More Americans than ever are joining the rarest of age groups: people who live at least 100 years.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose 100th birthday is Tuesday, is on the cusp of joining them. Carter, his health frail, has been in home hospice for 19 months.
But the health of centenarians varies greatly and Carter is an anomaly in some ways, says Thomas Perls, a Boston University geriatrics professor who leads the New England Centenarian Study, which bills itself as the largest study of centenarians and their families in the world.
While some are disabled and feeble, many who live a century or longer are physically better off than the former president, Perls said. Often, they are capable of surprising us and undercutting stereotypes about very old age.
It’s not unusual for some to be living on their own past the age of 100, researchers say. Often they cook for themselves. Some are still driving.
Centenarians in Georgia interviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution still exercise. Read. Start new hobbies. And fall in love.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Researchers still are trying to decipher what allows some people to not only live longer than most, but also delay, survive or avoid diseases that can ravage others. So some centenarians agree to answer numerous research questions, undergo blood tests and donate their brains to be studied after they die, all to help understand how others might be able to live better longer.
This much already is clear: Americans living to at least 100 years are growing in number and as a proportion of the nation, though they still make up just a sliver of the population.
In 1950, there were only 2,300 centenarians in the U.S., said a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau estimates. Now, there are more than 100,000. They are expected to top 400,000 by 2054, their proportion rising from 3 to 14 of every 10,000 Americans.
Such shifts raise potential societal and economic implications and, closer to home, ramifications for long-life individuals and their families.
Why more people are living much longer
Around 1900, the average life expectancy in the United States was 49 years, the Census Bureau says. But a host of societal, public health and medical changes dramatically boosted the odds for longer lives.
Some of the sharpest gains came with big cuts in infant mortality early in the last century, as well as advances against infectious diseases and higher education levels and standards of living. Also helping are decades of other improvements: vaccinations, high blood pressure treatments, cholesterol-lowering medicines, trauma care, safety measures, reductions in smoking, cleaner water and air, and cancer detection and treatment.
Genes also might play a role for those who live longest, perhaps with the right combination of just the right variants.
“About half of our centenarians have a history of longevity in their families,” Perls said. “The other half we just don’t know.”
One wave has yet to join the centenarian ranks: the giant Baby Boom cohort, whose first members were born in 1946.
Redefining ‘old’
When Kerstin Gerst Emerson asks University of Georgia students taking her gerontology classes about when old age begins, most choose 65 or even 55. But as many Americans age and remain healthy longer than earlier generations, “we keep pushing out where old is.”
Part of Emerson’s class includes challenging age stereotypes. Early in the semester, she asks students, many of whom are just 19, for words they associate with people who are old. The list they compile — from “wheelchair” to “smelly,” but also “wise” and “cookies” — usually is far longer on negatives than positives. Many, she said, seem to have little interaction with people over the age of 75, or even 65.
When she recently asked her students about Carter, the longest-living president in U.S. history, all of them thought he already had died.
Jill Stuckey, the superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park in Plains, said the former president and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, shared with her why they tenaciously tried to stay healthy and live as long as they could.
“They ate right every single day. They exercised right every single day. They worked every day at living long enough that they could help as many people as they possibly could,” Stuckey said.
She recalled when the former commander-in-chief was perhaps 91 years old. He had just returned from a particularly long overseas flight, sat through a long media interview, then insisted on swimming laps in the pool behind his house before relaxing over dinner.
Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years, died in November at the age of 96.
What life is like for people who are 100 or older
Carter has struggled with his health for several years. In 2015, he revealed that cancer had spread — he thought he had only weeks to live — before he recovered. In 2019, he fell and broke his hip. When he entered home hospice in February 2023, his family believed he would live only a few more days. Confined to a wheelchair, the former president has not appeared in public since his wife’s funeral, when he appeared gaunt and infirm.
About 10% to 15% of centenarians have no clinically demonstrable diseases by the time they turn 100, Perls said. He calls them “escapers,” with the best chance of reaching 105 or 110. Another 43% are “delayers,” who didn’t get age-related diseases until at least 85. About as many are “survivors,” who had serious issues at younger ages but outlasted the problems.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
When centenarians do have major health problems, they tend to die from them relatively quickly, he said.
“Every now and then,” Perls said, he hears of centenarians who have done all the wrong things, such as overeating or heavy smoking — but that’s pretty rare.
Some centenarians manage to avoid common issues such as macular degeneration that cuts into eyesight. Some don’t rely on walkers. What many have in common is a sense of optimism about their health and an ability to deal with stress better, Perls said.
Do Americans want to live to 100?
More than half of Americans say they want to live to 100, said a recent survey done for Corebridge Financial, a company that provides retirement savings products; the survey highlighted the worries of people having enough money for old age.
A survey tied to health tech company Medtronic found that while most Americans want to live to at least 90, generally they’d prefer a shorter, healthier existence than a longer one with health problems. They voice concerns about being in pain or becoming a burden to loved ones.
Leonard Poon spent a quarter-century as a professor at UGA, where he led the Georgia Centenarian Study, a basket of one of the biggest research projects studying people 100 or older, all living independently.
Retired and in his early 80s, Poon said earlier this year he aims to live into his 90s: “I personally do not have any wish to live to 100.”
Why not? He has grappled with health issues. To reach the century mark and still be “cognitively intact, have appropriate resources and also be healthy? That is not an easy thing to do. It is a very difficult thing to do.”
In the meantime, he has focused on living as well as he can for as long as he can, based on what he gleaned from his years of research.
His day starts at 7:45 a.m. He’ll have a sensible breakfast. He walks for 45 minutes to an hour. Then he takes a stretching class. Then he works out in a weight room for 45 minutes. He has a light lunch, naps, then plays table tennis. He said it’s fun and social, and relies on good hand-eye coordination and decision-making.
Perls, the New England researcher, said people used to think living to 85 was good enough. But the more people he meets through his work who are living to 100 or older, the more he wants what they have.
“Centenarians are raising the bar in thinking about what may be possible,” he said.
Ways to improve your chances of living a long, healthy life
Perls has noticed a common theme in his conversations with people who reach 100 years. “Centenarians are thankful for every day they’ve got,” he said.
He said some of the studies so far also suggest ways people can improve their lives. It’s less about life span and more about what he refers to as “health span.”
He has distilled his learning into seven factors that spell “SAGEING.”
S — Sleep. Get enough of it.
A — Attitude. Optimism and managing stress help. Healthy centenarians tend to be social and feel they have purpose in life.
G — Genetics. It is believed to play a part in longevity. Knowing what health issues parents and grandparents dealt with can offer clues for what their descendants should screen for and what lifestyle changes they should consider.
E — Exercise. Do it six or seven days a week for at least 30 minutes each time, including aerobic workouts three days a week and strength training the remaining days.
I — Interests. Exercising your brain might help. Find new, cognitively challenging interests that keep the mind engaged, like learning a new language or playing a new instrument.
N — Nutrition. Limit carbohydrates. Avoid a lot of white-colored foods such as pasta and white bread. Avoid red meat.
G — Get rid of cigarettes. Avoid what he calls “anti-aging quackery” products.
— AJC staffer Jennifer Peebles contributed to this report
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