MADRID, 9 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The recent death of the fashion icon ‘socialite’ Iris Apfel at the age of 102 has made many wonder what needs to be done to reach that age. And with that vitality.
Researchers from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) have reflected on whether there are common traits among centenarians, and whether society is prepared for the growth of this sector of society in the coming years.
They remember that the life expectancy of the population around the world is increasing thanks to global progress, which guarantees citizens access to health care, sanitation, education and the continued fight against hunger, which will make There will be more and more centenarians.
Thus, they point out that for centuries, the life expectancy of the world population remained fixed at around thirty years, until the beginning of the 20th century when, thanks to improvements in areas such as hygiene, the expansion of antibiotics and access to vaccination, life expectancy began to grow, a trend that continues to grow and is not expected to stop soon, experts estimate.
According to the United Nations Population Division, global life expectancy at birth reached 72.8 years in 2019, an improvement of almost 9 years from 1990. Further reductions in mortality are expected to lead to global longevity average of about 77.2 years by 2050.
Within these data, in recent decades the number of people who reach the age of one hundred has skyrocketed substantially. There were nearly half a million centenarians in the world in 2015, more than four times the number of centenarians in 1990, according to United Nations estimates. And this growth is expected to accelerate: projections anticipate that in 2050 there will be 3.7 million centenarians in the world.
What is the secret to living a hundred years? “There is no demographic point of view separate from the social one. Demography calculates, under the conditions of a given moment in time, what is the probability that a newborn baby will reach the age of one hundred in Catalonia. In recent years, this indicator has been 2% for men and 4% for women,” explains Pau Miret, demographer at the Center for Demographic Studies and collaborating professor at the Arts and Humanities Studies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). “So we could say that the secret to living a long life from a purely demographic point of view is to be born a woman, something we cannot choose,” he jokes.
Salvador Macip, doctor and director of Health Sciences Studies at the UOC, has been researching the biological bases of aging for more than 25 years, always with the idea of ??understanding why we age in order to then look for ways to slow down this process.
“In my laboratory we are currently working on several lines around this topic, especially to search for markers that allow us to know the real age of our tissues and define therapeutic targets. We also investigate drugs and other interventions that can improve aging,” he explains. the progress of your research.
“Among other aspects, we have improved the life expectancy of some mice by 30% and, most importantly, their health in the final stretch of life by 400%. We are also studying the response to dietary changes in menopausal women, to see if they have any effect on the aging experienced by this population,” he adds.
Experts conclude that there is no single formula to reach a hundred years in good condition, nor can they determine with certainty why some people live longer than others.
“There are many factors that we know that determine how we age, and possibly we do not know them all,” says Macip. “There are genetic factors, which depend on what we inherit from our parents, and others are related to the environment and lifestyle habits. , and the weight that each has is still not clear
There is a consensus that genetics undoubtedly has a great impact on longevity, as well as healthy habits: a balanced diet without many excesses, constant moderate exercise and not smoking or drinking are some of the experts’ recommendations to preserve good health and, at the same time, delay the biological processes of aging.
“It is also important to have a good social network that keeps you active, which is a factor that is rarely mentioned: if you have no reason to live, you will not reach these ages,” says Macip.
Several studies over the years have indicated that our state of mind has a certain impact on longevity. Not suffering from stress or anxiety are some of the key factors that make us live longer.
“People who tend to be optimistic, who live as a couple or are surrounded by a community, and, therefore, avoid isolation, also live longer. In terms of personality, people who are not impulsive live longer,” he explains. Montserrat Lacalle, psychologist expert in older people and collaborating professor at the UOC’s Psychology and Educational Sciences Studies.
“We should not fall into the simplicity of thinking that whoever is happier lives longer, but rather we have to consider that this variable influences others. For example, a person with a good mood probably has a longer social life and a fuller daily life. of stimuli than a person who suffers from depression and who, surely, acts in a radically different way,” clarifies the expert.
And if we talk about extending life, the key question is how we want to live it. Although the quality of life has also increased in recent times, it has not done so in parallel with life expectancy. “This means that we are living more and more years in poor health, which is by no means the objective,” concludes Macip, who clarifies that “those of us who research aging, above all, what we seek is precisely to lengthen these good years. The longevity will come later.”
For now, but, for Lacalle, “societies are not adapting too much to aging, and are not prepared to face it. Nowadays families have a lot of geographic mobility, which makes it difficult for children to take care of their parents, if they do not live. in the same country. In addition, people are having fewer and fewer children, and this complicates care.
In this context, Miret believes that “we must respond to new social patterns, to new gender roles. The collective response is related to the state of well-being: attention leaves the strictly family sphere and moves to a public sphere. Even so, observing the trends in our society, it does not seem that we are on the right path, and it gives the impression that only the private market, with individual payment, responds to these new care problems,” he concludes.
