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Britons at 90: healthier, wiser, moreindependent but it helps if yourerich

As the Queen celebrates her birthday, she joins a growing number of people

living and thriving in very old age. So what makes a happy nonagenarian?

Yvonne Roberts

Sunday 17 April 2016 00.04BST

On Thursday, the Queen celebrates her 90th birthday after 64 yearsof running the royal show. On 10 June, her o!cial birthday thisyear, her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, turns 95. Neither

appear to be signi"cantly slowing down. The Queen still embarks onroyal visits, rides a horse, endures state banquets, walks nimbly

backwards (from the Cenotaph), dresses stylishly and generallyconfounds the notion that ageing is one long continual slide intosenility, if the Grim Reaper doesnt claim you in your middle years.

The Queen does, of course, have certain advantages when it comes toageing. Income and class help. According to the charity Age UK, lifeexpectancy at 60 for those from a higher income bracket is 23.3 years;those living on a lower income are likely to live almost six years less.

Nevertheless, once the Queen passed her 85th birthday, she joined thefastest growing group in the population. In the UK, 2.6 million peopleare aged over 80, a number that is predicted to rise to 4.8 million by2030. But while poverty and neglect are issues for some, many arehappy with their lot.

Its a complete fallacy that the majority of the older old are in their

bath chairs and lonely, says Carol Jagger, 64, professor of theepidemiology of ageing at Newcastle University, who is involved in astudy of 200 people aged over 85 in the Newcastle area. A minority

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were lonely, but that was to do with widowhood and it got better overtime.

The study began in 2006 and is soon to look again at the group, nowaged 95. Many, irrespective of income, are independent, scoring high

in 17 activities, including cutting their own toenails, dressing andwalking. Half take exercise for enjoyment, 20% are involved in clubsand hobbies, and 10% help others.

What also matters is that they are "rmly connected to family andfriends, says Jagger. In ageing, adding life to years is what counts.

In the 1900s, only 4% of the population was 60 or over. Now, partly theresult of better lifestyles and medical progress, half the children bornat the millennium will become centenarians. But there is a di$erence

between surviving to 90 and beyond, dealing with cruel and invasivechronic diseases, and passing those milestones living well. So whatmakes that di$erence?

The New England Centenarian Study, established in the US in 1995, isstudying 1,600 centenarians and 107 super centenarians (110-plus). Ithas concluded that between 25% and 30% of the factors in%uencing

longevity come from good genes.

When Agnes Brinkley, aged 96, was interviewed in 2010 with six of hereight siblings (the youngest aged 79), she put the secret succinctly:None of us have [walking] canes. Or, to put it another way, it is not somuch what you do as a nonagenarian, more how you have lived.

Joan Gray, who lives alone in Chelmsford, Essex, shares her birthday

with the Queen and will also turn 90 on Thursday. Im being boastfulnow but a lot of people say, You dont look 90. I used to work out onthe land a bit before I got married, and Ive always had an outdoor life.

Gray also thinks the secret to staying young is not to be shut in all thetime. For the last "ve years she has been meeting up with otherpeople of a similar age using the services of Contact the Elderly, acharity that arranges afternoon teas. I think helping and working with

people does help, you hear their problems and you think, well Im gladIm not in that state, although you might be ill yourself.


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In the US, since 2002, Dan Buettner, author and National Geographicfellow, working with a team of international academics, has identi"ed"ve places in the world dubbed blue zones, where people not only livethe longest lives but the happiest and healthiest too the Nuoroprovince of Sardinia; the Japanese island of Okinawa; the Nicoya

peninsula, Costa Rica; Loma Linda, California, home of vegetarian,non-smoking, non-drinking Seventh-day Adventists; and the Greekisland ofIkaria.

Buettner describes the case of Stamatis Moraitis who, in his 60s, wastold in the US that he had terminal cancer. He returned to his

birthplace, Ikaria, to die. Decades later, aged 97, he told Buettner thathe travelled back to the US in his 80s to ask his doctors why his lung

cancer went away. He got no response because, Moraitis says: Mydoctors were all dead.

In Ikaria, the people eat simple, mostly plant-based food, sleep lateand nap in the afternoon (a nap three days a week results in a 37%reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease), walk the many hills,drink herbal teas rich in antioxidants, enjoy sex and red wine and areengaged in the community and see a convivial meaning to life.

Buettner has now established 20 blue-zone cities in the US, totalling 5million people. The "rst to be set up, in 2009, was Albert Lea,Minnesota. The project required that 20% of citizens, 50% ofemployers, 25% of restaurants, 25% of schools and 25% of grocerystores sign up for a year. Parks and public spaces were improved;smoking and junk food discouraged; schools forbade eating on themove; giving something back was encouraged.

Buettner says: The programme focuses on making the healthy choicethe easy choice. We address the environment, not just the individual.

In the "rst year, the population of Albert Lea shed 12,000 pounds,healthcare costs dropped by 40% and, it was predicted, citizens added2.9 good quality years on average to their lives improvements thatcontinue.

What also "gures in the original "ve blue zones is the way society isorganised. Esteeming older age is the norm. The older you get, themore wisdom you are credited with, Buettner says.


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Harry Leslie Smith, 93, is author of a number of books, including thepassionateHarrys Last Stand, a defence of the welfare state. He livesin Canada and West Yorkshire and did not begin to write until he wasin his 70s.

Did he feel his wisdom was valued?

Many younger people do, perhaps because I remind them of theirfather or grandfather, he says. But the knowledge that older peoplehave is sometimes treated as if it has no value. Sometimes, I cant

believe I was born nearly 100 years ago. My greatest fear is that we aregoing backwards. Growing old is a lonely ride. You lose friends andthere is no one left from the past but thats life.

He began life with very little, he says. Climbing the mountain. Itshow I imagined it would be. Wonderful.

The essence of that joy is too often missed because of the negativeconnotations associated with what is called the ageing society.Maturing society might be more apt. The Queen at 90 is a regalexample of living better for longer. On the throne, she couldnt havemore advantages or be more visible as a nonagenarian. But like Patricia

Routledge, still acting at 87, or Diana Athill, still writing at 98, all aretreated as exceptions.

Exceptionalism is itself a form of benevolent ageism, says ThomasScharf, professor of social gerontology at Newcastle University. Itmakes the very much older person who is active seem a breed apart,

but they are only older versions of us.

Older people are regarded as a burden on society, yet the evidenceshows civic life is sustained by engaged, much older people. Withoutthem, the rest of us would be even more atomised and work woulddominate life even more strongly than it already does.

Stephen Burke, founder of the charity United For All Ages, points outthe importance of the intergenerational connection. Many of thoseunder 25, and those over 75, are facing a very tough future. I talk to

young people and to those who are much older and they face similarissues on transport, housing, mental health. The people in positions ofin%uence are aged 30 to 60. They need to see society through the eyes


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More features

of their children and their parents.

Whatever the challenges and growing old in a time of cuts can begrim there is something compelling about the simplicity of themessage of how to enjoy life at 90: look after yourself and those you

love, and do something for others. As Athill writes in a poem in theconclusion to her latest memoir,Alive, Alive Oh!: Why want anythingmore marvellous/than whatis.

dditional reporting by Rebecca Ratcliffe

HOW TO LIVE TO 100

Money in the bankhelps, but if you are overfed, underactive and

stressed, that can negate the impact of a&

uence.Stay lean, eat clean Avoid processed food, eat little meat and moreolive oil, fruit and vegetables; drink good co$ee and wine.

Dont smoke

Be extrovertStay active; give back; remain connected to family andfriends.

Motherhood post-40 A woman who has a child naturally beyond 40has a four times greater chance of living to 100 compared with onewho does not a possible indication that her reproductive system isageing slowly and so the rest of her body is as well.

Male siblings of centenariansare 17 times more likely to reach 100.Female siblings have an 8.5 times greater chance than their peers of

reaching a century.

ResilienceThe ability to bounce back from serious disease, such ascancer, heart disease and diabetes, obviously helps.

Good genesBetween 25% and 30% of longevity is attributable to thequality of your genes.

Source: New England Centenarian Study


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Older people Ageing The Queen Monarchy Health More

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