>>A Blog About the Science and Technology of Living Forever

HARRY ROSEN IS 103. He lives alone in a studio apartment on West 57th Street in Manhattan. His hearing has declined and he a bit far-sighted but his mind is as sharp as most men half his age. Still, he doesn’t remember the last evening he didn’t go out for dinner at one of the city’s top-rated restaurants. It’s been too many years. People say Harry doesn’t look a day over 90, and indeed when people ask him his age, he tells them he is 90. He’s never had a major operation and as far as he knows there is nothing wrong with him. And yes, every single afternoon Harry dresses up in one of his fine business suits, grabs his satchel, and heads out to hail a cab to one of his favorite dining establishments. He eats alone but the waiters always know who he is and patrons at nearby tables almost always strike up a conversation with him. Twice a week Harry goes to David Burke’s Townhouse on East 61st Street where a server greets him, escorts him to his usual corner table, brings him a glass of chardonnay and his usual appetizer of raw salmon and tuna. Harry was recently profiled in The New York Times.  The article makes for fascinating reading, the writer refers to Harry as the city’s “oldest foodie,” but there are no direct refers to any of his longevity secrets. Yet, reading through the lines, I’ve come up with a list of Harry Rosen’s 10 longevity secrets, which follows: Harry always orders fish. For a non-Eskimo he has unusually high levels of omega-3 fats in his diet. His omega-3/omega-6 ratio must be highly favorable to reducing any risk of heart disease or dementia. Harry’s daily routine never varies–this keeps his life stress free....

Kay Svela, who writes the homemaking blog Little Miss Wife, chimes in on the inequity between the genders on living longer in marriage. She explains why men live longer when they are married and how their wives can too. Read more: Why men do better when they are...

Gay men are able to lead healthier, less stress-filled lives when states offer legal protections to same-sex couples, according to a new study examining the effects of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. The study, “Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Laws on Health Care Use and Expenditures in Sexual Minority Men: A Quasi-Natural Experiment,” is online in the American Journal of Public Health. “Our results suggest that removing these barriers improves the health of gay and bisexual men,” said Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, PhD, lead author of the study and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. In the 12 months following the 2003 legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, gay and bisexual men had a significant decrease in medical care visits, mental health care visits, and mental health care costs, compared with the 12 months before the law change. This amounted to a 13-percent reduction in health care visits and a 14-percent reduction in health care costs. These health effects were similar for partnered and single gay men. Among HIV-positive men, there was no reduction in HIV-related visits, suggesting that those in need of HIV/AIDS care continued to seek needed health care services. For the study, researchers surveyed 1,211 patients from a large, community-based health clinic in Massachusetts that focuses on serving sexual minorities. Examining the clinic’s billing records in the wake of the approval of Massachusetts’ same-sex marriage law, researchers found a reduction in hypertension, depression, and adjustment disorders—all conditions associated with stress. “These findings suggest that marriage equality may produce broad public health benefits by reducing the occurrence of stress-related health conditions in gay and bisexual men,” Dr. Hatzenbuehler said. Previous studies have documented that excluding lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals from...

A study published in the British Medical Journal found that men who had sex less than once per month were twice as likely to die in the next 10 years.