MedicalResearch.com Interview with: 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. (more…)