How to Live to 100?

I saw this article by Henry S Lodge on the front page of the September 15, 2015 issue of Bottom Line Personal that explains how to improve our chances to live to 100. It is a good article, and I'm glad that Bottom Line made it available online to everyone. Dr. Henry S. Lodge is a well respected internist, who has been ranked as one of the Best Doctors in America by Castle Connolly, and he has written several books. In this article he makes several good recommendations, but it appears that the one he thinks is most important is for us to exercise! I feel like I've exercised through high school & college (cross country), then had to maintain a fitness program through 27 years of military. I sort of thought that when I hit age 70, I could slack off a bit. But Dr Lodge says "Exercise more as you get older".. He says that everyone should exercise hard at least five days a week -- but if you are 50 or older you should make it six days a week! I guess that if we do get to live to 100, we'll finally get to rest in our "final resting place."...

I also listened to a good podcast from the "Health Report" with Norman Swan about the best exercise to do to reduce dementia risk. (Link also has transcript of podcast)  In the podcast, Norman interviewed Nicola Lautenschlager who's a professor of old age psychiatry at University of Melbourne. The professor presented evidence that regular aerobic exercise does seem to slow down the development of dementia and alzheimer's disease. He says that dementia and alzheimer's disease starts in the body 30 years prior to showing symptoms, so that exercise and other "environmental factors" can have a long time to work to either accelerate or slow down the progress of the diseases.  His recommendation is for "older people" to exercise 150 minutes per week, and that if we walk, it should be at a fast pace to get our heart rate up and blood pumping!