Disability Stronger Predictor of Longevity Than Disease Is

MONDAY, Feb. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Among Americans living to the ripe old age of 100 and counting, it is the ability to delay the onset of disability, andnotthe onset of disease, that seems to secure a long life.

A new study reveals that 32 percent of centenarians struggle with age-related illness for 15 years or more before hitting the 100 mark. Yet mental or physical disability is no more prevalent among this group than among centenarians who stave off disease until later in life.

"One would have guessed that to get to extreme old age, you'd have to avoid or delay disease," said study co-author Dr. Thomas Perls, director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston Medical Center. "But some very old people with significant illness still live independently. And the message here is that one shouldn't jump to the conclusion that disease equals disability."

Perl's study is published in the Feb. 11 issue of theArchives of Internal Medicine.

In it, he and his colleagues noted that men and women over the age of 85 are the fastest-growing segment of the American population.

A 2001 U.S. Census Bureau report further reveals that, as of 2000, a little more than 50,000 centenarians were living in the United States -- roughly one in every 5,578 people. By 2050, this figure will rocket up to 834,000 Americans living past 100.

To explore this phenomenon, the authors analyzed health history questionnaires regarding 739 men and women between the ages of 97 and 119. A little more than 70 percent of the participants were women, and almost all were white.

Almost one-third of the centenarians indicated that they had initially developed at least one age-related disease before the age of 85.

Yet the researchers found that by the time they reached the 100-year mark, these so-called "survivors" of heart or lung disease, osteoarthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, dementia, and/or Parkinson's were generally no more disabled or functionally dependent than seniors who remained disease-free until after age 85.

Stark gender differences were apparent, however. While noting that women are far more likely to reach 100 than men, the authors found that male centenarians function significantly better physically and mentally than female centenarians.

Among "survivors" alone, 72 percent of men were considered functionally "independent", compared with 34 percent of women. And among all centenarians, 67 percent of men had normal or mildly impaired cognitive function, compared with just 42 percent of women.

The researchers floated the explanation that men are generally far less resilient than women, so that those men who do make it to 100 are the cream of the crop.