Health Guide and Education Online

Living to 100 is statitiscally against the odd. There are presently about 450,000 centenarians (people whos in their 100s) living in the world. 0.0067% of the world population lives to be one hundred years old. 0.447% of the world population will get struck by lightning in their lifetime. So people are about 70 times more likely to get struck by lightning than to live to be one hundred years old.

However, living to 100 is a wonderful thing to aspire to because having another 30 or 40 years beyond what many people thought was the time to die will brings more opportunities and possibilities.

Living to 100

A genetic research study based upon cellular regeneration determined that our cells should be able to replicate themselves to about 120 years. By looking at mammals as an organism we can tell how long the average mammal live expectancy. Almost every mammal lives 7 times its maturity rate. If it matures at 2, it will live until about 14 years. If you extrapolate that to the human being, we should live to be 120 to 140 years.

In sheer numbers the United States sports the largest number of centenarians. According to 2005 census data over 55,000 people residing in the US were 100 or more years of age. At the centenarians current rate of expansion in The States, that number could reach over one million by the year 2050 when the first “baby boomers” reach the century mark.

The large US number is mainly a function of America’s greater total population, but proportionally, the largest percentage of people living to 100 is found on the Island of Okinawa, where per capita there are almost 4 centenaries for every one living in the US.

Ooverall the Japanese live longer than any other population, and the Okinawans live longer than any one else in the island nation. According to the Japanese government there are almost 500 Okinawans that are at least 100 years old. That translates to 38 centenarians for every 100,000 islanders, the greatest ratio in the world. Okinawans also have the highest average life expectancy on the planet. Okinawans don’t just live longer than most people, they also age better. Recent studies have found that seniors on the island show far lower rates of dementia than their counterparts in the US and other industrialized nations.

Elders on the island claim that some of the island’s centenarians still have active sex lives, and that is without the use of a certain “little blue pill“. While researchers have not been able to prove the veracity of such claims, it is clearly evident that Okinawans can lay claim to their share of “Super Seniors” who clearly do things not usually attributed to the elderly. 96-year-old martial arts expert Seikichi Uehara defeated a thirty-year-old ex-champion boxer in a nationally televised match several years ago. After the match Seikichi was quoted as saying his opponent had not yet matured enough to over power him. Perhaps more incredible was the story of Nabi Kinjo. She became a local legend when at 105, she hunted down and killed a poisonous snake that invaded her home with a fly swatter!

Living to 100 is largely influenced by your genes while weight is also a factor to longevity in the centenarians studied. Whatever the underlying process, it does appear that caloric restriction is an important mechanism of slowing down the aging process. Research on fruit flies and rats has shown that a 30 percent reduction in calories can lead to 30 percent longer life, according to the national institutes of health. But can people adjust to slashing a third of their food out of their life, especially in a nation where two-thirds of the adult population is overweight or obese?.

At the end of the day, even if living to 100 is a low probability, you should still strive to achieve it. Even if you don’t make it, the only outcome is that you will be heatlhier and probably even wealthier from all the cost saving on the food.