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164 views2 pages

UpperInt Adv ReadingText PDF

Uploaded by

Christina Moldoveanu
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Upper Intermediate/Advanced Reading Text

Life Longevity

A message from Life co-author, Helen Stephenson


Tortoises are among the record-breakers when it comes to lifespan. They can often live for 200
years. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to live that long, but, these days, we are all living longer. This
article about long life has made me think a lot about old age. How would I feel about living
beyond 100? What about you?

A long and healthy life?


A baby born today could live to be not only 100, but even 120 years old. Hard to believe?
Apparently, there could be a gene for not only long life, but long and healthy life.

Even today, there are many, many people who have passed the landmark age of 100 –
an age that seemed an impossible achievement only a few decades ago. In fact, there
are now so many healthy, elderly people that a new term has been coined: the
wellderly. These are people over the age of 80 who have no chronic diseases such as
high blood pressure, coronary disease or diabetes and who have never taken
medication for these conditions.

There have been quite a few scientific studies of communities where a healthy old age
is typical. These include places like Calabria in southern Italy and the island of Okinawa
in Japan.

The small village of Molochio in Calabria numbers about 2,000 inhabitants. And of
these, there are at least eight centenarians. When researchers ask people like this
what the secret of their long life is, the answer is invariably to do with diet and is
almost always the same: ‘I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables.’ ‘A little bit, but of
everything.’ ‘No smoking, no drinking.’

But such evidence is now regarded as unreliable and these days scientists are looking
beyond diet and lifestyle to genetic factors. Eric Topol is one researcher who questions
the received wisdom, saying, ‘There must be genes that explain why some individuals
are protected from the harmful genes that affect the aging process.’

New research into long life, looking at groups of people who have a genetic
connection, has taken scientists to Ecuador. In one small region there are a number of
people with a genetic condition called Laron syndrome. The main effect of this
condition is to restrict the individual’s growth to little more than a metre, but it also
seems to protect them against both cancer and diabetes. Ultimately, those with
Laron’s syndrome live longer than the rest of their families. Meanwhile, on the
Hawaiian island of Oahu, there’s a completely separate group of Japanese-American
men who are particularly long-lived. And it turns out that they have a variant of the
same gene as the Laron syndrome group.

Back in Calabria, scientists have been trying to work out exactly how much of the local
longevity is due to genetics and how much to environmental factors. By checking
public records going back to the 19th century, researchers have reconstructed the
family trees of 202 nonagenarians and centenarians. They concluded that there were
genetic factors which seemed to benefit the men more than the women – a surprising
result because generally in Europe, women centenarians outnumber men by about five
to one.

So what really makes people live longer? It seems likely that it is an interaction of
genes, the environment and ultimately a third factor beyond our control – luck.

Glossary
centenarian (n) – someone who is older than 100 years old
nonagenarian (n) – someone who is between 90 and 100 years old

Key Words
achievement (n) – something which someone has succeeded in doing, especially something
difficult
benefit (v) – to help someone or improve their life
chronic (adj) – a chronic illness continues for a long time
evidence (n) – facts or physical signs that make you believe that something is true
harmful (adj) – having a bad effect on something or on someone's health
inhabitant (n) – the inhabitants of a place or region are the people who live there
medication (n) – a substance that you take to treat an illness
restrict (v) – to physically limit or control something
unreliable (adj) – not definitely true or correct

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