The Importance of Lifestyle and Health Care Program for Longevity

What is longevity? Longevity is described by the duration of one`s life. Nearly everyone dreams of living forever. Many may even believe that it`s a gift from God to live a long life. Numerous researchers, and scientist are attempting to learn more and become familiar with longevity. Writer Ben Bova wrote a book, Immortality, which is one of the numerous ongoing volumes that clarify how science is beginning to discover mortality, aging, and increasing life spans. “Biologist are learning what causes aging in the cells of your body,” he states. I decide to describe two main factors that, in my opinion, can affect human lifespan the most - it is his or her lifestyle and the quality of heathcare program where he or she lives. 

First, we`ll start with lifestyle. The way a person lives can impact their longevity immensely. Your life span could increase by simply changing a few bad habits you may have. For instance, if you don`t typically workout start by adding some regular physical activity into your daily routine. According to new research “Americans can increase life expectancy at age 50 by 14 years for women and 12.2 years for men if five lifestyle habits are adopted. What’s more, the five factors examined – regular physical activity, not smoking, adopting a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy BMI, and moderate alcohol consumption – result in additive gains, meaning that as each factor is added, gains continue to accrue. That means that making improvements to one factor adds roughly two years, two factors adds four years, etc.” Aside from exercise you could also try to refrain from smoking of any kind. Smoking is linked to disease and early death. Individuals who smoke may lose as much as 10 years of life and may become more likely to die than those who`ve never smoked a day in their life. Drinking is another lifestyle decision which can affect one’s longevity. People who consume alcohol on a regular in high amounts can experience various things such as liver, heart, and pancreatic disease as well as a decrease in life pan so it`s best to moderate your alcohol intake. Anyone ever tell you that stress can kill you? Well, they weren’t exaggerating stress and anxiety can detrimentally decrease your lifespan.

Next, the access to quality health care can also play a role in your life and how long it may or may not last. Access is the ability to find services that are needed and be able to use them. A person’s demographics can play a pivotal role in gaining access to healthcare. Demographics can range from age, gender, race, ethnicity, and social status. There are programs designated to help those in need have access to the care they need such as Medicaid and Medicare. Medicaid is state health coverage for people with low incomes, children and those who are medically needy. Medicare on the on the other hand is federal coverage for those 65 and older and children under 18 with disabilities. Government assistance aside if we base access to medical care solely off of one`s social class the conversation would change drastically. The lower class citizen struggling to live would be less likely to access the medical attention they need to do their financial struggles and are more likely to be overlooked.  

In general, it has been proven that the human body has around 100 trillion cells and when they stop to reproduce so do, we. Scholars have discovered that every cell has a natural time clock that advises the cell when to quit and when to bite the dust. There are many factors that can contribute to one`s longevity. Nevertheless, the most important are  lifestyle and access to quality healthcare.