{"id":92543,"date":"2025-05-11T10:52:40","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T10:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/92543\/"},"modified":"2025-05-11T10:52:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T10:52:40","slug":"living-a-long-time-isnt-just-about-good-genes-a-new-study-says-4-lifestyle-changes-that-can-improve-your-longevity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/92543\/","title":{"rendered":"Living a long time isn’t just about good genes, a new study says. 4 lifestyle changes that can improve your longevity."},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have a parent or grandparent who\u2019s reached their 90s or even become a centenarian<\/a>, someone\u2019s probably said to you, \u201cOh, you have good genes!\u201d But if longevity doesn\u2019t seem to run in your family, fret not: Lifespan<\/a> has more to do with your lifestyle and environment than with your genetics, according to a study<\/a> published in the journal Nature Medicine.<\/p>\n

In other words, there\u2019s a lot you can do to take control of your own destiny when it comes to longevity, regardless of how long your relatives lived. Here\u2019s what to know.<\/p>\n

What the study found<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using data on nearly half a million people from the U.K., Oxford University researchers looked for patterns in who died prematurely, or before the age of 75. They also looked at markers of biological aging in a smaller subset of the study group (over 45,000 people). Their analysis included comparisons of genetic risk factors for disease as well as what some scientists have termed the \u201cexposome.\u201d Our DNA makes up our genome, whereas the exposome is made up of all the exposures we encounter throughout life. This includes everything from what we eat, drink and inhale to the neighborhoods we live in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While genetics accounted for less than 2% of the difference in people\u2019s risks of death, environmental factors were behind 17% of the disparity, the scientists found. Smoking, socioeconomic status \u2014 a measure of factors like income, neighborhood, education and occupation \u2014 physical activity levels and living conditions had the greatest influence on someone\u2019s biological aging and risk of death.<\/p>\n

Some of these factors \u2014 such as how much money you make or whether you can afford to own a home in a nice neighborhood \u2014 are hard to change. But overall, 23 out of 25 of the environmental variables the researchers looked at are modifiable. And many of them are pretty simple.<\/p>\n

Do genes not matter when it comes to longevity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, they definitely do. But to what extent varies a lot depending on the specific genes, the diseases that they put you at risk for and what you do throughout your life. For example, which variants of the APOE gene<\/a> you carry is highly predictive of your risk for Alzheimer\u2019s disease; the same goes for BRCA1 and BRCA2 variants and breast cancer<\/a>. And these diseases can have a lot to do with your biological aging and life expectancy.<\/p>\n

But even these genes are influenced by your behavior and environment. And, in most cases, our choices and the lives we lead have a huge impact on what those genes will mean for our health. \u201cSomeone put a comment on our paper, saying \u2018genetics loads the dice, but it\u2019s up to us to play our hand,\u2019\u201d Austin Argentieri,<\/a> a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital who led the new study while he was a researcher at Oxford Population Health, tells Yahoo Life. Even if your genetic makeup predisposes you to diseases that could cut your life short, \u201cin most cases, you can mitigate that risk through lifestyle, behavior, or taking different drugs or treatments,\u201d explains Argentieri.<\/p>\n

Changes that can set you up for a longer life<\/strong>1. Don\u2019t smoke.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By now, it\u2019s hardly a surprise that smoking <\/a>is bad for you. But, aside from a person\u2019s age, smoking has a greater bearing on longevity and aging than any other factor \u2014 genetic or environmental \u2014 according to the new study. Second to age, the factor that most influenced mortality risk was \u201csmoking pack years,\u201d meaning the number of packs of cigarettes a person smoked daily, for how many years. And smoking status \u2014 whether someone currently, formerly or never smoked \u2014 was the fourth-most-influential factor (sex was third; men are more likely to die earlier than women). \u201cIf you can do one thing, don\u2019t smoke,\u201d says Argentieri.<\/p>\n

2. Get good sleep.<\/strong><\/p>\n

People who are tired frequently or don\u2019t get very much sleep at night are more likely to both age quickly and die prematurely. How much sleep you need<\/a> varies from person to person, but for most adults, you should aim to get seven to nine hours a night. And try to have good \u201csleep hygiene<\/a>\u201d by going to bed and waking at consistent times, having a bedtime routine<\/a>, keeping your room dark and keeping your phone away from your bed.<\/p>\n

3. Get moving.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After tiredness, physical activity \u201cis close in the running for the top\u201d factor influencing biological aging and risk of death, says Argentieri. That\u2019s in part because many of the chronic conditions that accelerate aging and lead to early death are cardiometabolic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and stroke. Obesity increases risks for these conditions, while exercise, in combination with a healthy diet, can reduce those risks. Diet may have more influence, but \u201cthat doesn\u2019t mean that exercise shouldn\u2019t be part of the plan,\u201d Valter Longo<\/a>, a University of Southern California professor of gerontology who studies how nutrition and fasting can influence longevity, tells Yahoo Life. In combination with other habits, exercising<\/a> can help you live healthier, for longer.<\/p>\n

4. Eat for longer living.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study found that while what people ate didn\u2019t have much effect on their biological aging, it was predictive of their risk of death. That may be because many people change their diets to be healthier because they have a health problem, such as prediabetes. But Longo\u2019s research suggests that eating a diet<\/a> that consists of lots of plants and fish and little red meat is associated with a longer life. A diet that includes sufficient but low levels of protein<\/a> helps to prevent aging acceleration by altering the way certain genes associated with the breakdown of our bodies work, Longo says (though this changes around age 65, when we need more protein, he notes).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you have a parent or grandparent who\u2019s reached their 90s or even become a centenarian, someone\u2019s probably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[43755,43753,43752,267,43754,4716,2846,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-92543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-austin-argentieri","9":"tag-biological-aging","10":"tag-environmental-factors","11":"tag-genetics","12":"tag-good-genes","13":"tag-longevity","14":"tag-risk","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114488825782824910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}