Death is Obsolete

According to this “Life Expectancy Calculator” I’m going to live to be 102

by Cheryl Poirier

Dr. Thomas Perls has developed a Life Expectancy Calculator and based on your current lifestyle,  it will give you an idea of how long you are going to live.

We all know that things like stress, physical activity and genetics play a role. I was surprised, however, to be asked questions about friendships, flossing and sunscreen.

Answering the questions from the calculator made me think more carefully about what I eat, my exercise routine (could use a little tweaking) and the things that I stress about. Are there really people who stress daily about how they COULD die?

One of the great things about this particular tool is that, at the end, it gives you tips to live longer. Little things you can change here and there that will increase your life expectancy.

In order to live longer I need to strengthen my brain, move to a place where the air quality is better, wear sunscreen and eat less sweets.

Okay, I’m convinced, I’ll move to Hawaii.

Men are disposable, that’s why women live longer

by Cheryl Poirier

Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that but Thomas Kirkwood, director of the Institute for Aging and Health, Newcastle University, penned an interesting article in Scientific American, October 2010 — “Why Women Live Longer.”

Women out live men by 5-6 yrs and people have all kinds of theories as to why.

Stress, was once postulated as the reason men die first but with gender equality one would have expected the mortality gap to decrease or vanish all together. It hasn’t.

Some say women adopt healthier lifestyle habits. Sadly, the number of women who smoke has increased and if anyone has ever seen a group of women out for a “Girl’s Night”, you know they certainly haven’t stopped drinking.

So, why do women, despite living hard and fast, still continue to live longer than men?

Well, Mr. Kirkwood wrote a great article about it but the bottom line…Women propagate the species and their bodies repair themselves better because of it. See really, men are disposable and women rule. But read the article to get the specifics.

Aspirin Significantly Reduces Risk of Cancer

Regular aspirin use significantly reduced risk of cancer, metastasis and cancer mortality, findings from the largest-ever analyses exploring the drug’s effects on cancer indicate.

Overall, aspirin users had a 38% reduced risk of colorectal and other gastrointestinal cancers compared with nonusers. Mortality risk was 15% lower and metastasis was 35% to 40% lower among regular aspirin users.

Aspirin use also reduced risk for major vascular events, but these benefits were initially offset by an increased risk for major bleeding events. Both of these affects diminished over time, however, leaving only a reduced risk for cancer after three years, Peter M. Rothwell, FMedSci, of the University of Oxford in England, and colleagues reported in three studies published online in Lancet and Lancet Oncology.

“In view of the very low rates of vascular events in recent and ongoing trials of aspirin in primary prevention, prevention of cancer could become the main justification for aspirin use in this setting, although more research is required to identify which individuals are likely to benefit most,” they wrote.

Read the complete article and see a video at The Clinical Advisor.

Older Americans keep on working

Ron Akana, age 83, has worked as a flight attendant for 63 years, clocking some 20 million miles along the way, the equivalent of circling the globe about 800 times or flying roughly 40 times to the moon and back. Though no one tracks seniority across all airlines, he is widely believed to hold the title of longest-serving flight attendant in the United States.

Mr. Akana was recently profiled in The New York Times in an article that points out 40 percent of 110,000 flight attendants in the U.S. are 50 or older while less than 18 percent are 34 or younger. While the American work force has aged because of demographic shifts, the ranks of flight attendants have aged faster.

You can read the complete article here.

Happy 87th birthday Roy Haynes: great jazz drummer

Roy Haynes turns 87 today he’s still performing with his “Fountain of Youth” quartet.

In his seven decades of performing, Roy Haynes has established himself as the quintessential jazz drummer. He has played with virtually all of the most notable jazz musicians, and has been at involved in some of the biggest transitions in the history of jazz. His light, expressive style has fit a multitude of musical circumstances, from the swing of Lester Young, the bebop of Charlie Parket, the raucousness of John Coltrane,  to the modern jazz innovations of Chick Corea and Pat Metheny.

Happy birthday Roy!

 

 

Happy 87th birthday Roy Haynes: great jazz drummer

According to this “Life Expectancy Calculator” I’m going to live to be 102

by Cheryl Poirier Dr. Thomas Perls has developed a Life Expectancy Calculator and based on your current lifestyle,  it will give you an idea of how long you are going to live. We all know that things like stress, physical activity and genetics play a role. I was surprised, however, to be asked questions about friendships, …

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