The family age connection
The longer your parents live, the more likely you are to live to a ripe old age, new study finds.
Video transcript:
If your parents live a long time, you have a better chance of having a healthy ticker into a ripe old age yourself.
A new study used data on the health of over 186,000 offspring ages 55 to 73. Researchers followed the participants over a period of up to eight years. The team found those whose parents lived longer had lower incidence of conditions like heart disease, heart failure, stroke, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. For example, the risk of dying from heart disease was found to be about 20% lower for each decade that a parent lives beyond 70.
Lifestyle factors such as obesity, smoking, alcohol consumption and activity rates are all important, but the lead researchers said the study "tells us that, while avoiding the well-known risk factors such as smoking is very important, there are also other factors inherited from parents. As we understand these parental factors better, we should be able to help more people to age well."
I'm Dr. Cindy Haines of Healthday TV, with the information you need to protect your health.
