{"id":96325,"date":"2014-03-04T12:07:14","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T17:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=96325"},"modified":"2014-03-04T12:07:39","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T17:07:39","slug":"40-is-the-new-20-which-is-good-news-feeling-younger-will-help-you-live-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/03\/40-is-the-new-20-which-is-good-news-feeling-younger-will-help-you-live-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"40 is the New 20. Which is Good News: Feeling Younger Will Help You Live Longer"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Janis Jibrin, M.S., R.D., Best Life<\/a> <\/strong>lead nutritionist<\/em><\/p>\n

How old are you? Now, how old do you feel? The two numbers might not necessarily match up\u2014your \u201creal age\u201d could be years younger than your chronological age.\u00a0 Or, if you\u2019ve abused your body and\/or have a chronic disease, you could be older than your real age.<\/p>\n

\"aging\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re curious about your \u201creal age,\u201d there are a number of easy-to-use online questionnaires that can calculate this\u2014I used RealAge<\/a> <\/strong>to find mine but a quick Google search will reveal plenty more options. You simply fill out information on your medical history, including diseases, blood cholesterol levels, blood pressure<\/a> <\/strong>and other lab values.\u00a0 Mood, depression<\/a>,<\/strong> and even your sex life are also queried, as well as risky behaviors like hours logged behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

Even as an advisory board member of Sharecare.com, which owns RealAge, I was skeptical. Could it\u2014or any other questionnaire\u2014churn out a legitimate number? I certainly hoped so; RealAge knocked 6.3 year off my age!\u00a0 And now, a new independent study has made me feel even better about my results.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Researchers from the University of California in San Diego analyzed more than 186,000 Californians who took the test between 2005 and 2026, when they were ages 30 to 79.\u00a0 Looking at California death records, researchers found that 1,046 test takers had died somewhere between one to five years after taking the test. With this information, researchers discovered that the test was more accurate at predicting a person\u2019s risk of dying than just knowing their chronological age.<\/p>\n

For each extra year RealAge adds to your chronological age, your risk of death rises by about 7.9 percent compared to an average American of the same chronological\u00a0 age.\u00a0 And for every year it subtracts, your risk of death decreases by 7.9 percent.\u00a0 I\u2019ll spare you the math, but what that ultimately means is that if, say, you took the test at age 35 but got a RealAge score of 30, your risk of dying would be that of an average 30-year-old.<\/p>\n

A few caveats:\u00a0 The study population isn\u2019t perfectly representative of all Americans.\u00a0 The RealAge test takers were largely white, female, college-educated, and older (average age of 48).\u00a0\u00a0 Still, study authors note that RealAge outperformed a test widely considered the gold standard in research circles called the \u201cFramingham ATP-III.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So, there\u2019s a decent chance it will work as well for other racial\/gender groups. Being white, female, college-educated, and yes, a little older, I\u2019m sold:\u00a0 Take me back 6.3 years!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Also Read:<\/strong><\/p>\n

RealAge Diet<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Endurance Exercise Protects Against Aging<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

RealAge Launched Most Precise Assessment Yet<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Janis Jibrin, M.S., R.D., Best Life lead nutritionist How old are you? Now, how old do you feel? The two numbers might not necessarily match up\u2014your \u201creal age\u201d could be years younger than your chronological age.\u00a0 Or, if you\u2019ve … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3687,4333],"tags":[767,10632,8440],"class_list":["post-96325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adult-health","category-senior-health","tag-aging","tag-healthy-aging","tag-homepage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96325"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96331,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96325\/revisions\/96331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}