Midlife Risk Factors Help Determine Lifespan and Healthiness as Men Age
A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined different midlife risk factors and their association with survival rates in men.
Researchers found that 42% of the study’s 5820 original study participants survived to the age of 85. However, only 11% of the study participants survived to 85 years without getting one of 6 major chronic diseases and without physical and cognitive impairment (a state referred to by the authors as “exceptional survival”).
Participants who had high (hand) grip strength and avoided risk factors, including:
- Becoming overweight
- High blood pressure
- High blood sugar
- Smoking
- Excessive alcohol consumption
in mid-life had a greater chance of both reaching age 85 and exceptional survival.
Being married and avoiding high triglycerides were also associated with exceptional survival. Being single, on the other hand, was not associated with reaching age 85.
Researchers estimated that the probability of survival to 85 may be as high as 69% for men with no risk factors and as low as 22% with six or more risk factors. Exceptional survival to age 85 was estimated as high as 55% for men with no risk factors and as low as 9% with six or more risk factors.
Those are some pretty big differences. Nutrition plays a significant role in many of the risk factors - e.g., high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and more. There’s clearly a lot that an individual can do well before reaching older age to both lengthen and improve the quality of life.
