10 Jun People Who Live To 100 Do So With Fewer Chronic Illnesses
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Raya Elfadel Kheirbek
Raya Elfadel Kheirbek, MD, MPH
Geriatrician and Palliative Care Physician
Washington DC VA Medical Center
Associate Professor of Medicine
George Washington University
School of Medicine and Health Sciences
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: In the past decade, there has been a shift in the concept of successful aging from a focus on life span to health span. We all want to age gracefully “expecting” optimal health, quality of life and independence.
Centenarians are living examples to the progress we have made in health care. They are the best example of successful aging since they have escaped, delayed or survived the major age-related diseases and have reached the extreme limit of human life. However, little is known about Veterans Centenarians’ incidence of chronic illness and its impact on survival.
Utilizing the VA Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW), I worked with my colleagues’ researchers and identified 3,351 centenarians who were born between 1910 and 1915. The majority were white men who served in World War II and had no service related disability. The study found that 85 % of all the centenarians had no incidence of major chronic conditions between the ages of 80 and 99 years of age. The data demonstrate that Veteran centenarians tend to have a better health profile and their incidence of having one or more chronic illness is lower than in the general population.
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Response: The findings of our study support the 1980 compression of morbidity hypothesis that states that as persons approach the limit of the human life span, they must compress the time that they develop diseases towards the very end of their lives. Meaning the burden of illness could be reduced if the onset of chronic illness is postponed until very late in life, The VA centenarians demonstrated similar compression of morbidity and extension of health span observed in other cohorts.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: This is the largest sample to-date with predominantly male Veteran centenarians underscoring the importance of further studying factors contributing to health and longevity in men and in Veterans.
MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Response: I was inspired by a 108 year old veteran patient who I took care of for 17 years.
My patient, along with many in her generation, survived the evil of WWII and the evil of poverty during the Great Depression. It is critically important to understand factors contributing to this incredible resilience in order to help our patients who are struggling with similar challenges within the VA healthcare system and at large.
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Last Updated on June 10, 2017 by Marie Benz MD FAAD