First a few simple facts, a centenarian is someone who’s lived to 100. There are about 50,000 centenarians in the U.S., or one per 6,000 people. A supercentenarian is someone who is at least 110 years old.

According to a recent Forbes magazine article, How To Live To 100, partly based an interview with Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. The main points of the article were:

1. Pick your parents well – genetics play a big role.
2. Then live right – avoid obesity, heavy drinking, smoking and high blood pressure
3. Exercise–into old age – seems self explanatory
4. Avoid obesity – being obese in middle age roughly doubles mortality rates, depending on the study.
5. Don’t smoke, drink (a little vino) – The lowest mortality risk was found at four drinks a week.
6. Eat your veggies, hold the steak – diets high in fruits and vegetables are consistently associated with longer life, in epidemiological studies.

Olshansky’s site is a treasure trove of articles on aging.

Our friends at Evercare pointed us to their annual survey of centenarians called, 100@100, conducted by our research friends at GfK Roper. It’s a great peek into the lives of people who have made it that far. Some of the interesting tidbits include:

• More so than any other generation, 63% of these Centenarians say continuing to make new friends is very important to healthy aging
• 64% say they feel very independent right now
• 63% believe that our health is determined by our lifestyle choices
• 19% use cell phones
• 12% have used the Internet (think about it, they were probably in their late 80s when most of us started with the Web)
• 3% report that they have dated someone they met through an online social networking site (perhaps being young at heart is a key)

If you’d like to read the report, you can find it here: 2008 Evercare 100 at 100 Survey

Some researchers estimate that 25% of variances in life span can be attributed to genes, with the remaining 75% to environmental factors, such as exercise and diet. Though, in cases of extreme longevity, genetics probably play a much greater role.

A Loma Linda University study found that Seventh-Day Adventists who maintain healthy habits live 10 years longer than those who did not follow a vegetarian diet and did not exercise regularly. On a side note, John Harvey Kellogg, brother of William K. Kellogg the cereal entrepreneur, was a Seventh-Day Adventist who ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health complex that attracted people from all over the world. The vegetarian diet there gave rise to Kellogg’s corn flakes and other cereals. C.W. Post, inspired by his time at the Sanitarium, founded the Postum Cereal Co. The Kellogg brothers both live to 91. Post was only 59 when he died.

The Living to 100 site has a life expectancy calculator that asks you 40 questions related to your health and family history and estimates how old you will live to be. According to the site, most people score in their late eighties.

Some books on living to 100

• Living To 100: Lessons In Living To Your Maximum Potential At Any Age
• Centenarians: The Bonus Years
• The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest
• If I Live to Be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians

Martha Stewart has her own recommendations in, Five Steps to Living to 100. They include:

• Floss Daily – The thought is that gum inflammation leads to a continuously elevated level of inflammation throughout the body.
• Find a Good Doctor and Ask the Right Questions – Being inquisitive and proactive about your health can add up to four years to your life.
• Avoid Diabetes – Keeping your blood sugar tightly controlled can add at least six years to your life
• Avoid Risky Sexual Behavior – This can add up to 20 years to your life by protecting you from diseases such as HIV, hepatitis, and cervical cancer.
• Keep Blood Pressure Under Control – Keeping your blood pressure under control can add up to 22 years to your life.

If you want to read a more technical paper on living to 100, try Living to 100 and Beyond: Search for Predictors of Exceptional Human Longevity on the Society of Actuaries site.

Finally, why stop at 100? Catch Aubrey de Grey’s TED talk: Why we age and how we can avoid it

What did we miss?