New research shows that even people who develop heart disease or diabetes late in life still have a good chance of living to be 100 years old.
Dr. William Hall of the University of Rochester, who published new research in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, wrote that this increased chance of longevity may be attributed to doctors who aggressively treat elderly health problems, rather than taking an "ageist" approach that assumes they wouldn't benefit."It has been generally assumed that living to 100 years of age was limited to those who had not developed chronic illness," Hall told AP.Through phone interviews and health assessments, researchers at Boston University looked at more than 500 women and 200 men who had reached 100. They found that about two-thirds of them had avoided significant age-related ailments.
The remaining men and women, called “survivors,” had been diagnosed with an age-related disease such as high blood pressure, heart disease or diabetes, but the study noted that even they had functioned almost just as well as their disease-free peers.They found that men seemed to be living better overall, as nearly three-fourths of men were capable of bathing and dressing themselves, while only about one-third of the women could.They noted that this may be because men had to be in exceptional condition to reach the century mark.
