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How to live long - and love it

From diet and lifestyle tips to the secrets of notable long-lived people from around the world, several new books give advice on how to extend your life span.

By NANCY PARADIS
Published August 29, 2006

When will you think of yourself as "old"? At age 60? 70? 80? Maybe even 100? According to a slew of new books, that number is largely under your control.

In Age Smart: Discovering the Fountain of Youth at Midlife and Beyond Prentice Hall, $24.99, authors Jeffrey Rosenzweig and Betty Liu take a holistic approach to aging well. In addition to subjects you'd expect, from eating carefully and exercising, they also include topics such as mind, money, career and relationships. Their conclusions are bolstered by interviews with experts and familiar faces of people who are "aging well," including Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Kenneth Cooper, the "father of aerobics," and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach.

Sigmund Freud maintained that many people have a death wish. Dr. C. Norman Shealy's Life Beyond 100: Secrets of the Fountain of Youth (Tarcher/Penguin, $24.99) is aimed at those folks who do not, who don't shy away from the notion of living to 100 or even 120. According to Shealy, there are a number of ways to extend one's life expectancy, beginning with breaking bad habits such as smoking and the overconsumption of alcohol and unhealthful foods. Shealy highlights what he says are other important factors for prolonging life: keeping healthy your DHEA, a critical hormone connected to stress levels; keeping optimal levels of calcitonin, an essential hormone for maintaining the skeleton and avoiding osteoporosis; and keeping free radicals low.

Healthy At 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World's Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples by John Robbins (Random House, $24.95), begins with a look at some of those people, including the Abkhasia in the Caucasus, the Vilcabamba in the Ecuadorian Andes, the Hunza in northern Pakistan, and the centenarians on Okinawa. Other chapters focus on the familiar role of food, the mind-body connection, love and relationships and, finally, the human spirit. This book is due out in September.

Maoshing Ni's Secrets of Longevity: Hundreds of Ways to Live to be 100 (Chronicle Books, paper, $14.95) takes a sound-bite approach to aging well. In six chapters, written in short paragraphs, he covers the familiar themes of food, exercise and relationships. He also includes a look at the value of herbs and alternative remedies as well as the role of the environment in keeping us healthy as we age.

Nancy Paradis can be reached at (727) 893-8342 or nparadis@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 28, 2006, 19:23:21]