Centenarian study suggests living environment may be key to longevity


Date:
June 17, 2020
Source:
Washington State University
Summary:
Where you live has a significant impact on the likelihood that you
will reach centenarian age, suggests a new study. New research
suggests that people who live in highly walkable, mixed-age
communities may be more likely to live to their 100th birthday.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== [Senior walking in woods | Credit: (c) Stefan Ko"rber / stock.adobe.com]
Senior walking in woods (stock image).

Credit: (c) Stefan Ko"rber / stock.adobe.com [Senior walking in woods |
Credit: (c) Stefan Ko"rber / stock.adobe.com] Senior walking in woods
(stock image).

Credit: (c) Stefan Ko"rber / stock.adobe.com Close When it comes to
living to the ripe old age of 100, good genes help but don't tell the full story. Where you live has a significant impact on the likelihood that you
will reach centenarian age, suggests a new study conducted by scientists
at Washington State University's Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine.


========================================================================== Published in the International Journal of Environmental Research
and Public Health and based on Washington State mortality data, the
research team's findings suggest that Washingtonians who live in highly walkable, mixed-age communities may be more likely to live to their
100th birthday. They also found socioeconomic status to be correlated,
and an additional analysis showed that geographic clusters where the probability of reaching centenarian age is high are located in urban
areas and smaller towns with higher socioeconomic status, including the
Seattle area and the region around Pullman, Wash.

"Our study adds to the growing body of evidence that social and
environmental factors contribute significantly to longevity, said study
author Rajan Bhardwaj, a second-year WSU medical student who took an
interest in the topic after serving as a home care aide to his aging grandfather. Earlier research, he said, has estimated that heritable
factors only explain about 20 to 35% of an individual's chances of
reaching centenarian age.

"We know from previous research that you can modify, through behavior,
your susceptibility to different diseases based on your genetics,"
explained Ofer Amram, the study's senior author and an assistant professor
who runs WSU's Community Health and Spatial Epidemiology (CHaSE) lab.

In other words, when you live in an environment that supports healthy
aging, this likely impacts your ability to successfully beat your genetic
odds through lifestyle changes. However, there was a gap in knowledge as
to the exact environmental and social factors that make for an environment
that best supports living to centenarian age, which this study helped
to address.

In collaboration with co-authors Solmaz Amiri and Dedra Buchwald,
Bhardwaj and Amram looked at state-provided data about the deaths of
nearly 145,000 Washingtonians who died at age 75 or older between 2011
and 2015. The data included information on each person's age and place
of residence at the time of death, as well as their sex, race, education
level and marital status.



========================================================================== Based on where the person lived, the researchers used data from the
American Community Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, and other
sources to assign a value or score to different environmental variables
for their neighborhood.

The variables they looked at included poverty level, access to transit
and primary care, walkability, percentage of working age population, rural-urban status, air pollution, and green space exposure. Subsequently,
they conducted a survival analysis to determine which neighborhood and demographic factors were tied to a lower probability of dying before centenarian age.

They found that neighborhood walkability, higher socioeconomic status, and
a high percentage of working age population (a measure of age diversity)
were positively correlated with reaching centenarian status.

"These findings indicate that mixed-age communities are very beneficial
for everyone involved," said Bhardwaj. "They also support the big push
in growing urban centers toward making streets more walkable, which makes exercise more accessible to older adults and makes it easier for them to
access medical care and grocery stores." Amram added that neighborhoods
that offer more age diversity tend to be in urban areas, where older
adults are likely to experience less isolation and more community support.

Meanwhile, Bhardwaj said their findings also highlight the importance of continuing efforts to address health disparities experienced by racial minorities, such as African Americans and Native Americans. Consistent
with previous research findings, for example, the data shows being white
is correlated with living to 100. Looking at gender, the researchers
also found that women were more likely to reach centenarian age.

Finally, the researchers wanted to see in which areas of the state
people had a higher probability of reaching centenarian age. For each neighborhood, they calculated the years of potential life lost, or the
average number of years deceased individuals would have had to continue
living to reach age 100.

Neighborhoods with lower values for years of potential life lost were considered to have a higher likelihood of reaching centenarian age,
and vice versa.

When they mapped the years of potential life lost for all neighborhoods
across the state, they saw clusters with high likelihood of living
to centenarian age in higher socioeconomic areas in urban centers and
small towns across the state, including the greater Seattle area and
the Pullman region.

While more research is needed to expand upon their findings, the
researchers said the study findings could eventually be used to create healthier communities that promote longevity in older adults.

An interactive map of Washington State's so-called "blue zones" --
areas of high centenarian prevalence, calculated as centenarian deaths
as a percentage of all deaths of those aged 75 and over -- is available
on the WSU Community Health and Spatial Epidemiology lab website (https://chaselab.net/Centenarian/ Index.htm), which also provides a
brief summary of the study.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Washington_State_University. Original written by Judith Van Dongen. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Rajan Bhardwaj, Solmaz Amiri, Dedra Buchwald, Ofer
Amram. Environmental
Correlates of Reaching a Centenarian Age: Analysis of 144,665
Deaths in Washington State for 2011-2015. International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020; 17 (8): 2828 DOI:
10.3390/ ijerph17082828 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200617145256.htm

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