Longevity is not equal to fraility (study of centenarians)

noate: just think how much they could improve with a little qigong…. m

OLDEST ELDERS SURPRISINGLY SPRY
PEOPLE AGED 92-100 MAY BE HEALTHIER AND MORE INDEPENDENT THAN YOU THINK
By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
webmd
August 18, 2008

http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/news/20080818/oldest-elders-surprisingly-
spry

If you make it to your 92nd birthday, your odds of staying spry as you head
toward the century mark may be better than you expect.

That news comes from a study of 2,262 Danish adults starting at age 92.
Everyone born in 1905 in Denmark and still living there was invited to
participate, whether they lived at home or in an institution and needed
someone to help them take part in the study. They were followed until they
reached 100.

The study was all about seeing whether exceptional longevity came with high
levels of disability. The short answer: It didn’t. Extreme age didn’t bring
extreme disability, overall.

The elders did have a slight decline in their ability to perform routine
activities, mental skills test scores, grip strength, and other measures,
and fewer were independent at 100 than at 92.

“Nonetheless, our finding also suggests that individuals who survive into
the highest ages have a health profile that is similar in many aspects to
that of individuals who are seven or eight years younger,” write the
researchers, who included Kaare Christensen, MD, PhD, DMSc, of the Danish
Aging Research Center at the University of Southern Denmark.

It’s not that no one got sick, slowed down, or died — only 166 people were
still enrolled in the study at age 100. It’s more that they didn’t linger in
what the researchers call a “frail… vegetative state.”

“Even though individuals in this age range have an increased risk of
disability for each additional year of life, the frailest and most disabled
members of the cohort are those who are most likely to die at any given
age,” explain Christensen and colleagues.

Their bottom line: “Most individuals can expect to experience physical
decline before they die, but the postponement of this individual decline
makes it possible for us to live into a fourth age” stretching toward 100.

The study appears in this week’s online early edition of Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.