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	<title>Health &#38; FamilyCategory: Longevity &#124; Health &#38; Family &#124; TIME.com</title>
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	<description>A healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit</description>
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		<title>Health &#38; FamilyCategory: Longevity &#124; Health &#38; Family &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Could A Dopamine Gene Be the Answer to a Longer Life?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/11/could-a-dopamine-gene-be-the-answer-to-a-longer-life/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/11/could-a-dopamine-gene-be-the-answer-to-a-longer-life/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 17:00:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention deficit disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dopamine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lifespan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=77528</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A gene linked to attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and addiction might also help you live to be 100. A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that a version of a gene coding for a receptor for the brain chemical dopamine was 66% more common among people who lived to be 90 or older than among a group of younger people who were otherwise similar.  The variant leads to a weaker response to the neurotransmitter, lowering the activity of the dopamine system that is responsible for generating feelings of pleasure, desire and reward, as well as for regulating movement. The study included over 1000 people aged 90 to 109 who lived in the Leisure World retirement community in Laguna Woods, California.  They were part of a group of nearly 14,000 highly educated people of mostly European ancestry who were initially studied in 1981. MORE: When it Comes to Longevity, It&#8217;s Not Years But Microlives That Count Not only did the researchers find that the variant was more common among the oldest participants, they also learned that these people were also more physically active than their counterparts who lacked this particular version of the receptor. Having a less effective pleasure-generating dopamine system, the researchers speculate, may cause people to seek greater stimulation, making them more vigorous in the search for greater arousal. Perhaps as a result, these participants were twice as likely to exercise when first surveyed in 1981— and they remained considerably more active than those without the variant when data was collected again in 2003. That, say the researchers, may be the key to their longevity. When dopamine isn&#8217;t regulated properly, it can contribute to a dysfunctional pursuit of good feelings, such as occurs in addictions, or lead to a hyperactive state as in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These conditions are generally associated with an increased risk of early death, rather than longevity, but the latest study suggests that “risk” genes for certain problems in some environments may be beneficial in other situations. It&#8217;s not helpful to think of genes<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=77528&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/99976601.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Being Overweight Is Linked to Lower Risk of Mortality</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/02/being-overweight-is-linked-to-lower-risk-of-mortality/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/02/being-overweight-is-linked-to-lower-risk-of-mortality/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Jan 2013 10:45:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BMI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[body mass index]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[body weight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death rates]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mortality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[normal weight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obese]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[overweight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[underweight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weight]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=77054</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The longest lived among us aren&#8217;t necessarily those who are of normal weight, says a new study. According to new research this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers say that being overweight may lead to a longer life. The somewhat surprising conclusion comes from an enormous, detailed review of over 100 previously published research papers connecting body weight and mortality risk among 2.88 million study participants living around the world. The new research confirms that obese people, and particularly those who are extremely obese, tend to die earlier than those of normal weight. But the findings also suggest that people who are overweight (but not obese) may live longer than people with clinically normal body weight. MORE: Power Up, Slim Down: Mobile Apps May Help With Weight Loss The new report is the largest and most comprehensive review of how weight, measured as body mass index (BMI), a measure comparing the ratio of height to weight, can influence longevity. Previous studies that have exposed the link in the past, however, have raised questions about whether the overweight advantage is real. &#8220;We published an article in 2005 that showed, among other things, that overweight was associated with lower mortality &#8212; and we got an awful lot of negative feedback from that,&#8221; says the current study&#8217;s lead author, Katherine Flegal, a senior research scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Since that  study, however, dozens of others have reached the same conclusion &#8212; even if it was hard for researchers and the public to accept. MORE: Childhood Obesity Rates Drop in Some Cities: What Are They Doing Right? &#8220;I think there’s a lot of under reporting of this finding […] and so people are sort of repeatedly surprised by it,&#8221; Flegal says. Because many researchers don&#8217;t expect to find a benefit associated with being overweight, she suggests, they may not believe their results are valid if they find such a connection, which may make them more hesitant to publish them and invite review and<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=77054&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Obesity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/obesity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/113743815.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/113743815.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">113743815</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a069e8b4ff0dc386def0882f71bbfee6?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>When It Comes to Longevity, It&#8217;s Not Years But Microlives that May Count</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/17/when-it-comes-to-longevity-its-not-years-but-microlives-that-may-count/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/17/when-it-comes-to-longevity-its-not-years-but-microlives-that-may-count/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:50:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Olivia B. Waxman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food & Drink]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tobacco]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=76360</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We know that overindulging in our favorite foods isn&#8217;t good for our health, but researchers propose a new way of quantifying just how harmful those treats can be. Now that we&#8217;re in the midst of the holiday season, calorie-laden foods seem to be ubiquitous — sugary cookies, sweet candies and juicy hams dripping with honey. But in the holiday issue of the BMJ, researchers report that making a habit of overindulging in rich fare can take years off your life. In fact, the scientists calculated exactly how much our favorite foods can shorten our life span; eating red meat every day, for example, is linked to a loss of at least 30 minutes off of your life. (MORE: How to Live 100 Years) Dr. David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge and author of the study, says that it&#8217;s not the occasional indulgence but consistent over-eating of certain foods that can impact your longevity. But for most people, weighing the immediate gratification of eating a steak sizzling on a plate in front of you against a far-off loss of a year or two of your life in your 70s or 80s, almost always ends with people favoring the steak. So he decided to frame daily diet choices in the more immediate terms of adding or losing hours to your day. Calculating that the average life spans about 80 years, he divided that time up for adults 35 and older into nearly a million half hours, and assigned each 30 minute period to be 1 microlife. Each microlife is about one millionth of life expectancy after age 35. He then assessed how unhealthy eating habits would impact a person&#8217;s total microlives. Smoking, for example, eats up approximately 10 microlives for every 20 cigarettes smoked — or about 15 fewer minutes of life expectancy per cigarette. &#8220;Smoking 20 cigarettes a day (10 microlives) is as if you are rushing towards your death at 29 hours a day instead of 24,&#8221; he says. Averaged over a lifetime, the following habits are<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=76360&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/999430-011microlivescrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">timeolivia</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<item>
		<title>Faster, Stronger, Longer: Olympians Live Longer than the Rest of Us</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/14/fast-stronger-longer-olympians-outlive-the-rest-of-us/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/14/fast-stronger-longer-olympians-outlive-the-rest-of-us/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:00:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet & Fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sport]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=76000</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[All that training, regardless of the sport, my pay off in extra years, according to two recent studies. Both studies, published in the BMJ, confirm the fact that the best athletes in the world are indeed among the healthiest as well, thanks to their rigorous training regimens. And now it seems that fitness translates into a survival advantage as well. The first study looked at the life expectancy of 15,174 Olympians from the top medal-earning countries including the U.S., Germany, Nordic nations, Russia, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The athletes all received at least one medal during Games between 1896 and 2010 and were compared to general population groups matched by age, country and gender. Overall, the Olympic medalists lived an average of 2.8 years longer than the public in eight of the nine countries in a 30-year followup. (MORE: Study: Genes May Predict Who Lives to 100) The color of the medal, it seems, did not matter. Gold, silver and bronze medalists all enjoyed the same survival advantage over non-Olympians. The longevity benefit also occurred across all sports, including events such as soccer, basketball, jumping in track and field, endurance activities and even power sports like wrestling and weightlifting, which provided a smaller, but still significant survival benefit. &#8220;To put this survival advantage into some perspective, it is almost as large as the difference in life expectancy between men and women, so male Olympic medalists can expect to live almost as long as the average woman in the general population,&#8221; says lead study author Philip Clarke of the University of Melbourne in Australia. (MORE: Q&#38;A: How a Little Exercise Brings Big Benefits) Although the authors did not investigate the reasons for the Olympic longevity, they provided a few theories. Athletes in general are healthier than the average person, and Olympic athletes are among the fittest specimens of healthy eating and physical fitness. Part of that fitness could be due to genetics, but their training environments likely amplify any potential genetic advantages, especially if they join more intensive national  training<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=76000&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/hl-olympians-1214.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">image: Michael Phelpsompetes in the Final of the Men&#039;s 400m Individual Medley on Day One of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre, July 28, 2012.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/dd9dc95ff828efb70c16a5a509a75150?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">asifferlin</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Study Shows More Than Half of All Americans Will Get Heart Disease</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/07/study-shows-more-than-half-of-all-americans-will-get-heart-disease/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/07/study-shows-more-than-half-of-all-americans-will-get-heart-disease/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:00:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Diabetes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stroke]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tobacco]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cholesterol]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[high blood pressure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hypertension]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[smoking]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=73332</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Heart disease is the leading killer of Americans, and the lifetime risk among healthy Americans remains dangerously high. Despite the plethora of data on what contributes to heart disease, no study has calculated the lifetime risk of the disease for the average adult. So Northwestern University cardiologist John Wilkins and his colleagues pooled data from five long-running studies of U.S. heart health, and used them to calculate disease risks at various ages, and for people with different combinations of risk factors. Together, the data cover tens of thousands of people who were monitored and followed up for cardiovascular events for various periods between 1964 and 2008. (MORE: Diagnosing Heart Disease, Faster) Previous studies have calculated heart disease risk over short time intervals of just a few years, or assessed  the lifetime risk of developing a single cardiovascular condition, such as congestive heart failure. The latest analysis considers the lifetime risk for all cardiovascular diseases, a category that includes coronary artery disease (whose symptoms are most often heart attack and angina) along with strokes, congestive heart failure, and more. And the results are sobering. At age 45, the lifetime heart disease risk is 60.3% for men and 55.6% for women, according to the researchers. That means that, on average, a 45-year-old man without heart disease can expect that he will develop the disease at some point in his life with 60.3% probability. Or, alternatively, that three out of five men without heart disease at age 45 will develop the condition at some point in their lives. Risks are higher for men than for women at all ages, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (MORE: Gum Disease Doesn&#8217;t Cause Heart Disease After All) These lifetime risks are also strongly linked to known heart risk factors such as smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. The greater the number of risk factors, the higher the probability that a person will eventually get heart disease. But even for people with none of the conditions<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=73332&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Heart Disease</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/heart-disease/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/200272267-001heartdiscrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/200272267-001heartdiscrop.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/200272267-001heartdiscrop.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Heart wrapped in barbed wire</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a069e8b4ff0dc386def0882f71bbfee6?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Xbox or Wii: Which Is Better for Sedentary Kids?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/26/xbox-or-wii-a-scientific-argument-for-why-xbox-is-better-for-sedentary-kids/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/26/xbox-or-wii-a-scientific-argument-for-why-xbox-is-better-for-sedentary-kids/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:30:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet & Fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dance central]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exergames]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kinect]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kinect sports boxing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[microsoft]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[physical activity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wii]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Xbox]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=69974</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Playing video games isn’t exactly demanding on the body, but some newer versions may get children moving enough to keep them healthy. Researchers at the University of Chester in England found that the Kinect Xbox 360 system pumps up heart rate and pushes children to move more than the Wii system or playing sedentary video games. Because Kinect includes more whole-body movements, while Wii is navigated by a handheld controller, children tend to expend slightly more energy playing games on the former. In a small study involving 18 boys and girls aged 11 to 15 years, Michael Morris and his colleagues found that the children playing Dance Central and Kinect Sports Boxing (both on the Kinect Xbox 360 system) boosted their energy expenditure by 153% and 263%, respectively, over their baseline resting rates. They also increased their heart rates by 103% and 194% over their heart rates while playing more sedentary video games. (MORE: Want Your Kids to Exercise? Let Them Play Video Games!) The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics &#38; Adolescent Medicine, did not directly compare the Kinect and Wii systems. Rather, the authors measured energy expenditure and heart rates in Kinect players and compared these values to previous studies of those playing Wii. Says Morris, “It does appear from the data in this early small scale study, that the whole-body movement of the Xbox provides slightly better results for energy expenditure and also heart rate.” In fact, over the course of an hour, children playing Kinect may burn 172 calories more than if they were playing a sedentary game. Even more important, says Morris, was the fact that the Kinect players worked up enough of a sweat to reach about 66% of their maximum heart rate. Because the heart is a muscle, pushing heart rate up regularly to reach its maximum pumping capacity is a good way to improve fitness, and fitness can lead to longer term gains in health and survival. In a recent study, those who were more fit in middle age were 30%<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=69974&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/26/xbox-or-wii-a-scientific-argument-for-why-xbox-is-better-for-sedentary-kids/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Exercise</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/diet-fitness/exercise/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/69fc92d1c4598c5b98d03fde16cdfa74?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Being Fit in Middle Age Can Lower Risk of Disease Later in Life</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/28/being-fit-in-middle-age-can-lower-risk-of-disease-later-in-life/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/28/being-fit-in-middle-age-can-lower-risk-of-disease-later-in-life/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:30:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Alzheimer's Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diabetes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stroke]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[colon cancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lung cancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[physical activity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=67476</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We all know that exercise is good for you — it keeps the heart healthy, works out the muscles and prepares you to take the stairs at work without fainting from exhaustion. But does all that activity actually prevent you from getting sick? According to a study published online by the Archives of Internal Medicine, the answer is yes. Researchers say that people who are more fit when they are middle-aged have a lower rate of chronic diseases, including heart problems, diabetes, stroke, kidney disease, obstructive pulmonary conditions, lung cancer, colon cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Previous studies have shown that people who are more physically fit have a lower risk of dying early than those who aren&#8217;t as in shape, but the current analysis, led by Dr. Jarrett Berry of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, is the first to expose a connection with chronic diseases. Berry and his colleagues compared data on fitness levels of 18,670 healthy men and women in their 40s and 50s to Medicare claims for chronic disease treatments a couple of decades later, when the participants became eligible for coverage after age 65. Each of the volunteers performed a treadmill test, during which the researchers measured the length of time they exercised to exhaustion as an indicator of their fitness. For every one-unit improvement in fitness, measured as metabolic equivalents, the volunteers enjoyed a 20% drop in the incidence of the eight conditions the scientists tracked. MORE: Fit Vs. Fat : Which Matters More for Longevity? Even more encouraging, says Berry, is the fact that those with the highest fitness levels battled fewer chronic conditions in the last five years of life, meaning they spent more of this time healthy rather than burdened by disease. “The results show that fitness can not only delay morbidity but prevent it,” says Berry. So how do you get fit? It&#8217;s partly genetic, he says, but exercise can help. About half of a person’s fitness is determined by the cumulative effect of lifetime exercise, which is why physical<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=67476&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/28/being-fit-in-middle-age-can-lower-risk-of-disease-later-in-life/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Exercise</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/diet-fitness/exercise/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/76510293fitnesscrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Middle-aged couple running</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/69fc92d1c4598c5b98d03fde16cdfa74?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Study: Shaky Mental Health Linked to Higher Death Risk</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/01/study-shaky-mental-health-linked-to-higher-death-risk/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/01/study-shaky-mental-health-linked-to-higher-death-risk/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:00:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Brain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Happiness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Illness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BMJ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death risk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[psychological distress]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=65212</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Even minor mental health issues may raise the risk of death, a new U.K. study finds. Among disease-free, healthy adults in the study, the more signs of psychological distress that people had, the higher the death rates they experienced — even at low levels of distress, the study authors say, and even after accounting for a large number of health conditions and health behaviors that might explain the link. In the past, other studies have also found a link between mental health and mortality risk. But to date it&#8217;s been hard to tell whether psychological distress is really contributing to poor physical health, or whether, instead, some people who are already sick — and so at higher risk of death to begin with — simply become upset or anxious because they don&#8217;t feel well physically. This latest study attempts to separate cause from effect. For the study, released this week in the journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), researchers analyzed several years of data from a large, general population survey in England. While it&#8217;s never truly possible in this type of study to say that one thing definitely causes another, the analysis only included adults without known heart disease or cancer at the beginning of the study — a restriction meant to eliminate people whose poor health might be affecting their mood. It also adjusted statistically for a number of other things that might be related both to death risk and to mental health, including age, sex, social class, diabetes status, cigarette consumption, and body mass index (a measure of weight relative to height). (MORE: Unplug! Too Much Light at Night May Lead to Depression) In one final analysis, the researchers then looked exclusively at the relationship between mental health and deaths that occurred at least five years after psychological distress had been measured — yet another technique to limit the possibility that any link between mental health and mortality is the result of people becoming distressed once they&#8217;re already at death&#8217;s door. In all the analyses, people with<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=65212&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/01/study-shaky-mental-health-linked-to-higher-death-risk/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/103060441.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/103060441.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">103060441</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a069e8b4ff0dc386def0882f71bbfee6?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
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		<title>Get Up! Sitting Less Can Add Years to Your Life</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/10/get-up-sitting-less-can-add-years-to-your-life/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/10/get-up-sitting-less-can-add-years-to-your-life/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:45:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Diet & Fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life expectancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[physical activity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sedentary behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sitting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[watching tv]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=63654</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sitting for more than three hours a day can cut two years off a person&#8217;s life expectancy, even if he or she exercises regularly, a new study finds. Watching TV for more than two hours a day can shorten life expectancy even further, by another 1.4 years. The findings suggest that when it comes to gleaning health benefits from physical activity, it may not be enough just to get the recommended amount of daily exercise — the government advises about a half-hour of moderate activity a day for adults. But what about the other 23.5 hours of every day? Researchers say it&#8217;s important not to spend it sedentary or sitting. In the same way that both pushing the gas and hitting the brake can adjust the speed of your car, researchers say that physical activity and sedentary behavior independently affect your health and life expectancy. Whether “you’re physically active and meet the exercise guidelines, or if you’re not active,&#8221; says Peter Katzmarzyk, professor of epidemiology at Pennington Biomedical Research Center and lead author of the new paper published in the online journal BMJ Open, &#8220;sitting is bad.” (MORE: A Daily Walk Can Reduce the Power of Weight-Gaining Genes) Katzmarzyk&#8217;s isn&#8217;t the first study to document the ill effects of sedentary behavior. An Australian study published last August found that people who watched an average of six hours of TV a day lived 4.8 years less than those who didn’t watch any television; what&#8217;s more, every hour of TV that people watched after age 25 was associated with a 22-minute reduction in their life expectancy. The current analysis differed from previous research in that it took a broader look, calculating the cumulative effect on overall life expectancy of a sedentary population. Recent surveys show that worldwide people spend about 300 minutes, or 20% of their day, sitting; many people spend much longer. Shaving at least a couple of hours off that time — by turning off the computer, TV or other digital media, for example — could add years to life<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=63654&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/10/get-up-sitting-less-can-add-years-to-your-life/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/140357953sittingcrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Boy watching tv</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/69fc92d1c4598c5b98d03fde16cdfa74?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>When Dementia Derails Your Parent’s Finances</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/06/when-dementia-derails-your-parents-finances/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/06/when-dementia-derails-your-parents-finances/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:45:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Suzanna de Baca</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alzheimer's Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Death & Dying]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Memory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dementia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal finance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[power of attorney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=61146</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Not long ago, I had coffee with my friend Jill whose father had recently passed away. He had suffered from dementia for more than a year, but no one picked up on it until the disease had progressed and her dad had stopped tending to household finances. Bills were unpaid, investments were in disarray and random payments had been made to charities he’d never supported before. Jill had spent long hours trying to unravel and correct the financial chaos he’d inadvertently created in the months before he died. According to a recent report by the Alzheimer’s Association, 1 in 8 elderly Americans currently suffer from some form of dementia, and more than 15 million Americans provide some sort of care to affected individuals. As Time’s cover story details this week, many baby boomers are finding themselves responsible for making health care decisions for their parents. But boomers are also stepping in to help with financial matters. In many cases, this means taking over money management duties or paying for expenses out of their own pockets. The time and money involved can be significant. (MORE: Five Tips for Families Facing End-of-Life Care) With some proactive planning, you can help your parents stay on track financially and ensure that their desires for their financial legacy are respected and carried out. Taking the following steps while your aging parents are still healthy can help protect their finances and lay the groundwork for a transition in financial management should your parent develop dementia or other illness. 1. Talk about finances now. While your parents may hesitate to talk about money, or tell you to butt out of their business, it’s important to broach the topic. If you’re worried about having this conversation, consider coming at it by bringing up the national health care debate or discussing a friend’s situation like Jill’s. Then gently inquire whether your parents have made arrangements for long term care or if they have sufficient retirement income and respectfully offer assistance with managing their finances. 2. Set up automatic bill payments.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=61146&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Family</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/family/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/hl_dementia_0605_blog.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">hl_dementia_0605_blog</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">suzannadebaca</media:title>
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		<title>Extreme Workouts: When Exercise Does More Harm than Good</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/04/extreme-workouts-when-exercise-does-more-harm-than-good/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/04/extreme-workouts-when-exercise-does-more-harm-than-good/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jun 2012 11:00:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Diet & Fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marathon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[physical activity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Running]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[triathalon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=60873</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Getting at least some moderate exercise is good for us, and more is even better, doctors and public health experts say. But is there such a thing as too much exercise? Apparently, yes, according to researchers led by Dr. James O’Keefe, a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute of St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. Reporting in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, O’Keefe and his colleagues found that physical activity, like any medical treatment, can be harmful if it’s overdone. “As great as exercise is, it’s like a powerful drug,” he says. “More is better up to a certain dose, but after that there is a point of diminishing returns, and it may actually detract from [heart] health and even your longevity.” (MORE: Is Exercise Harmful for Some People?) O’Keefe reviewed studies of people who trained and participated in marathons, triathalons, ultramarathons or long bike races — people who exercised at extreme levels. Overall, people who exercised regularly reaped significant benefits, tending to live seven years longer than those who are physically inactive. But when O&#8217;Keefe focused only on the extreme athletes themselves, he found that the healthy effect of all their activity tended not only to wane, but to actually reverse itself and turn toxic. Studies showed that during and immediately following a marathon, runners showed up to a 50% increase in levels of an enzyme called troponin, which signals damage to the heart (it&#8217;s the same enzyme that shoots up in patients having heart attacks). Troponin is released when heart muscle is in distress, and in the case of lengthy extreme exercise sessions, it may start to climb as heart muscle fibers start to tear under the intense burden of pumping continuously at a high level. “When you’re sitting around, you heart is pumping about five quarts of blood a minute, and if you run up the stairs or hard or push yourself physically, it can go up 35 or 40 quarts a minute,” says O’Keefe. “If you go and run for 26 miles, or do<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=60873&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Exercise</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/diet-fitness/exercise/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/92572232marthoncrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Marathon runner resting</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/69fc92d1c4598c5b98d03fde16cdfa74?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Will an Aspirin Prolong Your Life? It Depends</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/11/will-an-aspirin-prolong-your-life-it-depends/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/11/will-an-aspirin-prolong-your-life-it-depends/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:00:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Prevention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pharmaceuticals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aspirin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[baby aspirin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=51335</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For a pill that costs just pennies per dose, aspirin can do an awful lot. It prevents heart attack and stroke in people with a history of cardiovascular events. It&#8217;s recommended for angina and heart attack patients as soon as they arrive at the hospital. It may lower risk of colon and other types of cancer. And, yes, it&#8217;s good for the occasional aches and pains, too. So it&#8217;s no wonder that in recent years, some health experts have been wondering whether everyone, whether or not they have heart troubles or headaches, should be taking low-dose aspirin as a preventive for some chronic illnesses. But the evidence doesn&#8217;t seem to support that idea, including a new review of nine clinical trials, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study shows that aspirin does reduce the risk of heart attack in middle-aged adults without known heart disease, but that those benefits are &#8220;modest,&#8221; according to the study authors. The review showed that aspirin appeared to confer no protection against stroke or fatal heart attack, and the limited benefits against non-fatal heart attack were offset by relatively rare but dangerous side effects. Aspirin helps to prevent heart attacks by preventing blood clots from forming, which can impede blood flow to the heart and brain. Recent studies also hint that it works to lower inflammation, which not only inhibits clot formation, but may protect unstable plaques in heart vessels from rupturing. Unfortunately, however, limited blood clotting can be dangerous as well. People who take a regular aspirin appear to be at increased risk of internal bleeding, which in some cases can be life-threatening. MORE: This Isn&#8217;t Your Mother&#8217;s Bayer Aspirin The new study in Archives is the largest of its kind to date. It includes nine clinical trials which together involve more than 100,000 study participants from a number of developed countries. In each of the nine trials, participants were randomly assigned either to take a daily aspirin or to take a placebo. On average, the aspirin-takers took their pills for six years. The analysis finds<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=51335&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Heart Disease</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/heart-disease/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/600_hl_aspirin_01110.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/600_hl_aspirin_01110.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">600_hl_aspirin_01110</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a069e8b4ff0dc386def0882f71bbfee6?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<item>
		<title>Life Expectancy: Another Way New Yorkers Are Better</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/28/life-expectancy-another-way-new-yorkers-are-better/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/28/life-expectancy-another-way-new-yorkers-are-better/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:21:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life expectancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York City]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[smoking]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=50253</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[New York City is known for a lot of things — nightlife, world-class cuisine, an enviable skyline. There is, of course, a flip side to fast-moving life in the big city: our hair-trigger tempers, in-your-face attitudes and the relatively constant state of angst that comes from living cheek-to-jowl with more than 8 million urban neighbors. But all of that is what drew me to this city and kept me here — I&#8217;m a happily committed New Yorker. I&#8217;ve always assumed, however, that I was paying a high price for my go-go urban lifestyle. Studies have shown that big city residents tend to have more stress, which can translate into skyrocketing blood pressure and increased rates of heart disease. As it turns out, I might have been wrong. Living in New York may actually be good for your long-term health, at least according to the latest life expectancy data compiled by the city&#8217;s Bureau of Vital Statistics. Babies born in New York City in 2009 can expect to live a record 80.6 years, nearly three years longer than in 2000 and more than two years longer than the current national average of 78.2 years. Life expectancy for 40-year-old New Yorkers rose to 82 in 2009, a 2.5-year increase from 2000 — slightly more than double the increase for middle-aged Americans on the whole. Life expectancy for 70-year-olds in New York also increased by 1.5 years, compared with 0.7 years for the country on average. Go figure. “If you want to live longer and healthier than the average American, then come to New York City,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters at a press conference announcing the new figures on Tuesday. Is it something in the water? Not quite. According to Bloomberg, the success can be attributed in part to his administration&#8217;s aggressive public-health programs, which have sought to reduce smoking, cut salt consumption, encourage healthy eating and ban trans fats from food. At the press conference, held in the maternity ward of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=50253&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/elderly-in-new-york.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">New Yorkers are living longer than ever</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/69fc92d1c4598c5b98d03fde16cdfa74?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Study: Injecting Young Blood Rejuvenates Old Brains</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/21/study-injecting-young-blood-rejuvenates-old-brains/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/21/study-injecting-young-blood-rejuvenates-old-brains/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:32:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[neurogenesis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[old blood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[young blood]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=49945</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It sounds like something out of a vampire tale, but introducing young blood to old brains triggers the growth of new brain cells, at least in mice, researchers reported last fall. The research, which was published in Nature in September (apologies, Healthland missed this the first time around, but thought it was cool enough to come back to) was inspired by the observation that when old mice are given young blood, it improves their immune systems and muscle function. So researchers wondered whether it would also work in the brain. Further, the researchers noted, stem cells in the brain, which give rise to new neurons, are physically closer than other cells to blood vessels, suggesting potential interaction. In a series of experiments, researchers surgically connected pairs of mice, so that they shared a blood supply (which is perhaps creepier than the finding itself). When 3-month-old mice were connected to 2-year-old mice, researchers found, the development of new brain cells accelerated in the older mice — going from fewer than 400 cells to nearly 1,000 in the one area of the hippocampus, the brain region related to memory — and fell by a quarter in the younger ones. Researchers found that the shared circulatory system had no effect in pairings of mice the same age. When researchers injected young mice with old blood, they found that neurogenesis — the creation of new brain cells — decreased and so did the animals&#8217; performance on learning and memory tests like water mazes. MORE: Why American Presidents (and Some Oscar Winners) Live Longer Obviously, there was something different about young blood. Researchers searched for the factor that mattered. They looked at 66 plasma proteins, but couldn&#8217;t find the relevant compound in the young animals&#8217; blood. They did, however, isolate 17 that increased as the mice aged. Among them was a substance called CCL11, which is an immune system protein called a chemokine. Previous research has connected CCL11 to inflammation in asthma and allergies. So what does that have to do with brain function? Oddly enough, recent research<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=49945&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/102302442a.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">102302442a</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Why American Presidents (and Some Oscar Winners) Live Longer</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/07/why-american-presidents-and-some-oscar-winners-live-longer/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/07/why-american-presidents-and-some-oscar-winners-live-longer/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:03:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lifespan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nobels]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oscars]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presidency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presidents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presidents live longer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[status]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[whitehall]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=48557</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[American presidents seem to age before our eyes. But the common belief that high-office stress grays our leaders faster than usual — possibly even hastening death — may be a myth, new research finds. In fact, the majority of American presidents have lived longer than typical men of their times. That&#8217;s not to say that chronic stress has no effect on a person&#8217;s lifespan, but so does high social standing. The findings add to a body of research linking high status to better health: for instance, Oscar winners live longer than those who were only nominated; British civil servants at the top of the greasy pole outlive those at the bottom; and the longevity effect is also seen in Nobel laureates and even baboons. The new study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed the dates of birth, inauguration and death of all 34 past presidents who died of natural causes. The average lifespan for these men should have been 68 years, if they&#8217;d aged twice as fast during their years in office as the popular wisdom suggests they do. Instead, the study found, these presidents lived an average 73 years. And indeed, 23 of the 34 presidents who died of natural causes lived longer than expected, compared with other men their age during their lifetimes. For our earliest presidents, the longevity effect was especially pronounced. The first eight leaders of the U.S. lived on average 79.8 years, yet life expectancy at birth for men in the 18th and early 19th centuries was under 40. Some presidents survived an exceptionally long time: Gerald Ford died at 93.5 years, Ronald Reagan at 93.3, John Adams at 90.7, and Herbert Hoover at 90.2. All currently living presidents have already exceeded their life expectancy, or are likely to do so. MORE: How Economic Inequality Is (Literally) Making Us Sick &#8220;Just because they experience what would appear to be accelerated aging outwardly, doesn&#8217;t mean they will die any sooner,&#8221; the study&#8217;s author, S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois-Chicago,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=48557&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/carter.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Former US president Jimmy Carter speaks</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Japanese Longevity — How Long Will It Last?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/09/05/japanese-longevity-%e2%80%94-how-long-will-it-last/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/09/05/japanese-longevity-%e2%80%94-how-long-will-it-last/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Sep 2011 19:30:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Meredith Melnick</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=41856</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, Japan began developing a reputation for its longevity. By the 1970s, the Japanese were the longest lived of any population in the world. Although genetic predispositions and cultural factors like diet certainly contributed to the long life span of the Japanese, it was the country&#8217;s kaihoken, or universal health care, that was largely responsible for boosting quality of life and increasing the country&#8217;s life expectancy. In recognition of 50 years of kaihoken, the medical journal Lancet recently published a special issue exploring Japanese longevity. Unfortunately, it&#8217;s not all good news. Even though Japan continues to have the highest life expectancy in the world, it is on track to be outpaced by other long-lived countries, like Sweden (which has high male and female life expectancy) and Italy and Australia (with high male life expectancy). Researchers believe that relatively high rates tobacco use, changes in diet that have raised body-mass index, and the rising rate of suicide are contributing to Japan&#8217;s slowing declines in rates of adult mortality. &#8220;If recent trends continue, other nations are likely to achieve lower rates of adult mortality than Japan,&#8221; said Professor Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle. He added that Japan&#8217;s universal health care system may not be sufficiently nimble enough to address mounting 21st-century health problems. &#8221;In an era of economic stagnation, political turmoil, aging populations and inadequate tobacco control, Japan does not seem to be effective in addressing its new set of health challenges. It will take more than universal access to a low-spending, high-volume health system to tackle these challenges.&#8221; Physical illness is not the only drag on the country&#8217;s life expectancy: more than 30,000 Japanese people take their own lives each year, perhaps the continuing aftereffect of the 1997 financial crisis. Given the suicide rate&#8217;s close association with unemployment rates, said Professor Yutaka Motohashi from the Department of Public Health, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, &#8220;It seems likely that this negative socioeconomic background is associated with<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=41856&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/elderlycropped.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">TO GO WITH AFP STORY &#34;LIFESTYLE-JAPAN-SE</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">meredithmelnick</media:title>
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		<title>Want to Live Longer? Turn Off Your TV</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/17/want-to-live-longer-try-turning-off-your-tv/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/17/want-to-live-longer-try-turning-off-your-tv/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life expectancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[physical activity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[television]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[watching tv tv viewing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=40970</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sitting in front of the television may be a relaxing way to pass an evening, but spending too much time in front of the tube may take years off your life. That&#8217;s what Australian researchers found when they generated life-expectancy tables for people based on mortality information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics as well as participants&#8217; survey responses about how much TV they had watched in the past week. The TV-viewing data from more than 11,000 participants older than 25 years showed that Australian adults watched an estimated 9.8 billion hours of television in 2008. People who watched an average six hours of TV a day lived an average 4.8 years fewer than those who didn&#8217;t watch any television, the study found. Even more humbling: every hour of TV that participants watched after age 25 was associated with a 22-minute reduction in their life expectancy. (MORE: Too Much TV Linked with Disease and Early Death) The findings suggest that watching too much TV is as detrimental to longevity as smoking and lack of exercise. Previous research has shown that smoking is associated with a four-year reduction in life expectancy after the age of 50. That works out to an average 11 minutes of life lost for every cigarette smoked — the equivalent to 30 minutes of TV time, according to the current study. The study notes also that people who report low levels of physical activity lose nearly 1.5 years in life expectancy compared with those who exercise a moderate amount, an effect similar to that of watching just over two hours of television a day. &#8220;The strong correlation is a bit of a surprise,&#8221; said lead author Lennert Veerman of the University of Queensland in an e-mail response to questions about his research, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. &#8220;It suggests that going from inactive to slightly active is as important as exercise.&#8221; It&#8217;s no mystery that sitting in front of the tube isn&#8217;t exactly a healthy pursuit. The more TV you watch, the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=40970&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/tvdeath.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">tvdeath</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Even the Long-Lived Smoke, Drink and Don&#8217;t Exercise</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/05/even-the-long-lived-smoke-drink-and-dont-exercise/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/05/even-the-long-lived-smoke-drink-and-dont-exercise/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:30:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tara Thean</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ashkenazi jews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[centenarian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lifestyle habits]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[longevity genes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[old age]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=40132</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is living clean the key to living long? Maybe not, says a new study by Yeshiva University&#8217;s Institute for Aging Research, which shows that people who made it to the ripe age of 95 were just as likely as their shorter-lived peers to engage in the kinds of lifestyle habits that researchers deem unhealthy: eating fried foods, drinking, smoking and failing to exercise. &#8220;They&#8217;re as bad as everyone,&#8221; says lead researcher Nir Barzilai. &#8220;The centenarians were telling us terrible stories about their life habits.&#8221; So if it&#8217;s not healthy habits, what&#8217;s the secret sauce behind their ageless vim and vigor? It may just be in their remarkable genes, the authors said. &#8220;People with exceptional longevity may interact with environmental factors differently than others,&#8221; according to the study authors; in other words, those with longevity coded into their DNA may be protected from some of the effects of unhealthy living. PHOTOS: Centenarians Around the World How many of us actually have these genes is still unknown. &#8220;I know only the people who got there, not the people who may get there,&#8221; Barzilai says, noting that the only way to determine whether a person will live a long life is if they actually reach exceptionally old age. &#8220;I&#8217;m not in the prediction business.&#8221; Barzilai&#8217;s team surveyed 477 Ashkenazi Jews between the ages of 95 and 109, with an average age of 97. Participants answered questions about their smoking history, weight, diet and exercise habits at age 70 — the age that was most representative of their typical adulthood lifestyle habits, the scientists said — and their answers were compared to those of 3,164 white individuals aged 65 to 74, collected between 1971 and 1974 for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). This yielded some surprising results: While 47.8% of long-lived men were overweight or obese, 55% of the comparison group was; as for the women, 43.8% of the long-lived were overweight or obese, while 41.2% of the comparison group was. However, in both men and women, rates of obesity alone were much<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=40132&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/man.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">man</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">tarathean</media:title>
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		<title>U.S. Life Expectancy Lags, Slips in Women</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/15/u-s-life-expectancy-lags-slips-in-women/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/15/u-s-life-expectancy-lags-slips-in-women/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:23:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christopher Murray]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[healthy immigrant paradox]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hispanic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[income]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life expectancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poverty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[smoking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[u.s. counties]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S. life expectancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women's Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=36260</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Americans aren&#8217;t living as long as they should, given the relatively sophisticated and expensive health care system in this country. That&#8217;s what the latest report from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington shows. While some cohorts of Americans do continue to enjoy increases in life expectancy, populations in 80% of U.S. counties surveyed are not keeping pace with gains made by the countries with the 10 highest life expectancies. Overall, U.S. women&#8217;s life expectancy at birth was 81.3 years in 2007, a slip of 15 places in the worldwide ranking since 1987, from 20th to 35th. Women in Holmes County, Miss., which has the lowest life expectancy in the country, can expect to live 73.5 years — which was the average life span of women in the 10 longest-lived nations in 1957. For men, the news is a little better: American men&#8217;s average life expectancy at birth in 2007 was 76.7 years, which brought them up from 32nd place a decade earlier to No. 24 worldwide. The report, which will be published in the journal Population Health Metrics, found that women in many parts of the U.S. are not living as long as they did even a generation ago. Health.com reported: Since 1997, women&#8217;s life expectancy has slipped or failed to rise in more than 850 counties (compared to just 84 counties for men), including 82% of the counties in Oklahoma, 66% in Tennessee, and 59% in Kentucky. In Mississippi, there are five counties where the life expectancy for women is on par with nations such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Peru. The reason? One of the study&#8217;s authors, Dr. Christopher Murray, notes that obesity, smoking and other risk factors associated with overweight such as high blood pressure may be playing a role. Poverty may be contributing as well, since obesity rates and poor eating habits tend to be higher among those who struggle to make a living. Those dying the youngest, according to the report, live in poverty-stricken urban areas such as St.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=36260&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/105776650lifeexpect6-15-11crop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<title>Twinning Is Winning: Why Moms of Twins Live Longer</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/11/twins-can-mean-a-longer-life-for-mom/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/11/twins-can-mean-a-longer-life-for-mom/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 May 2011 13:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[long life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[multiple births]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twins]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=33094</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Researchers at the University of Utah report in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B that women who have twins are more likely to live longer, have more children over their lifetime and have offspring closer together, compared with women who had singletons. The catch is that these women had twins naturally, in the era well before the advent of contraception or infertility treatments like in-vitro fertilization that now make multiple births relatively common. The scientists worked with a unique collection of health records known as the Utah Population Database, which includes vital statistics on 1.6 million people who lived in Utah from the early 1800s to the 1970s. The university group divided their data into two population cohorts — those born before and after 1870, when contraceptives started to emerge. In the end the researchers analyzed data on 58,786 non-polygamous women who lived to age 50 or longer. Women who were born before 1870 and had twins had a 7.6% lower risk of dying each year than women who had singletons. Women born after 1870 who had twins also enjoyed lower mortality, but with only a 3.3% reduction in risk compared with moms of singletons. Evolutionarily, says the study&#8217;s lead author, Ken Smith, director of the Utah Population Database and a professor of family consumer studies at University of Utah, living longer provides a selective advantage. &#8220;The argument is that people have to live long enough to bear children and rear them so the offspring live long enough to reach sexual maturity so they in turn can reproduce,&#8221; he says. &#8220;People who are less able to do that are selected against, and they tend to disappear from the population.&#8221; Mothers of twins, in other words, may be fitter for survival. Having multiple births clearly takes a toll on the mother; previous studies have shown that women who have twins, triplets or other sets of multiples suffer more complications at birth and many long-term effects from carrying more than one child in utero. (Not to mention the headache of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=33094&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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