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Who knew? Enduring "mild" stress is healthy. But what's "mild"?  Newswise.com reports that research identifies a cellular recycling process that links to beneficial aspects of mild stress. Biologists have known for decades that enduring a short period of mild stress makes simple organisms and human cells better able to survive additional stress later in life. Now, scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have found that a cellular process called autophagy is critically involved in providing the benefits of temporary stress.  Autophagy is a means of recycling cells’ old, broken, or unneeded parts so that their components can be re-used to make new molecules or be burned for energy. The process had previously been linked to longevity. The new results suggest that long life and stress resistance are connected at the cellular level. “We used C. elegans—tiny roundworms used to study fundamental biology—to test the i...

I've always shied away from those Internet quizzes that make you answer questions to determine how old you are, not chronologically but healthwise.  Some of my half-century friends get in the 30s but I still stay away. Now how would you like to know when you'll die?  I can't imagine anything more gruesome! I've always lived my life based on serendipity -- you know, the things you never expect to happen but do, like meeting my husband after talking to a woman on a boat in the Bahamas who happened to live near me and going out on singles' weekends with her, then up to the Catskills to meet a husband for her, only I met mine. Those kinds of things. But a new study purports that a computer can tell you how old you will be when you die. I'd kind of like it to be a surprise. Maybe because I've fought cancer twice, death doesn't scare me so much (okay, maybe it's that I've been cancer-free for almost 10 years that does it).  But statisticia...

Now this is going to make a lot of people really unhappy (unless you're over 50). But a new study has found that the benefits of red wine as they pertain to a longer life have been severely overstated, according to yahoo.com/health. Researchers analyzed data on the drinking habits of over 52,000 adults who were interviewed about their average weekly alcohol consumption, as well as how much they drank in one day. They found “little to no” health benefits of drinking alcohol, regardless of how much or little someone drank.  Any protective benefits of alcohol seemed limited to men between ages 50 and 64, and women age 65 and over. But don't despair!  Former drinkers — some of whom were once heavy drinkers — were lumped in with people who had never been drinkers and labeled as “non-drinkers,” which could affect the results.  “There’s still much more work to be done on isolating the true effect of alcohol consumption on health,” study researcher Craig Kno...

I don't know whether to be delighted -- scared-- but supposedly your friends know how long you'll  live.  That's according to a new study by Washington University in St. Louis.  Apparently, close friends  may have a better sense of whether you'll live a long life, suggests new research on personality and longevity. “You expect your friends to be inclined to see you in a positive manner, but they also are keen observers of the personality traits that could send you to an early grave,” says Joshua Jackson, PhD, assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, at newswise.com. The study demonstrates that your personality at an early age (20s) can predict how long you will live across 75 years and that close friends are usually better than you at recognizing these traits. Male participants seen by their friends as more open and conscientious ended up living longer. Female participants whose friends rated them as high on emotional stability and ...

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Yes, Kelly Clarkson. Or is it everything that kills me makes me feel alive? Rap Genius. But what if what didn't kill you actually kept you alive?  And living longer? The reality is that it's not the antioxidants that allow us to age more slowly but the toxins.  That's right, toxins. According to newswise.com, "M any people believe that free radicals, the sometimes-toxic molecules produced by our bodies as we process oxygen, are the culprit behind aging. Yet a number of studies in recent years have produced evidence that the opposite may be true." Now a research team has found that  free radicals – also known as oxidants – act on a molecular mechanism that, in other circumstances, tells a cell to kill itself. McGill researchers found that this same mechanism -- which causes cells to die so they don't become cancerous or to kill off viruses that have invaded he cell -- when stimulated in the right way...

According to a new study , researchers have identified the mechanism "by which a specific protein operates in the brain to bring about a significant delay in aging and an increase in longevity." But if you don't have the protein?  Both have also been associated with a low-calorie diet, newswise.com reports today. And we're not just learning this now.  The Web site notes that it was Japanese philosopher and scientist Ekiken Kaibara who first described the concept of dietary control as a method to achieve good health and longevity all the way back in 1713. He died the following year at age 84—a long life for someone in the 18th century. Since then, science has proven a link between a low-calorie diet and longevity in a variety of animal models, newswise.com explains. In the new study, researchers showed how this protein "prompts neural activity in specific areas of the hypothalamus of the brain, which triggers dramatic physical changes in skeletal muscle and ...

Yet one more thing we should eat if we want to live to 100 (or thereabouts).  According to medicaldaily.com, "For those who are at risk of developing an inflammatory disease, eating 45 Bing cherries a day can lower the risk of developing chronic inflammatory diseases," suggests a recent study . Now, you may think, but I don't have a chronic inflammatory disease.  If you have rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes, you've had one. More than 50 million Americans suffer from these diseases. But here's an even better reason to pop some cherries into your mouth.   Cancer is now thought to begin as inflammation in the body. If eating Bing cherries can stop or slow it, why not eat them?  And besides, they taste great, too. The results of the study showed that consuming 45 Bing cherries a day for 63 days can "lower the levels of nine biomarkers for chronic inflammatory diseases, s...

Believe it or not, it's Manhattan.  According to The New York Times' Sam Roberts, "Since 1985, the life expectancy for Manhattan residents has increased more than that of any other county in the country, according to a new analysis, which attributed the increase to gentrification and to a healthier lifestyle." Surprisingly, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens also were among the 12 counties where longevity increased the most (my husband is a dentist in Queens -- does that count?), Roberts reports. We just learned yesterday that living two exits apart off a California highway can cost you nine years of your life. "In Manhattan, the average lifespan rose nearly 13 years for men and more than 8 years for women over the 25 years through 2010," Roberts relates in his story.     “Our researchers think it’s more than economics,”  Roberts quotes William Heisel, communications director at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluatio...

Did you know where you live may predict how long you live? According to Jathan Sadowski at slate.com, referencing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study, “Just a few metro stops can mean the difference between an extra five to ten years added to your lifespan.  “Where we live, learn, work and play can have a greater impact on our health than we realize.” We all know that the richer you are, the more likely it is you will live longer, and conversely, the poorer you are, sadly, also predicts longevity.  Sadowski gives as an example two parts of New Orleans, the French Quarter, where more poor people live, and the "much more gentrified Lower Garden District a few miles away." The average lifespan of someone who lives in the French Quarter?  You won't believe this.  It's 55 years. Our national average lifespan just rose to 78.2 years!  But if you live near highway 610, or the Fairgrounds, you'll live till your 80s. Even more shocking, the study shows...

So you cut back on smoking, went from a pack a day to just two or three, a dozen years ago.  Here's the really bad news.  It won't help you live longer. According to a story by Linda Searling, a new report has found that, while cutting down on the number of cigarettes you smoke is better than staying at the same level, or increasing it, in the end it's not going to add to your longevity. Over 5,200 smokers -- ages 40 to 65, at the start -- participated in the study.  Over the next 30 years, of the people who continued to smoke, a shocking 84 percent died, Searling reports. If they quit smoking altogether, however, those in the study were more likely to live to at least age 75. Searling adds in the story that they also "were 25 to 35 percent less likely than the others to have died." But, and here's the truly scary part, "There was essentially no difference in the mortality rate for people who had reduced the number of cigarettes ...

We may be living longer.  But we're not living healthier. That's the result of a recent study of the U.S. population that's the largest in 15 years, according to the WSJ's Ron Winslow. Compared to other developed nations, "death rates from illnesses associated with obesity, such as diabetes and kidney disease, as well as neurological conditions like Alzheimer's disease, are on the rise" here, Winslow reports. Winslow, who interviewed the researcher who led the study, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle., quoted him as saying, "Despite gains in longevity, Americans are living the extra years 'not necessarily in good health.'" Why?  We're getting larger.  The rates of many illnesses, like heart disease and cancer, are more and more being linked to obesity, while those of diabetes and kidney failure, which are known outcomes of obesity, are so...

A new study has just found that, on average, smoking clips 10 years off your life, according to a story today in The New York Times.  My mother smoked when I was a child and I remember seeing a film when I was in 5th grade showing a smoker's lungs, all black and scarred from smoking. I raced home to ask her to please, please stop smoking, and she assured me she was "checked" every year and was fine.  She continued to smoke for over 20 more years -- even going so far as to pretend she had quit, then begging to take the garbage out at a party I threw at my apartment, only to come back the dumpster smelling of smoke. My mom died a little more than a year ago of congestive heart failue at 84 so I guess she was one of the lucky ones.  Maybe because of her, I never ever picked up a cigarette.  The study also goes on to say that if you can quit by 40, you have almost a full life expectancy.  I have friends who smoked to lose weight, or keep it off, and others ...

Than other nations, that is.  Believe it or not, American men come in dead last at #17 on a list of countries whose men live longest, according to the usnews.com Web site.  Call it stress, call it unfortunate accidents, but whatever you call it, our men, with all their advantages, are dying sooner. http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2013/01/15/why-arent-americans-healthier

Years ago I had a tall, skinny boss who refused to sit at a desk. Instead, he had a desk he could stand at and he conducted all his work -- including meetings -- standing up.  Now I know why.  Apparently too much sitting (for more than four hours at a time, watching TV, working at a computer or just about for any reason) will shave a year off your life.  No joke. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/work-standing-up-lose-weight/9853?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660

Want to still be having hot sex in your 90s?  People on a Greek island live longer than we do and have relations far more often than the average senior.  A connection?  Maybe. It's the wine, and the radiation -- radiation -- from the hot springs, they say.  As a cancer survivor, can't say much positive about radiation, though! http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/the-secret-to-longevity-wine-and-radioactivity/9560?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660