Longevity studies, tips and resources
Every tip and study on this site, each in one line you can pass on. Tap Copy and it goes into a message with its link.
Tips to pass on
These are the simple plan, biggest first.
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Start with the habits, if you want to and if you can. No pill has been shown to add a year.
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If you smoke, set a quit date. About 9 years back, quitting at 35 to 44.
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Walk briskly for 11 minutes a day. 23% lower death rate.
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Lift weights twice a week. 13% lower death rate, on top of cardio.
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Take a week of home blood pressure readings. 13% fewer deaths per 10 points lower.
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Eat nuts and a vegetable every day, and fried food rarely. 20% lower death rate with nuts every day.
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Get up at the same time every day. 20% to 48% lower death rate.
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Drink less, and none is fine. 25% higher death rate at 2 drinks a day or more.
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Cut the sudden risks: buckle up, test the smoke alarms, book a screening at 45. 45% lower risk of dying in a crash with a seat belt.
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Test yourself every couple of months. About 4 times the risk at the lowest floor test scores.
The studies
How long people live
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2024. US life expectancy at birth was 79.0 years in 2024, 81.4 for women and 76.5 for men.
National Center for Health Statistics, US life tables
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2019. Jeanne Calment of Arles, the oldest person whose age was fully checked, died in 1997 at 122 years and 164 days.
Robine and others, Journals of Gerontology
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2013. Deaths before 50 made up about two thirds of the life expectancy gap between American men and men in 16 other rich countries.
US National Research Council and Institute of Medicine
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2023. In 2019, 622,534 Americans died who wouldn't have at the average death rates of 21 other rich countries.
Bor and others, PNAS Nexus
What adds years
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2018. Women with five healthy habits at 50 could expect about 14 more years than women with none, and men about 12.
Li and others, Circulation, 123,219 US health professionals
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2013. Smokers lost more than 10 years of life, and people who quit at 35 to 44 gained about 9 of them back.
Jha and others, New England Journal of Medicine, 202,248 US adults
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2018. The least fit quarter died at about 5 times the rate of the fittest 2 percent.
Mandsager and others, JAMA Network Open, 122,007 treadmill tests
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2026. 90 to 119 minutes a week of strength training went with a 13% lower death rate, on top of cardio.
Zhang and others, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 147,374 US adults
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2023. 11 minutes a day of brisk walking, about half the US minimum, went with a 23% lower death rate.
Garcia and others, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 94 groups of people
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2016. Each 10 points (mmHg) off the top blood pressure number meant 13% fewer deaths and 27% fewer strokes.
Ettehad and others, Lancet, 123 trials
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2024. The more regular sleepers had a 20 to 48% lower death rate than the least regular fifth.
Windred and others, Sleep, 60,977 adults with trackers
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2013. People who ate nuts seven or more times a week had a 20% lower death rate than people who never did.
Bao and others, New England Journal of Medicine
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2019. Eating fried food every day went with an 8% higher death rate than none, and fried chicken once a week or more with 13% higher.
Sun and others, BMJ, 106,966 US women aged 50 to 79
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2023. Light drinkers didn't live longer than lifelong non-drinkers once former drinkers were counted separately.
Zhao and others, JAMA Network Open, 107 studies
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2010. People with stronger social ties had 50% higher odds of still being alive at the end of the studies.
Holt-Lunstad and others, PLoS Medicine, 148 studies
Tests you can do at home
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2025. People with the lowest scores for getting up off the floor had about 4 times the risk of dying over 12 years as those with a perfect 10.
Araujo and others, European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 4,282 adults aged 46 to 75
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2022. People who couldn't stand on one leg for 10 seconds had an 84% higher risk of dying over the next 7 years.
Araujo and others, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 1,702 adults aged 51 to 75
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2015. Each 5 kg (11 pounds) of weaker grip went with a 16% higher risk of dying.
Leong and others, Lancet, 139,691 people in 17 countries
Genes, blue zones, pills and tests
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1996. Genes explained about a quarter of the differences in how long the twins lived.
Herskind and others, Human Genetics, 2,872 Danish twin pairs
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2018. Once people's habit of marrying similar people was counted, genes explained well under a tenth of lifespan.
Ruby and others, Genetics, family trees of about 400 million people
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2025. Records of Americans living past 110 fell by 69 to 82 percent once states brought in birth certificates.
Newman, bioRxiv (a preprint, not peer reviewed)
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2021. NMN raised muscle insulin sensitivity over 10 weeks. Nobody has tested whether it adds years.
Yoshino and others, Science, women with prediabetes
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2011. Rapamycin lengthened the mice's lives, and resveratrol didn't.
Miller and others, Journals of Gerontology, genetically mixed mice
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2022. Some DNA age clocks gave results up to 9 years apart when the same sample was run twice.
Higgins-Chen and others, Nature Aging
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2023. In people with heart disease and extra weight, semaglutide cut heart attacks, strokes and heart deaths by 20%.
Lincoff and others, New England Journal of Medicine, 17,604 adults
The sudden risks
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2015. A seat belt cuts the risk of dying in a crash by 45% in the front seat of a car and 60% in a light truck.
Kahane, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, US crash data
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2024. Nearly three in five US home fire deaths happened where there was no smoke alarm or it didn't work.
National Fire Protection Association
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2021. Being invited to a sigmoidoscopy, one kind of colon cancer screening, cut colorectal cancer deaths by 26%.
Lin and others, JAMA, trials of 458,002 people
Resources
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1-800-QUIT-NOW Free coaching to quit smoking, a quit plan and help getting quit medicines.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans The US minimum: 150 minutes a week of moderate activity and muscle strengthening on 2 days.
US Department of Health and Human Services
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High Blood Pressure Facts How common high blood pressure is in the US, and why so many people don't know they have it.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Screening for Colorectal Cancer The US guideline: start screening at 45.
US Preventive Services Task Force
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Seat belts What a seat belt does in a crash, in plain numbers.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
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What is a standard drink? What counts as one drink in the US, so the numbers on this site make sense.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
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United States Life Tables, 2024 The table every US number on this site comes from.
National Center for Health Statistics
