'Super-agers' study may reveal secrets to staying young

Yahoo – AFP, Kerry Sheridan, 3 Nov 2015

Regular exercise and a Mediterranean diet are known to help foster healthy

aging (AFP Photo/Federica Narancio)

Miami (AFP) - Mary Helen Abbott, 77, paints her lips bright pink, still smokes the occasional cigarette, keeps up on all the gossip at the retirement home and wears a short skirt to fitness class.

She giggles as the aerobics instructor shouts -- "Swagger! Like you are going to meet someone famous!" -- then she and a dozen seniors throw shoulders back, lift their knees high and strut around the exercise studio.

Abbott is what scientists refer to as a "super-ager," and she is taking part in a $3.2 million study that aims to uncover the secrets to staying sharp and healthy into old age.

While some hunt for medications to treat or prevent dementia, others, like University of Miami neuropsychologist David Loewenstein, are interested in why some people are spared altogether.

"I study Alzheimer's disease, but if we want to unlock the mysteries of the brain we also have to know why some people age successfully," said Loewenstein.

The five-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health is open to people age 63 to 100 who have not been diagnosed with dementia, and who are either in good mental shape or have early signs of memory failure, known as mild cognitive decline.

A man gardens at Florida's East Ridge retirement village, where many residents

 here are taking part in a University of Miami study that seeks to uncover the secrets

of healthy aging and staying sharp well into the 90s (AFP Photo/Federica Narancio)

Loewenstein is particularly intrigued with how some people seem to be able to fend off memory loss, whether by genetic, environmental or other means.

He cites studies involving autopsies on people 85 and above -- a population in which about one in three suffers from dementia.

Nearly another third of this age group have post-mortems that reveal significant hallmarks of dementia -- known as plaques and tangles in the brain -- but seemed just fine while alive.

"How can people function at these higher levels? Science has not been able to answer that," said Loewenstein.

"And that is what we are trying to figure out."

Staying busy

Of the 100 people enrolled in Loewenstein's study so far, more than 40 live at East Ridge, a retirement village that resembles a typical suburban neighborhood in south Florida, with wild peacocks roaming beneath the palm trees, people driving around the manicured grounds on golf carts, and rows of single-story homes divided into multiple apartment units.

Mary Helen Abbott, 77, is what scientists refer to as a "super-ager," and she is taking

 part in a $3.2 million study that aims to uncover the secrets to staying sharp and

healthy into old age (AFP Photo/Federica Narancio)

Such tranquility does not come cheap. Residents must pay $111,000 up front, then a monthly rent of $2,700 or more, depending on the size of their living space.

Soon after arriving seven years ago, Gwen North, a retired kindergarten teacher who appears decades younger than her age of 85, took on the responsibility of running the thrift store.

"I work probably six days a week," she said, happily.

At age 86, her husband Art is known as the go-to-guy around town -- perpetually ready to chat, share information, or fix electronics that have broken.

Art and Gwen have already taken memory tests and are giving samples of their spinal fluid so that it can be studied for the earliest biological markers of aging. They have even arranged to donate their brains for further study after they die.

'Exercise in a pill'

So what has kept them young?

"Staying busy. And good genes," said Gwen.

"Just working. And my wife," added Art.

It turns out, there is scientific data to back up their claims.

"We have known for a long time that people in the workforce are better than people out of work," said Laura Carstensen, founding director of the Stanford University Center on Longevity, addressing a forum on aging at the National Academy of Medicine last month in Washington.

With cases of dementia in the United States set to triple, reaching 132 million by 2050,

 some experts warn the disease could bankrupt major world economies and cripple

health systems (AFP Photo/Federica Narancio)

"Work -- paid or unpaid -- may improve cognitive functioning."

Regular exercise and a Mediterranean diet are also known to help foster healthy aging.

"Geriatricians I know say that if we could put exercise in a pill form it would be the most sought-after drug on the market," she said.

Social connections

Abbott confesses that prior to entering the retirement home, she was not doing so well. After her husband died, she lost weight and felt lonely.

"One of the big reasons I like being here is I got tired of eating by myself," said Abbott.

She clearly thrives on social contact. Now, she plays golf every Monday and rides the bus to church on weekends.

Abbott leads the welcoming committee and knows everyone, from the gay couple who just moved in, to the woman in her 90s who nearly died but is now lifting weights again in exercise class, to the woman with the raven hair who had a tryst with a doctor 20 years her senior, then married him, and has stayed married to him for some 40 years.

She recounts these vignettes without malice, exuding pure delight at knowing the details of others' lives.

"Epidemiological studies show that people with a lifetime of cognitively

 stimulating activities and social connections are much less at risk for cognitive

 decline as they age," says University of Miami neuropsychologist David 

Loewenstein (AFP Photo/Federica Narancio)

There's some science behind this, too.

"Epidemiological studies show that people with a lifetime of cognitively stimulating activities and social connections are much less at risk for cognitive decline as they age," said Loewenstein.

Economic burden

Of course, it is impossible to ignore the economics of healthy aging. Many of the residents at East Ridge are educated and white. They saved their earnings, invested well and benefited from the boom in real estate prices.

The poor are often more prone to the ravages of aging. Research also shows that African-Americans and Hispanics suffer disproportionately higher rates of dementia than the country's whites.

With cases of dementia in the United States set to triple, reaching 132 million by 2050, some experts warn the disease could bankrupt major world economies and cripple health systems.

But Carstensen believes society could also benefit from a new perspective, one that doesn't automatically conflate aging with illness.

Related Article:

"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“..  The Biggest Filter that Hinders Truth is Your Biased Knowledge

The biggest filter of humanity, the one that keeps Humans from actual truth, believe it or not, is called knowledge. We speak of that which humanity perceives currently as knowledge. That which you do not know is, therefore, future knowledge. Now, every single scientist understands the difference - every single one - for they know what is coming is going to teach them what they don't know yet. This is part of the scientific process. Even so, they take what they know, or think they know, and completely let it temper the experiments for what they don't know. They base the future on what they know or believe, even though they know better!

A medical doctor will look in the past and he'll remember being taught about a time when humans would report to the barbershop for healing. That's when they would actually bleed people for healing. By the way, that's the reason for the barber pole having the red stripe on it - it's the tradition of barbers doing the bleeding. So back then, you went to get healed in the barbershop by being bled! This, of course, led to many deaths because there was no understanding of germs, sterilization or today's common sense. Doctors know this, and they laugh at how far you all have come from this. So doctors absolutely know that what is coming will someday be actually laughable, yet they are also absolutely and completely closed to what it might be. They just think it will be an advancement of what they currently know.  ….”

“..  Medicine - Where It's Going

I want to show you some other areas to consider. There are several categories that we'd like to talk about, but they're not in a specific order except for the last one. So let's talk about medicine. What is future medicine going to look like?

The most elegant predictions of medicine fall short of what's really coming. What you have today is a high-tech approach to designer chemistry. Now, since the body is made up of chemistry, it makes sense to look at this chemistry and work with it. It makes total sense to discover how it reacts to disease and then design cures with more chemistry. It's absolutely normal what you have done, but it's going to reach an end very soon. Because the future of medicine is physics, dear ones, not chemistry.

You're going to start understanding and developing new medical physics. You will discover that medi-physics is going to literally speak to cellular structure and give it instructions, without one chemical involved. There's always a reaction to chemistry, isn't there? There's always a side effect. When you push one thing, something else reacts, doesn't it? How do you like it so far? Your most elegant chemical designs, the ones that are helping with the worst diseases on the planet, all have side effects - and some of those side effects are death! I say to you, how do you like it so far?

Does it really seem elegant to you? Or perhaps it's just a more sophisticated way of bleeding in the barbershop? Dear ones, that's how you're going to look at it someday! You're going to slap your heads and say, "Remember the day when we did everything with chemistry and drugs?"

Right now, these kinds of changes have already started in several areas. There are discoveries being made that are healing some of the most heart-breaking diseases you have. I reveal one, because it's not a secret. I will always give you information that is either being worked on or has been postulated through free choice on this planet. That is the guideline of channelling. We can't give it to you. You've got to develop it yourself. However, we can put you in an energy that has a faster discovery potential - that is to say, discoveries become more obvious.

Alzheimer's is heart breaking. There are millions on this planet who develop this condition, more all the time. You're living longer and a plaque-like material that literally obfuscates your memory within the brain is becoming more common. It clings to certain parts of your brain, encrusting and restricting it, imprisoning the Human's ability to remember and eventually process information at all. The result is death, slow death. It's caused by your environment, a fact which will be discovered eventually. Your long-lived Ancients didn't have it.

It's going to be cured with physics. Your science is starting to find out that the plaque-like substance has a resonance that allows it to be weakened with sound. High-frequency sound, tuned to a certain frequency and amplitude, will cause the sheaths to weaken, dissolve, and come off. There's a lot of research to do yet, but it's a Eureka! moment - realizing that physics alone, without chemistry, can change the structure of biology. This is with no side effects whatsoever. It's coming, it's coming.

There are those working with fresh umbilical cord stem cells right now who are using pure physics to guide the stem cells to a specific destination in the body in order to repair failing systems. Dear ones, the future of health and healing is not through better chemistry, yet medicine is still waiting for better pills! Did you connect the dots and realize that all biology is physics based? There is magnetics, leverage, the energy of consciousness, electricity and much more within cellular structure. With physics alone, you can "tune in" to disease and destroy it! You can fine-tune your system with cooperative resonances and extend life with benevolent, physical assistance. Sixteen years ago, I told you this when I spoke of the Temple of Rejuvenation. I described the super-cooling needed to do it and the temperatures needed to work with it (-55C). This is physics!

Now, the false expectation of greater chemistry for the future is totally caused from the filter of knowledge. What you have and know then gives you your expectation of what is going to take place. It literally blocks you from seeing some of the potentials that you may have.  ….”