Josephine Tesauro as a teenager with her twin, who has not fared as well.
Video on aging, beware if you're in 56k dialup purgatory. It comes with commercials, and it goes into another video on another topic if you don't close the window.
Posted on 08/31/2006 11:07:46 PM PDT by neverdem
Josephine Tesauro never thought she would live so long. At 92, she is straight backed, firm jawed and vibrantly healthy, living alone in an immaculate brick ranch house high on a hill near McKeesport, a Pittsburgh suburb. She works part time in a hospital gift shop and drives her 1995 white Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera to meetings of her four bridge groups, to church and to the grocery store. She has outlived her husband, who died nine years ago, when he was 84. She has outlived her friends, and she has outlived three of her six brothers.
Mrs. Tesauro does, however, have a living sister, an identical twin. But she and her twin are not so identical anymore. Her sister is incontinent, she has had a hip replacement, and she has a degenerative disorder that destroyed most of her vision. She also has dementia. “She just does not comprehend,” Mrs. Tesauro says.
Even researchers who study aging are fascinated by such stories. How could it be that two people with the same genes, growing up in the same family, living all their lives in the same place, could age so differently?
The scientific view of what determines a life span or how a person ages has swung back and forth. First, a couple of decades ago, the emphasis was on environment, eating right, exercising, getting good medical care. Then the view switched to genes, the idea that you either inherit the right combination of genes that will let you eat fatty steaks and smoke cigars and live to be 100 or you do not. And the notion has stuck, so that these days, many people point to an ancestor or two who lived a long life and assume they have a genetic gift for longevity.
But recent studies find that genes...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Josephine Tesauro as a teenager with her twin, who has not fared as well.
Video on aging, beware if you're in 56k dialup purgatory. It comes with commercials, and it goes into another video on another topic if you don't close the window.
It's God's call when your time is up.
One event you will never be late for - death.
From studying "dead pool" lists, I noticed certain types of careers had a greater likelihood to last into their 90s, most notably golfers, orchestra conductors and movie directors.
Then I started to think what might the longer-living occupations have in common and I came up with two things:
1) Arm swinging. If you think about it, vigorous arm swinging is a cardiovascular exercise. While movie directors wouldn't seem to fit here, the older ones used to waive megaphones as they directed.
2) Autonomy. In these three careers, a man was basically his own boss, as were novelists - another group that seems to live longer than most. While being self-employed and dependant on your own skills to earn an income has a level of stress, there is typically nobody "over you" to provide undue stress that might wear you down faster.
So, I've concluded that if you want to live a long life, swing your arms regularly and be your own boss.
Preclinical Tests Show Acid-Sensitive Nanoparticles Treat Ovarian Cancers with Little Toxicity The active ingredient is Taxol.
No embryonic stem cells were harmed in this trial (teeth and umbilical cord banking are available)
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Paternal Grandfather: † 40something. Heart attack.
Father: † 47. Heart attack.
Mother: Dead † 73. Stroke, CVAs.
Elder sister: † 59. MS, then cancer.
Elder brother: † 53. Heart attack.
Younger brother: Heart attack at 54. Survived.
Me: Two feet, presumably, on banana peels.
ByTheWay, if Josephine has a twin with all those problems, how does she know it's not really her?
So they really don't know. But that's a sweet old picture of the Tessuro family, thanks for including it.
I'd add that group were doing jobs they were passionate about.
You know, I heard yrs ago that people who had occupations that moved their arms (like orchestra conductors) lived longer. Something about upper body exercise.
And yet, baseball players do not seem to enjoy longer lives than normal and most of them swing their arms regularly. My guess is that most stop doing that when their careers are over in their 30s and 40s, although many turn to golf for exercise.
great post!
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