访谈录 2008-12-26&12-28 长寿秘诀

Accountant Sydney Brookman loves two things, working, which he’s been doing since 1937."I don’t wanna retire, I wanna keep working as long as I can live."

 And telling jokes. "I can rattle 1 off 100 jokes, 50 I can tell, just by memory."

 He is 97 years old."And I feel fine. Physically 2 I feel great. My sexual demands may be a little less, but I can't help that."

 He is a youngster compared to Rhea Tauber, a former school teacher. She writes a weekly column for her local paper and is working on her autobiography 3. She recently turned 100.

"They held a big party for me on my 100 birthday and everybody in the whole county came down. Because they've never heard of anybody who is 100 years old still working."

For the last 35 years, she’s been living on her own and said she's happy that way. It keeps her on her toes.

"When I was 100 years old, they said, 'You shouldn’t be living alone. You get all steps to climb up.' But that’s good for me. It's my excercise: up and down the steps."

 At a time when the American life expectancy 4 is 78 years, there is no obvious reason why Rhea and Sydney should still be alive, much less thriving. Sydney's eating habits would make a nutritionist weep.

"I love fried chicken. I love fried fish. I hate vetegatables. I violate every dietary law." And Rhea is referred to by her own doctors as "the miracle lady". "They can’t figure out why. I love the way I do, enjoy life the way I do, go about, travel."

So why are they living as long and as well as they do? The answer, according to one doctor, is all in their genes 5.

"This is, for example, a box, where we store the blood and the DNA 6 of our subjects."

For the last nine years, Doctor Nir Barzilai, Albert Einstein Medical College, has been decoding 7 the DNA of 1500 very old people and their children, trying to find the secret to longevity 8. Both Rhea and Sydney are enrolled 9 in the study.

"Only one of 10 thousand is going to be 100 and we notice that the people who get to be 100, they either delay or they don’t get age-related diseases."

So far, Barzilai has identified three genes that seem to play a big role.

"All the three genes that we've found so far are protecting from a disease that leads to diabetes 10 and heart disease." ("What’s new?","See this one."...)

The genes appear to promote long life by protecting against the illnesses of old age, including heart disease, stroke and Alzheimer’s. "For centenarians, their aging has been delayed by about 30 years."

That it all comes down to the genes is no surprise to Sydney. He has an older brother, who just turned 100. And his grandmother lived until 113.

"It’s an active God. That's, it's genes from my grandma with regard to what age."

As for the rest of us, Barzilai hopes that, one day, his research will lead to a drug, (Oh, that’s it. That's a centenarian. Wow!) giving everyone a shot at living like this.

"When my granddaughter married, I was doing the Cha Cha. I was leading the Cha Cha line and the kids were screaming 'That's grandma dancing.'"