustain co-operation and deter selfishness better than those that don't." Other studies have implied that gossiping about others is what sets us apart from the animals, and according to scientists at the University of Michigan it's especially good for women, a woman is happier and healthier if she enjoys a regular chat with her female friends because it boosts levels of progesterone, a hormone shown to reduc...

The island of Ikaria is almost as far east as Greece gets,  just 100 square miles in size, the mountainous island is 30 miles off the coast of Turkey, but that's not what makes it interesting. What is interesting is the people there live longer and better than almost anywhere else on the planet. (According to longevity expert, Dan Buettner, Ikaria has that certain je ne sais quoi, and he has added Ikaria to the list of places in the world that have come closest to cracking the secret of eternal life.  A study showed that people on Ikaria were reaching the age of 90 with two and a half times the frequency of Americans. Ikarian men, in particular, are four times as likely to reach 90, often in better health. Other places on the list are: the island of Okinawa in Japan, the town of Loma Linda in California, certain parts of Costa Rica and the hills around the province of Nuoro in Sardinia. So, now you know. Oh and there's a web site (of course) of all these blue zone...

According to a publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, US scientists have found that children with older fathers and grandfathers appear to be "genetically programmed" to live longer. (The genetic make-up of sperm changes as a man ages and develops DNA code that favours a longer life - a trait he then passes to his children.  So, delaying fatherhood may be a good idea, unfortunately lots of young men seem hell-bent on reproducing as quickly as possible.) Source

In England and Wales, 42% of men die before their 75th birthday compared to 26% of women. (Almost 100,000 men die prematurely each year compared to about 66,000 women. According to the Office for National Statistics, the life a newborn baby boy should expect to live 77.7 years and a newborn baby girl 81.9 years.)

Scientists at the University of Milan think they may have found the elixir of life.  By feeding mice a cocktail of amino acids (aminoisohezoic acid, isoleucine and valine) they prolonged their lives "significantly".  (Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. And the mice fed this cocktail didn't just live longer, theyalso benefited from an increase in the energy intake of their cells and an overall decrease in oxidation damage caused by free radicals. Their stamina also increased and coordination of their muscles improved.  So, maybe Douglas Adams was right; Earth, is actually a complex experiment that white mice have set up to learn the meaning of life, the universe and everything.)

A genetically engineered organism that lives 10 times longer than normal has been created by scientists in California. (They deleted two genes and put the organism on a calorie-restricted diet. If scientists could apply this DNA tweak to humans it would mean we'd live to over 800 years old. Of course it's probably a long way off, the organism in question was a fungus, and apart from a couple of men I know, this wouldn't be easy to transfer to humans.)

A Liverpool John Moores University study of 1,050 US and European artists has found that rock stars are twice as likely to die prematurely as the rest of us. (It seems that 100 stars died between 1956 and 2005 with US stars dying at 42 on average and those from Europe at 35. I'm glad I can't sing for toffee.)

Dutchwoman Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, who died this week at 115 after becoming the oldest living person in the world, attributed her longevity to a diet of pickled herrings. (Was it worth it?)