This is well
worth it. They have always been around and common factors do need to be known
in order to expand the success levels.
Genetics appear to be important and avoiding preventable conditions also
help. I also suspect an active mindset
is equally important but that must be learned and indulged in your late teens
at least or no tomato later on. That
inch of brain density strengthens best then.
The main drag
for most is the onset of ill health.
After that all trend lines are off.
We are entering the
age of proactive life extension and the best advice I can give everyone is to
clean up your act and work on strengthening your brain and revisit this
question in 2023. Let me take this a lot
further. General trend lines suggest to
myself the following scenario:
I am presently
65 years of age. Thus current trend
lines suggest that the following is becoming plausible over the next thirty
five years.
1
At
age 75, my biological health can be held even and somewhat reversed to overcome
any accelerators.
2
At
age 85, my biological health can be regressed to 75 as appropriate protocols
trip in.
3
At
age 95, my biological health can be regressed to 65 as appropriate protocols
are accelerated.
4
At
age 105, my biological health can be regressed to 55 as appropriate protocols
mature.
5
By
age 115, my biological age will reflect a mature prime equivalent to 45 at
which it will largely stabilize.
This is not
particularly fast either and curiously, I have received guidance that I will
see my 100 birthday.
Thus it does
behoove me to hang in there and try to avoid runaway horses. This also holds true for everyone else. We already know that the present regime can
be extended to several centuries leaving the choice of exit up to the
individual in many cases.
Study Seeks
Super Agers’ Secrets to Brain Health
Study seeks to learn about brain health from seniors
with exceptional memories
CHICAGO—They’re called “super agers”—men and women
who are in their 80s and 90s, but with brains and memories that seem far
younger.
Researchers are looking at this rare group in the
hope that they may find ways to help protect others from memory loss. And
they’ve had some tantalizing findings: Imaging tests have found unusually low
amounts of age-related plaques along with more brain mass related to attention
and memory in these elite seniors.
“We’re living long but we’re not necessarily living
well in our older years and so we hope that the SuperAging study can find
factors that are modifiable and that we’ll be able to use those to help people
live long and live well,” said study leader Emily Rogalski, a neuroscientist at
Northwestern University’s cognitive neurology and Alzheimer’s disease center in
Chicago.
The study is still seeking volunteers, but chances
are you don’t qualify: Fewer than 10 percent of would-be participants have met
study criteria.
“We’ve screened over 400 people at this point and
only about 35 of them have been eligible for this study, so it really
represents a rare portion of the population,” Rogalski said.
They include an octogenarian attorney, a 96-year-old
retired neuroscientist, a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor and an 81-year-old
pack-a-day smoker who drinks a nightly martini.
To qualify, would-be participants have to undergo a
battery of mental tests. Once enrolled, they undergo periodic imaging scans and
other medical tests. They also must be willing to donate their brains after
death.
The memory tests include lists of about 15 words.
“Super agers can remember at least nine of them 30 minutes later, which is
really impressive because often older adults in their 80s can only remember
just a couple,” Rogalski said.
Special MRI scans have yielded other remarkable
clues, Rogalski said. They show that in super agers, the brain’s cortex, or
outer layer, responsible for many mental functions including memory, is thicker
than in typical 80- and 90-year-olds. And deep within the brain, a small
region called the anterior cingulate, important for attention, is bigger
than even in many 50- and 60-year-olds.
The super agers aren’t just different on the inside;
they have more energy than most people their age and share a positive,
inquisitive outlook. Rogalski said the researchers are looking into whether
those traits contribute to brain health.
Other research has linked a positive attitude with
overall health. And some studies have suggested that people who are
“cognitively active and socially engaged” have a reduced chance of developing
Alzheimer’s disease, but which comes first—a healthy brain or a great attitude—isn’t
known, said Heather Snyder, director of medical and scientific operations for
the Alzheimer’s Association.
Snyder said the SuperAging study is an important
effort that may help provide some answers.
Edith Stern is among the super agers. The petite
woman looks far younger than her 92 years, and is a vibrant presence at her
Chicago retirement home, where she acts as a sort of room mother, volunteering
in the gift shop, helping residents settle in and making sure their needs are
met.
Stern lost most of her family in the Holocaust and
takes her work seriously.
“What I couldn’t do for my parents, I try to do for
the residents in the home,” she said, her voice still thick with the accent of
her native Czechoslovakia.
Stern acknowledges she’s different from most people
at the home, even many younger residents.
“I am young—inside. And I think that’s the
difference,” she said.
“I grasp fast,” she adds. “If people say something,
they don’t have to tell me twice. I don’t forget it.”
She’s different in other ways, too.
“When you get old, people are mainly interested in
themselves. They talk about the doctor, what hurts,” she said. “You are not so
important that you just concentrate on yourself. You have to think about other
people.”
Study participant Don Tenbrunsel has a similar
mindset. The 85-year-old retired businessman doesn’t think of himself as a
super ager. “Neither do my children,” he says, chuckling.
But Tenbrunsel says his memory has been sharp “from
the time I was born. My mother used to say, ‘Donald, come sing with me—not
because I had a good voice, but because I always knew the words,” he said. “I
think I’m just lucky, not only with respect to my memory, but I’m able to get
around very well; I walk a lot and I have a pretty good attitude toward life
itself.”
Tenbrunsel volunteers several hours a week at a food
pantry run by the Chicago church where he is a parishioner. One recent morning
in the sun-filled rectory kitchen, he nimbly packaged ham and cheese
sandwiches, set out bags of chips and cans of soda, and cheerfully greeted a
steady stream of customers.
“Good morning, good to see you,” he said, standing
at the pantry’s bright red door. He gave everyone their choice of chips—a small
gesture but important, he said, because it gives them some sense of control
over their hard-luck lives.
“I enjoy doing it. I probably get more out of it
than I give,” Tenbrunsel said.
Ken Zwiener, of Deerfield, Ill., is another super
ager. He had “more than an inkling” he might qualify for the study, and his
kids encouraged him to enroll.
“They said, ‘Dad, your brain is the best thing about
you,’” the 81-year-old retired businessman recalled.
He’s a golfer and Broadway musical “nut” who created
a 300-plus-page computer database of shows. Zwiener uses an iPad, recently went
hot-air ballooning, and is trying to learn Spanish.
He also pours himself a vodka martini every night
and is a pack-a-day cigarette smoker, but says he doesn’t think his habits have
made much difference. His healthy brain, he says, may be due to heredity and
genes, but Zwiener said he hopes the study comes up with more “scientific
insights.”
“My dad lived into his middle 90s and was pretty
sharp right up until the day he died,” Zwiener said.
Zwiener’s motivation for joining the study was
simple: The best man at his wedding died of Alzheimer’s disease before age 50.
“To lose a mind … is just a terrible way to go,” he
said.
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