Quote:
Originally Posted by kittygilchrist
I have three aunts in their 90's still living independently and adjacently and they squabble over who is the best condition to mow their yards. All of them were raised eating Tennessee fresh farm vegetables and meats full of fat...sausage, salted ham and delicious ham gravy made with coffee, fried chicken, cow's milk.
That's not research by any means...they all pray, maybe that's their secret to longevity. that and hard work and stubborn independence? Hope i got their genes!
|
We can all find anecdotes or testimonials to prove whatever we want to prove. For example, my grandfather lived to age 97 and his lifestyle was a mixture of good and bad. Was it a case of the good things overcoming the bad? He worked hard but was not at all religious. I don't think he ate a lot of processed foods or red meat but he had a really big waistline at middle age. He had just one son who made it into his 70s (died of cancer) and 4 daughters who all had cancer. Yet both my grandfather and grandmother never had cancer. If they had anti-cancer genes, what happened to them?
Here's a good one: Do you remember Jeanne Calment the woman who lived to the age of 122? Her father lived to 94 and her mother lived to 86. That's pretty good but was no indication that she would live to 122. If she had special genes, where did they come from? She had one daughter who died at age 36. What does this anecdote prove, if anything?
If we all sit around hoping that our genes will pull us through, we may be sadly mistaken. Over 70,000 Adventists were in the study, with basically the same genes as the rest of us, and yet their average life expectancy is 88 while ours is only 78.