How to live beyond 100, according to the pioneer of preventive medicine in Spain

Life expectancy According to the latest data from the National Statistics Institute, in Spain it is 83.5 years for both sexes. Women live for 85.83 years and men for 80.24 years.

However, the gender gap has narrowed since 1999, when the gap was 6.9 years in favor of women. At present this disparity is only 5.59 years.

And our country is the fifth European country with the highest life expectancy after Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Malta, Sweden and Italy.

Without a doubt, it is one of the longest-lived in the world, despite the fact that its ranking has declined in the last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Outside our borders, Okinawa, an island located south of Japan, is one of the regions where people live the longest: about 50,000 residents are over 100 years old.

How do you survive so many years?

medicine for healthy aging is key.

He Dr. Angel Durantez Prados (Autonomous University of Madrid, 1987) is a pioneer of active preventive medicine in Spain.

The specialist has run his own clinic since 2017 where he takes care of his patients with a single aim, as he tells ‘Health Guides’, to prolong health.

Proactive Preventive Medicine, what is it and how is it done?

This is known as the healthcare paradigm of the 21st century. It is a medicine that, rather than being reactive to the disease (which starts when you are sick), works before the appearance of any pathology, especially non-communicable, associated with the aging process. it occurs:

• Cardiac related.
• cancer.
• Diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

• Neurocognitive impairment and musculoskeletal system (osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, loss of muscle mass and strength…).

Basically, we try to take action before their symptoms appear in order to postpone their appearance and extend life span in good health.

At what age should you think about old age?

What we do after the age of 35 will determine our old age…

Active preventive medicine for aging should be started from the age of 35 or 40.

Among the colleagues dedicated to this specialty, we believe that the 50s are very decisive for our old age. What is done in those ten years will have a great impact on the quality of life in the future.

And why after the age of 50? This is for two reasons.

On the one hand, menopause in women, which usually occurs between the ages of 47 and 53. This is an important moment. And on the other hand, androgen deficiency and a drop in testosterone levels in men, which manifests itself with very striking symptoms.

Up to what age should preventive medicine and healthy living be given priority?

We should never stop taking care of ourselves. This is a lifelong plan, until it enters the phase of complete decline.

I once asked one of my teachers from the United States, when do your patients stop coming to see you? And he answered me: When they die.

And the purpose of this medicine is to extend the phase of well-being and health until the last day before death. This is known as compression of morbidity: delaying the loss of autonomy until very advanced age.

How long can we Spaniards live if we take care of ourselves throughout our lives?

There are studies published in scientific journals the Lancet They estimate that in the year 2040, the life expectancy of Spanish women could be 89 years (four years more than today).

There are also predictions for 2060, whose predictions point to a life expectancy of 93 years: 92 years for men and 94 years for women.

Thus, we will live to be more than 90 years old in the coming decades, yes, allowing for a new pandemic, which will significantly reduce life expectancy.

Would it be normally possible to live beyond 100 years?

This is no utopia, because in fact there are more and more centenarians (according to INE, there are more than 17,000 people over 100 years old in Spain). This means that the number of centenarians in our country has increased five or ten times compared to two decades ago.

Many of those who are over 90 reach 100. There will come a time when the record of maximum longevity set in 1997 will again be broken, which is currently 122 years and 174 days.

The silver medal belongs to Japanese Kana Tanaka, who died at the age of 119 years and 108 days.

However, the maximum life expectancy in males is 114 years.

Why is there this difference between men and women?

The Y chromosome plays a fundamental role (according to a study conducted on flies by researcher Doris Bachtrog of the University of California at Berkeley and published in the journal PLOS Genetics).

This loss promotes premature aging, but it is also said that men lead lifestyles that are not as healthy as women.

In any case, there is no doubt that men who take care of themselves also live on average 4-5 years less than women.

It must be recognized that estrogen has a cardioprotective effect in women. However, I don’t have much faith in the hormonal theory that it is hormones that justify their long life expectancy. There must be other factors as well.

What are the keys to living a longer and better life?

Genetics do not affect the quality of our life by more than 30%. And genetics are influenced by lifestyle, known as the environment, that is, the mix of factors that depend on us (smoking, drinking, sedentary lifestyle…) and others that do not depend ( Living in a war-torn country), pollution, stress…)

The biome contributes 70% to life expectancy, how long we will live and with what quality.

Most importantly, live a healthy life:

• Physical exercise. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic physical activity. To get additional benefits, you can increase it to more than 300 minutes a week, performing strength routines at least twice a week.

• The right diet containing all the essential nutrients to stay healthy and energetic.

• Sleep hygiene. Establish a routine to get good sleep and restful sleep.

• Avoid toxic habits like tobacco, alcohol or drugs.

Where is active preventive medicine going?

Awareness is increasing, but a lot depends on the health of the country.

In Spain, since you do not pay per consultation, there is an assumption that it is free. This means that many people don’t think about prevention, because they will go to the doctor if they get sick. Thus, ‘healthy consciousness’ is reduced.

I have noticed that more and more people are interested in prevention, especially young people over 30. And it’s creating advances in this specialty: addressing the aging process as if it were a disease.

Currently, diseases associated with age-related decline are prevented. However, what we will see in the future is that there will be ways to treat at the cellular level the degradation caused by aging, which in turn causes these diseases to appear.

Simply put, aging will be treated and cardiovascular disease will not be prevented.