The Navigator - Navigenics Blog
Genetic insights into health and wellness
March 31, 2009
What’s a secret to possibly preventing heart disease, diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease?
There are many effective strategies for reducing your risk, ranging from getting regular exercise and watching your diet to avoiding cigarettes and controlling your cholesterol.
But another measure has been emerging as a prevention powerhouse, one that is rarely discussed – and still frequently overlooked – by many health-conscious individuals.
Categories: Longevity, Prevention, Diabetes, Heart attack, Heart disease
| Email Post | Comments (6) | Permalink
December 29, 2008
Are you going to be healthy in 2009? How you answer that question may actually influence how well you feel – and how long you live.
If you’re a “glass-is-half-full” kind of person, enjoying an optimistic outlook on life, you’re much more likely to have better physical and mental functioning than people who believe the glass is half empty, research suggests.
Regular exercise, a well-balanced diet and access to sound medical care are critical components of good health. But scientists also point to evidence of a mind-body connection, and say that, at the very least, being pessimistic doesn’t boost health.
Categories: Longevity
| Email Post | Comments (1) | Permalink
September 08, 2008
You have heard of the elderly. But how about the “wellderly”? The moniker is now being used to describe healthy seniors over the age of 80 who have been fortunate enough to live long – without any chronic diseases or the assistance of long-term medication.
What’s their secret? Scientists would like to know, too. In southern California, a group of researchers has launched the “Wellderly Study” to analyze the genes of some 1,000 healthy octogenarians, nonagenarians and centenarians. The researchers hope that by exploring the DNA of this long-lived group, they will have a better understanding of the genetics behind longevity and lifelong health.
For the Wellderly project, Scripps scientists will compare the DNA from healthy seniors with DNA taken from seniors who died from common diseases such as cancer, heart attack and stroke before they made it to 80. This second group has been dubbed the “Illderly.”
Many of the wellderly, the scientists note in the journal Nature, do have genes that should have made them susceptible to diseases – yet they’ve still managed to stay healthy.
Categories: About Navigenics, Longevity, Prevention, Genetic research
| Email Post | Comments (1) | Permalink