不费力的长寿活法
How to Live Longer Without Really TryingBy MICHELLE SLATALLA
Published: April 24, 2008
MY neighbor Bruce has the healthiest lifestyle on the block. He eats small portions and skips dessert. He walks to work. His hobbies — coaching Little League, riding his bike and taking his dog on hikes — all involve getting wholesome, fresh air.
This behavior drives my husband, who has the least healthy lifestyle on the block, crazy. “You’re going to be so lonely living forever,” he yells at Bruce from our balcony, where we drink beer. “All the interesting people will be dead.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” I chime in to show support for my husband (and Anchor Steam).
But secretly I’m on Bruce’s side. I wouldn’t mind living forever. Or at least long enough to blow out the candles on my 100th birthday cake.
Maybe I can. According to a new book that looks at the daily routines of clusters of centenarians who live in four geographically remote or culturally isolated “blue zones” of longevity — from Okinawa to a community of Seventh Day Adventists in Southern California — all I need to do to extend my life is follow a few of their simple secrets.
Eat less. Make family a priority. Banish stress. I figured it should be no problem to follow most of the common-sense tips that Dan Buettner outlines in “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest” (National Geographic, 2008).
Of course, I was not going to be able to work a nightly glass of mugwort sake into my diet as easily as an Okinawan. Or spend the whole day hiking uphill like a Sardinian shepherd.
But maybe I could take advantage of the culturally isolated and geographically remote environment in which I live — my basement, in front of a computer — to create my own blue zone. I hoped, in fact, to find a way to obey the Power 9 — what Mr. Buettner nicknamed the rules of longevity — without ever getting up from my desk.
The first step was a cinch. Mr. Buettner recommends getting started by visiting {www.bluezones.com} to take a test called the Vitality Compass. Answer 35 questions, and voilà, it calculates your life expectancy.
I felt healthier already. Two minutes later, I received (sort of) good news.
“You are in the Blue Zone!” the Web site told me, adding that my biological age is 40, which is better than both my real age (46) and my Wii Fit age (49), but not nearly as young as the age I would like to look (23).
But then the results took a dark turn.
My life expectancy: 95.2.
My healthy life expectancy: 83.9.
While 12 years of decline was bad news for me, it would be even more of a blow to my children, who already have been warned that they won’t inherit my jewelry if they put me in a nursing home.
The only way to react to such dark news was to scoff at it, and dismiss the quiz as a publicity stunt to sell books.
Sadly, however, it turned out that the quiz results were based on a complex, 106-page algorithm developed by Dr. Robert Kane, a physician and a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
“What the results tell you are a confirmation and a consolidation of what’s been known, for the most part,” for decades, Dr. Kane said in an interview. “The challenge now is to try to get people to use it to change behavior. Most of us know what we ought to do, but have a hard time doing it.”
Like me. If I followed all the personalized advice in the quiz’s final report, I could get as much as an extra 2.3 years — if I didn’t get struck by lightning or some unforeseen fatal disease. But even knowing that incentive, I suffered an immediate setback. Two suggestions — get more rigorous exercise and eat less — made me hungry.
A few Mint Milano cookies later, I returned to my desk determined to improve. I e-mailed my tennis doubles partner, Stacey (who is also studying to become a certified personal trainer), to volunteer to let her train me twice during the next week.
She wrote back, with suggested training sessions and gossip about the latest team scandals, which sidetracked me until my fingers had gotten such a rigorous typing “workout” that I was ready to move on to the next suggestion: avoid salt.
To accomplish this, I sat at my desk awhile, eating nothing, until I figured enough time had passed to allow me to check off the no-salt suggestion.
Next: eat more fruit.
A Google search for salty fruit yielded 456,000 results. I settled quickly on something delicious called Sweet-n-Salty Fruit-n-Nut Honey Lace Brittle. Was that so hard?
After printing out the recipe, I moved on to the next suggestion: drink red wine.
Here — while people who know me might find this hard to believe — I hit a roadblock. While it’s possible, sometimes even essential, to drink wine in front of my computer, I couldn’t imagine myself drinking red.
Seeking clarification, I phoned Mr. Buettner. “Do you really think some book is going to get me to give up white wine?” I asked.
“No, no, you don’t have to,” he said in a reassuring tone meant to lower my stress level (another suggestion from my final report). “When it comes to drinking any spirits, a woman should have a drink a day and maybe two, unless pregnant.”
“Any spirits?” I pressed.
“You get this extra little antioxidant bump” from the polyphenols in red wine, he explained. “But white wine is fine too. I know drinking alcohol helps because I looked at epidemiology studies of huge populations and saw that those who drink a little outlive those who don’t.”
No doubt because nothing reduces stress like a full glass of chardonnay. And I needed relaxation more than ever because Mr. Buettner had become part of the problem. “I’m feeling considerable stress,” I told him, “because, according to your quiz, I am not going to live to be 100.”
“You have to have won the genetic lottery to live that long,” he said. “Like, did your grandparents and all their siblings live to be 100?”
I considered. Perhaps all four grandparents combined reached that age. My only option was to tackle another of the Power 9.
“I am thinking of trying to be more likable, as page 259 of your book suggests,” I said. “But how does that help?”
“If you’re likable, you’re likely to have a better social network, and even get better health care at the doctor’s office because the people who take your blood pressure will do a better job,” he said.
Pray tell, how to become more likable? “Be interested, not just interesting,” he said. “Likable people tend to ask you a question about yourself instead of just talking about themselves.”
Taking his advice, I changed my Facebook status to say, “Michelle is wondering what YOU are thinking.”
This prompted a Facebook friend to write a post: “Funny you should ask. ...”
Encouraged by how youthful my newfound amiability made me feel, I sent a text message to my Twitter entourage that said, “I meant to mention earlier, you look really good today.”
No response. So I texted, “Did you change your hair or what?”
This backfired. One of my Twitter-hating teenagers texted, “Do you realize that everyone can see what you’re typing?”
In desperation, I was ready to take the final bit of Mr. Buettner’s advice (“Maybe you should minimize time spent on the Internet as a way to reduce stress”) and spend some quality offline time “surrounded by those who share your blue-zone values.”
So I made a pan of calorie-laden chicken tetrazzini and went across the street to Bruce’s house with it. There my husband and I found him poring over the score sheet from a Little League game (his team won 20-5, which had to have diminished his stress).
“That looks good,” Bruce said, pointing to the casserole.
“Try some,” I said.
He had seconds. I didn’t.
By MICHELLE SLATALLA
出版： 2008年4月24日
Bruce是我的邻居，他是我们这个街区拥有最健康生活方式的人。他吃的不多，并拒绝餐后甜点。他走路上班。他的爱好是：指导小型联赛，骑自行车和遛狗，所有这些都使他获得更多的有益健康的新鲜空气。
他的这些习惯使我丈夫发疯，因为我丈夫是这个街区拥有最不健康生活方式的人。当我们在阳台上喝啤酒的时候，我丈夫对Bruce吼到：“当所有有趣的人都死去后，你将不得不一个人孤独的活着。”
“是的，祝你那时好运。”为了支持我丈夫（和Anchor Steam）。注：Anchor Steam为美国San Francisco's的一个著名啤酒品牌，从1896年开始一直手工酿造啤酒http://www.anchorbrewing.com/），我这样说到。
但是实际上我是站在Bruce一边的。我并不介意一直活下去。或者至少我能够活到吹100岁生日蜡烛的哪一刻。
也许我可以。最近出版的一本书研究了一些百岁老人的日常生活，这些老人都生活在4个地理位置偏远或者是文化上被隔绝的长寿“蓝色地带”上。根据这本书，为了延长我的寿命，我需要做的是遵守他们所提出的一些简单的规则。
不要多吃。以家庭为先。减少压力。Dan Buettner2008年在国家地理杂志上发表了题为“从最长寿者身上学到的长寿秘诀”的文章。在文章中他提出了一些有关延长寿命的建议。我认为执行大部分他所提出的具有普便意义的建议是没有困难的。
当然，我不可能象冲绳岛人那样容易的把一小杯（nightly glass？）日本艾蒿米酒（mugwort sake？）加入到食物中去。或者象一个撒丁岛（意大利）牧羊人那样整天爬山。
但是我想我可以在我的文化上隔离的和远离周围环境的地下室以及我的电脑前，创造出我自己的“蓝色地带”。我想我可以在不起立并离开我的电脑桌的前提下，遵循被Buettner先生命名为“9大力量”的延长寿命的规则。
第一步很容易。Buettner先生建议从www.bluezones.com网站上的“活力指南针（Vitality Compass）”测试开始。回答35个问题后，你的寿命预期将会被计算出来。
我已经感觉健康些了。2分钟后，我得到了一些好的消息。
网站显示：“你在蓝色区域内”， 并说我的生理年龄为40岁，比我的实际年龄（46岁）和Wii健康年龄（49岁）要小。（注：Wii健康年龄是用Wii游戏机测到的年龄。它通过评价测试者BMI值、重心和平衡能力而得到）但是并没有象我希望的那么年轻（23岁）。
但是随后的结果使我不愉快。
我的寿命预期为95.2岁
我的健康寿命预期为83.9岁。
可是12年的衰退期对我来说是坏消息。这对我的孩子来说也不是好消息，因为如果他们把我弄到养老院的话，他们将不能继承我的遗产。
对于这种怀消息，我们只有嘲笑它，把它作是为了卖书而发部的广告手段。
令人伤心的是，这个测试是以身为Minnesota公共健康学院医生和教授的Robert Kane博士，所研究出来的复杂的、长达106页的一种计算方法。
Kane博士在一次采访中说：“这个测试告诉你的是目前学术界已确认的并被完全接受的知识。现在的问题是让人们使用它、并改变生活方式。我们大多数人都知道应该怎么做，但是做起来却不容易。”
这就好像在说我。如果我遵循这个测试所提供的建议，如果我没有被闪电击中或者未知的疾病打倒，我可以获得额外的2.3年。
但是尽管知道我可能得到的好处，我还是马上退却。另外，他的两个建议,大量运动和少吃，使我感到饥饿。
在吃了几块薄荷味Milano点心后，我回到了桌前决定有所改进。我email我的网球双打伙伴Stacey（她正在学习以获得个人教练资格），告诉她我自愿让她每周训练我两次。
她给了我一份训练计划并聊起了新近的球队丑闻。这转移了我的目标，直到我发现我准备好进入下一个建议：避免盐分。
为了完成这一项，我在桌边做了一会，什么都没有吃，直到我看完所有的无盐的建议。
下一个：吃更多水果。
通过谷歌搜索咸味水果，我得到了456000个结果。我选择了一种既甜又咸、并撒上碎干果和坚果的脆饼。这太难了。
在打印出制作方法后，我进入到下一个项目：喝红酒。
了解我的人都知道，我在这里，遇到了困难。我常在在电脑前喝酒，有时甚至是必须的；但是我不能想象我会去喝红酒。
为了弄明白，我致电Buettner先生，问道：“你真的认为几本书能使我放弃白酒吗？”
为了减低我的紧张情绪（在测试报告中提到的另一个建议），他用一种很肯定的语气说：“不、不，你没有必要；谈道喝酒，除非怀孕，女士应该每天喝一到两杯。”
“哪一种酒？”我追问道。
他解释到：“你可以从红酒的多酚中获得更多的抗氧化物质，但是白酒也可以提供一部分这种物质。我知道（少量）喝酒有益健康，因为大人群的流行病学研究发现，喝一点点酒的人活的时间长一些。”
一杯chardonnay的消除紧张的作用是勿庸置疑的。并且现在我比任何时候都更需要消除紧张，因为Buettner先生成为一个问题。
我对他说：“我觉得相当紧张了，因为基于你的测试，我不能活到100岁。”
他说：“你必须得到能活那么长的基因才行，请问，你的祖父母以及他们的兄弟姐妹活到100岁了吗？”
我开始想，可能我4位祖父母的年龄加在一起有那么多吧。我唯一的机会是抓住“9大力量”中的另一个。
我说：“我在想如果我能象你在书的259面所建议的那样，但是它能起什么作用呢？”
他说：“如果你很受欢迎的话，你会有一个好的社交圈；并且由于测量你血压的人工作更努力，你也能在医生那里得到更好的医疗护理。”
坦白的说，如何变得受欢迎呢？他说：“对他人感兴趣，而不仅仅是让人对你感兴趣；受欢迎的人倾向于问关于你的问题，而不是仅仅谈论他们自己。”
基于他的建议，我把自己在Facebook上的介绍改为：“我在思考“你”在想什么。”
这使得一个Facebook上的朋友留言到：“有趣的是你应该问。。。”
我被我刚刚产生的亲和力所鼓舞，我又发了一条消息：“我想早点说，你今天看起来很不错。”
没有回应，我问道：“你改变了发型或者什么的吗？”
但是这却适得其反。一个讨厌我Twitter（一种流行网聊平台）的青少年说：“你知道每个人都能看到你打的文字吗？”
在绝望中，我决定接受Buettner先生的最后一个建议（也许你可以通过尽量少上网以缓解压力），并且与那些认同你“蓝色地带”的朋友共享这段时间。
所以我烤了一盘富于卡路里的脆皮鸡，并带到Bruce家中。我和我的丈夫发现Bruce正注视着墙上的一张小联赛的成绩单（他的球队以20比5获胜，从而减低了他的紧张情绪）
Bruce指着烤盘说：“那看起来不错。”
我说：“你尝尝。”
他吃了2块，但是我没有。
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