July 9, 2025
By David Hochman
My grandmas lived completely different lives, yet they both lived to be over 100 years old. How?
By David Hochman
My grandmas lived completely different lives, yet they both lived to be over 100 years old. How?
THE PHOTO CHALLENGES everything
we’re told about longevity. It’s a snapshot of my grandmothers, both over 70,
at a family gathering. On one side, Grandma Ruth radiates her usual
vitality—bright smile, dressed to impress, brimming with the energy of someone
who had a thousand friends, an adoring husband and countless hobbies: baking,
sewing, gardening, volunteering. Beside her stands Grandma Charlotte, her weary
expression unmistakable. Clearly, she’d rather be anywhere else. A fearful,
religious woman with a history of profound loss, she carried the weight of the
world like armor, rarely venturing far from the dim apartment she called home.
Two grandmothers, two wildly different approaches to life. Ruth, the wellness devotee, attended aerobics classes, prioritized sleep and seemed to actually enjoy carrot juice. Charlotte, by contrast, loaded her chopped liver with chicken fat, snacked on Hershey bars and spent afternoons on her sagging couch watching As the World Turns. Despite their divergent paths, Ruth and Charlotte both lived to 104. Neither developed dementia, cancer, heart disease or diabetes. In both cases, the cause of death was listed simply as “age.”
For years, my family clung to a tidy narrative: Grandma Ruth did everything “right,” while Charlotte somehow survived in spite of herself. Yet both routes worked. So what truly carried them so far? Was it grit, biology, an alignment of stars—or something science hasn’t yet explained? Somewhere in the folds of their deeply individual stories lies the answer to life’s beautiful, infuriating unpredictability.
We know the usual pillars of longevity: genes, diet, sleep, exercise, connection, purpose. But in recent years, researchers have uncovered subtler, less tangible forces: resilience forged in hardship, the sustaining power of love, the anchoring strength of faith and the surprising life-extending impact of conscientiousness.
As I’ve explored old and new theories on longevity, I’ve come to see my grandmothers’ lives not as opposites but as two sides of a complex truth—one that challenges conventional wisdom, and even my family’s assumptions, about what it takes to not just live long but to live well.
Part I
What We Thought We Knew
FOR DECADES the science on aging seemed straightforward: Eat your greens. Get your steps in. Avoid smoking. Find a hobby that isn’t skydiving. And, OK, maybe be born into a family with relatives who lived to 90 or 100. These have long been the hallmarks of consummate aging, repeated in public health campaigns and echoed by centenarians eager to share their secrets with Al Roker on the Today show. Do the right things and you, too, can enjoy a lasting, flourishing run. It was the logic behind phenomena like the “blue zones”—those idyllic pockets of the planet where residents seemed to hold the secrets to eternal youth through plant-based diets, frequent movement, time in nature and tight-knit communities. Researchers flocked to places like Sardinia, Okinawa, Japan, and Loma Linda, California, to distill the lessons of the “oldest old.”
Or so we thought when we bought the cookbooks and supplements. Then, last year, researcher Saul Newman, from University College London, tracked down data on 80 percent of the people in the world over 110 and found that very few had a birth certificate. Inconsistencies in recordkeeping cast doubt on blue zone theories in the U.S., England, Italy, France and Japan. A review by the Japanese government concluded that 230,000 of its country’s centenarians were “missing, imaginary, clerical errors, or dead.”
That’s not to say blue zone science is bunk. A nutritious diet, exercise and community can help get you more birthday candles. But there’s no one-size-fits-all formula. According to a 2021 review in the journal Science, none of the popular antiaging dietary practices—whether intermittent fasting or ketogenic diets—guarantee extra years at the dinner table. Even the popular notion of taking 10,000 steps a day doesn’t hold up to scrutiny: A recent meta-analysis of studies found that people over 60 derive the most benefit from walking between 6,000 and 8,000 steps daily.
“The science of aging well is a needle-in-a-haystack problem, so it’s not surprising to see some conclusions stretched a bit,” says Nir Barzilai, a longevity researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has extensively studied the lives of older people in the United States, particularly Ashkenazi Jews like my grandmothers. What Barzilai found among his centenarians is both surprising and counterintuitive. “Half of them were overweight or obese, half were smokers, many rarely exercised and very few were especially careful about what they ate,” he says. Yet, they remained remarkably healthy, with only half the incidence of cardiovascular disease of others.
It’s one more piece of evidence pointing to a conundrum: The more we know about longevity, the less we can hold on to certain long-held assumptions. A recent study of identical twins in Finland, for instance, found that while exercise is good for us as we age, it might not guarantee a longer life. The research showed that, yes, moderate exercisers were biologically younger than those who didn’t exercise at all. But moderate exercisers were also somehow biologically younger than those who exercised a lot. Another study found that slightly overweight people may live longer than their normal weight, underweight and obese counterparts.
Did Grandma Charlotte’s chocolate habit give her an edge on aging? Probably not. Grandma Ruth’s occasional tipple didn’t help much either. While red wine in moderation was once touted as a salve against time, a sweeping analysis last year of 107 studies spanning four decades found that no amount of alcohol is truly safe for the aging body or brain. How bad is booze? Just two drinks a week may trim nearly a week off your life on average. Seven drinks a week could cost you two and a half months.
The evolving thinking on aging is just as sobering when it comes to popular supplements. All that fuss about pill-form antioxidants ridding our body of toxins called free radicals that age our cells? New research shows that these supplements—vitamin E, beta-carotene and the like—provide no significant benefit and may even cause negative side effects.
It’s the same story with more radical regimens, like the ones practiced by wealthy Silicon Valley biohackers who see aging as another disease to be cured, or at least slowed. But aging isn’t something to code your way through. Even the now-FDA-prohibited transfusion of plasma from someone between the ages of 16 and 25, a treatment known as young blood infusion, would not turn back the clock for a 50- or 60- or 75-year-old.
If Grandma Charlotte’s survivor’s spirit carried her through life’s challenges, it was love that fueled Grandma Ruth’s remarkable journey.
Quackery is quackery, so buyer beware. “Every year, someone is selling something new to reverse aging, and, trust me, it’s almost all based on junk science,” says Thomas Perls, director of Boston University’s New England Centenarian Study, which has been tracking the lives of older people since 1995. “If an antiaging remedy doesn’t show up in the standard medical literature with a clinical trial showing its benefits, stay as far away as you possibly can.”
Still, much research remains incontestable. We know people who quit smoking or never smoked have a lower risk of dying prematurely than those who smoke. Study after study highlights the benefits of quality sleep—seven to eight hours a night remains the standard—for both cognitive health and disease control. As for the benefits of reducing risk and nurturing relationships: Neither of my grandmothers was a daredevil, and both enjoyed long, stable marriages that kept them safe and anchored. Even so, if I made a checklist of healthy aging habits, Charlotte and Ruth would score somewhere in the “Do as I say, not as I do” range. Neither was letter-perfect in her long journey.
But who is—especially over the course of an extended life? The oldest person Perls ever met was Sarah Knauss, one of his study participants. Born in 1880 in Pennsylvania coal country, Knauss lived independently until her failing eyesight and frailty led her to a nursing home—at age 111. She remained cognitively sharp and disease-free, even while enjoying a life that defied all expectations. “She loved sweets, like chocolate cake, and hated green vegetables,” Perls recalls, but none of that mattered. Knauss lived to 119, making her the third-oldest verified person in history.
Living as long as Knauss—or even my grandmothers—did not happen with shortcuts or simple solutions. But emerging science reveals practical, evidence-backed steps we can all take to add healthy, productive years to our lives. “The amazing thing is, a significant portion of Americans now have the opportunity to get into their late 90s and 100s,” Perls says. “With healthier habits and new ways to delay age-related disease and disability, it’s much more the situation of ‘the older you get, the healthier you’ve been.’ ”
Part II
The New Secrets of Aging
WHEN MY GRANDMOTHERS were younger women in the 1950s, living to 100 was rare—only about 2,300 Americans reached that milestone each year. Grandma Charlotte and Grandma Ruth lived to see that change dramatically. Last year, more than 101,000 Americans celebrated their 100th birthday, and by 2054, that number is expected to soar to around 422,000. This shift is part of a broader wave: Right now, 62 million Americans—18 percent of us—are 65 and older. By 2054, that group will grow to 84 million, almost a quarter of the population.
When my grandmothers were younger women in the 1950s, only about 2,300 Americans reached 100. Last year, more than 101,000 Americans celebrated their 100th birthday.
But here’s what’s fascinating: While more of us are living longer than ever, the reasons aren’t quite what you might expect. Scientists studying long-lived people have discovered surprising factors that go beyond the usual advice. These three hidden keys tell us something deeper about how humans thrive in their later years.
Resilience
NEW RESEARCH SHOWS that mentally tough people tend to live longer, especially women. Looking at more than 10,000 older Americans, scientists last year found that those with high resilience—who stay calm under pressure, keep going when things get hard and feel their life has purpose—were half as likely to die over a 10-year period as less resilient people. Think about that. While there might be other factors at play, the findings suggest that building mental toughness may be as important for a long life as physical health.
Longevity researcher Barzilai’s uncle, who died at 102, lived through challenges most of us can hardly fathom. A Holocaust survivor, he endured five concentration camps, subsisting on the barest of rations and sheer willpower. “There wasn’t enough food, but at least the Germans paid for everything,” he would joke for decades afterward.
Barzilai believes these trials weren’t merely hardships his uncle survived. They might have actually helped him live longer. In biology, the concept is called hormesis, or, as you might know it, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” a bit of wisdom that may have started with 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
“You have to go through stress in order to increase your capacity to deal with greater stressors later on,” says Barzilai.
The principle is similar to the way intense exercise creates temporary inflammation that ultimately strengthens muscles and builds endurance. In aging, hormesis suggests that surviving difficult situations—like war or great loss—can prepare the body for other challenges. “The body adapts to stress by strengthening its defenses,” Barzilai says, describing it as a kind of biological “toughening up,” often called the select survivor effect.
This effect might help explain why some groups known for enduring systemic adversity, like Holocaust survivors, WWII veterans and older Black Americans, often exhibit remarkable resilience and longevity. Despite hardships that should, by all accounts, have worn them down, they developed an extraordinary ability to push forward.
My grandma Charlotte was the embodiment of the select survivor. She lost seven siblings in the Holocaust, an unimaginable trauma she never talked about. It must have given her deep scars and steel-like strength. Getting through life’s darkest moments had forged in her a resilience that no ordinary hardship could break.
Love
IF GRANDMA CHARLOTTE’s survivor’s spirit carried her through life’s challenges, it was love that fueled Grandma Ruth’s remarkable journey. After more than 60 years in a devoted marriage with my grandfather, she found new joy and companionship after his passing. At 87, she met Herman, a retired chemist, and together they shared five blissful years—holding hands, walking on the beach, and even arriving late to my wedding because they were reading poetry to each other in their hotel room.
No geriatrician can write a prescription for a passionate affair, but love remains an often-overlooked cornerstone of healthy aging. Strong social connections are linked to a 50 percent greater chance of living longer. The bond between you and the people around you might be the ultimate key to aging well. The renowned Harvard Study of Adult Development, now in its 86th year, has tracked the lives of hundreds of individuals over decades. Its most striking conclusion? The single strongest predictor of healthy aging isn’t wealth, social status or even lifestyle. It’s the quality of your relationships. Or, as former study director George Vaillant put it: “Happiness is love. Full stop.”
Marital satisfaction, in particular, seems to act like a longevity booster shot. Among people in their 80s, those in happy marriages reported that their moods stayed steady—even on days when they were in more physical pain. The study also showed that people in warm, supportive relationships tended to live longer and happier lives than loners. In fact, loneliness as we age can be as damaging to health as smoking or alcoholism. Meanwhile, people with strong social support experienced less mental decline as they aged and were less likely to overindulge in smoking or drinking. And the benefits of healthy relationships aren’t just emotional—they’re cognitive too. A recent finding of the study showed that women who felt securely attached to their partners were less likely to be depressed, reported greater happiness in their relationships. They even performed better on memory tests two-and-a-half years later than those with weaker ties to loved ones.
These findings tracked with Grandma Ruth and her decades of loving partnerships. But what about Grandma Charlotte, whom I mostly remember bickering with my grandfather all day? It turns out good relationships don’t have to be perfect—or look perfect to outsiders. Some of the couples in the Harvard study—well into their 80s—argued daily. But as long as they felt they could rely on each other when it truly mattered, those everyday spats didn’t seem to harm their mental health or memory.
Faith
TOM COLE HAS spent decades studying what keeps people going into their later years. The rabbi and coauthor of The Oxford Book of Aging sees longevity through a different lens than most researchers do. Beyond genetics and lifestyle, he argues, there’s something more fundamental: the power of belief itself.
“I don’t think you can live to an old age without a belief system,” Cole says, “whether that’s religious faith or simply a deep conviction that tomorrow holds promise.” This framework of belief, he explains, creates a kind of spiritual resilience—an inner force that helps people push forward through life’s darkest moments. Cole has found this particularly true among Holocaust survivors and others who’ve faced severe hardship. Many describe moments of profound connection that sustained them: a guiding voice, an unseen presence, a warm light that appeared when all seemed lost.
The science backs this up. Research from Ohio State University found that religious affiliation alone can add as much as nine years to a person’s life. A separate study showed women who regularly attended religious services had a 33 percent lower mortality rate. But the power of belief extends beyond religion—what matters is having something meaningful to believe in, whether it’s family, community or a personal mission.
Whether faith or optimism, it’s common among people who live a long time. Boston University School of Medicine psychologist Lewina Lee’s research reveals that people who maintained a positive outlook had 50 to 70 percent greater odds of reaching age 85 than the least optimistic groups in her study. Likewise, those who embrace the positive aspects of aging—such as accumulated wisdom and emotional maturity—live an average of 7.6 years longer than those who don’t. Yale public health psychologist Becca Levy found that these optimistic individuals gain their advantage through multiple pathways: They exercise more, make healthier food choices and show lower levels of stress-related inflammation in their bodies.
These benefits mirror those seen in highly conscientious people, suggesting that our mental outlook shapes our physical reality. Deborah Kado, codirector of the Stanford Center on Longevity, sees this play out in her oldest patients. She routinely asks them what they look forward to, and their answers reveal how the prospect keeps them going: a grandchild’s visit, lunch with a neighbor, a weekly game of Rummikub with friends. “These anticipations become anchors,” Kado explains. “They give life its forward momentum.”
She tells me about a 105-year-old who fractured her hip but was determined to attend her great-granddaughter’s wedding. That single goal—that belief in a future moment—mobilized not just her recovery but her entire family’s support network. “Having something meaningful on the calendar,” Kado says, “can literally add days to your life.”
Both my grandmothers embodied different forms of this life-sustaining belief. Ruth lived for “approach goals”—always anticipating the next gathering, the next travel experience or holiday. Charlotte found her anchor in a conscientious affinity for ritual: meticulously scrubbing her stove, triple-wrapping her egg salad, never missing prayer time. Her deep faith that these actions would keep her and her family safe—and keep the “evil eye” at bay—lent structure to her days. Though their beliefs took different forms, both provided a spiritual foundation that gave them meaning late into life.
Part III
The Limits of Age?
PERLS, WHO RUNS the New England Centenarian Study, has a life expectancy calculator on his website, Living to 100. It asks 40 quick questions about health and family history, then estimates how long you might live—along with tips to add more years. When I tried it, the result said I should expect to live to 104. My first reaction? “Amazing! Just like my grandmothers.” My second? “I’d better start saving.”
The truth is, even with all the tools and data at our disposal, we still don’t fully comprehend what stands between us and the numbers on those tables. Some experts believe we’ve hit a natural limit on age span. In October, S. Jay Olshansky, a leading researcher at the University of Illinois, Chicago, concluded, in the absence of forthcoming aging interventions, “as long as we live now is about as long as we’re going to live.” His study predicts that maximum human life expectancy will plateau around 87 years—84 for men, 90 for women. Many countries are already closing in on those averages.
This conversation is reframing how we think about aging. The focus is shifting from simply extending life to improving the quality of the years we have. For instance, health organizations typically recommend scaling back cancer screenings at certain ages—prostate cancer at 70, breast cancer at 75, colonoscopies at 85—on the assumption that these tests might not significantly improve outcomes. Perls disagrees. “At any age, why die of something if we have the tools to identify and treat it?” he asks.
Barzilai is looking beyond prevention to what he calls gerotherapeutics—medicines designed to target the aging process by reducing inflammation and repairing cellular damage. Some of these treatments are already in use. GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, originally developed for diabetes and obesity, show promise in reducing the risks of heart disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Combined with exercise, nutrition, sleep, and meaningful social connections, these advances could help us enjoy the longest possible “health span,” as Barzilai calls it.
Both my grandmothers, different as they were, managed to do just that. Grandma Ruth, the extrovert and explorer, lived fully until the end. On a trip to Paris in her late 90s, she brushed away offers at the airport to sit in a wheelchair. “Don’t treat me like an old lady!” she said. Grandma Charlotte, the cautious and inwardly focused survivor, endured with equal strength. Up until the end, she was scrubbing her dishes clean and saying her prayers at the breakfast table. In their own ways, they represent what’s possible over a very long life—but not in ways that fit neatly into any prescription or blueprint.
After all my research, I’m convinced that neither of them was “right” and neither was “wrong.” My family and society created a narrative of contrast that seemed to make sense but doesn’t. Ruth was the “shining example” and Charlotte the “anomaly.” But the reality is more nuanced. Longevity doesn’t obey the simple scripts we impose on it. Both grandmothers found their own ways to persist, and both ways delivered. Ultimately, lasting vitality isn’t about conforming to expectations or explanations. It’s about finding a way to hold on—to meaning, purpose and life itself—in whatever way works for you.
Two grandmothers, two wildly different approaches to life. Ruth, the wellness devotee, attended aerobics classes, prioritized sleep and seemed to actually enjoy carrot juice. Charlotte, by contrast, loaded her chopped liver with chicken fat, snacked on Hershey bars and spent afternoons on her sagging couch watching As the World Turns. Despite their divergent paths, Ruth and Charlotte both lived to 104. Neither developed dementia, cancer, heart disease or diabetes. In both cases, the cause of death was listed simply as “age.”
For years, my family clung to a tidy narrative: Grandma Ruth did everything “right,” while Charlotte somehow survived in spite of herself. Yet both routes worked. So what truly carried them so far? Was it grit, biology, an alignment of stars—or something science hasn’t yet explained? Somewhere in the folds of their deeply individual stories lies the answer to life’s beautiful, infuriating unpredictability.
We know the usual pillars of longevity: genes, diet, sleep, exercise, connection, purpose. But in recent years, researchers have uncovered subtler, less tangible forces: resilience forged in hardship, the sustaining power of love, the anchoring strength of faith and the surprising life-extending impact of conscientiousness.
As I’ve explored old and new theories on longevity, I’ve come to see my grandmothers’ lives not as opposites but as two sides of a complex truth—one that challenges conventional wisdom, and even my family’s assumptions, about what it takes to not just live long but to live well.
Part I
What We Thought We Knew
FOR DECADES the science on aging seemed straightforward: Eat your greens. Get your steps in. Avoid smoking. Find a hobby that isn’t skydiving. And, OK, maybe be born into a family with relatives who lived to 90 or 100. These have long been the hallmarks of consummate aging, repeated in public health campaigns and echoed by centenarians eager to share their secrets with Al Roker on the Today show. Do the right things and you, too, can enjoy a lasting, flourishing run. It was the logic behind phenomena like the “blue zones”—those idyllic pockets of the planet where residents seemed to hold the secrets to eternal youth through plant-based diets, frequent movement, time in nature and tight-knit communities. Researchers flocked to places like Sardinia, Okinawa, Japan, and Loma Linda, California, to distill the lessons of the “oldest old.”
Or so we thought when we bought the cookbooks and supplements. Then, last year, researcher Saul Newman, from University College London, tracked down data on 80 percent of the people in the world over 110 and found that very few had a birth certificate. Inconsistencies in recordkeeping cast doubt on blue zone theories in the U.S., England, Italy, France and Japan. A review by the Japanese government concluded that 230,000 of its country’s centenarians were “missing, imaginary, clerical errors, or dead.”
That’s not to say blue zone science is bunk. A nutritious diet, exercise and community can help get you more birthday candles. But there’s no one-size-fits-all formula. According to a 2021 review in the journal Science, none of the popular antiaging dietary practices—whether intermittent fasting or ketogenic diets—guarantee extra years at the dinner table. Even the popular notion of taking 10,000 steps a day doesn’t hold up to scrutiny: A recent meta-analysis of studies found that people over 60 derive the most benefit from walking between 6,000 and 8,000 steps daily.
“The science of aging well is a needle-in-a-haystack problem, so it’s not surprising to see some conclusions stretched a bit,” says Nir Barzilai, a longevity researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has extensively studied the lives of older people in the United States, particularly Ashkenazi Jews like my grandmothers. What Barzilai found among his centenarians is both surprising and counterintuitive. “Half of them were overweight or obese, half were smokers, many rarely exercised and very few were especially careful about what they ate,” he says. Yet, they remained remarkably healthy, with only half the incidence of cardiovascular disease of others.
It’s one more piece of evidence pointing to a conundrum: The more we know about longevity, the less we can hold on to certain long-held assumptions. A recent study of identical twins in Finland, for instance, found that while exercise is good for us as we age, it might not guarantee a longer life. The research showed that, yes, moderate exercisers were biologically younger than those who didn’t exercise at all. But moderate exercisers were also somehow biologically younger than those who exercised a lot. Another study found that slightly overweight people may live longer than their normal weight, underweight and obese counterparts.
Did Grandma Charlotte’s chocolate habit give her an edge on aging? Probably not. Grandma Ruth’s occasional tipple didn’t help much either. While red wine in moderation was once touted as a salve against time, a sweeping analysis last year of 107 studies spanning four decades found that no amount of alcohol is truly safe for the aging body or brain. How bad is booze? Just two drinks a week may trim nearly a week off your life on average. Seven drinks a week could cost you two and a half months.
The evolving thinking on aging is just as sobering when it comes to popular supplements. All that fuss about pill-form antioxidants ridding our body of toxins called free radicals that age our cells? New research shows that these supplements—vitamin E, beta-carotene and the like—provide no significant benefit and may even cause negative side effects.
It’s the same story with more radical regimens, like the ones practiced by wealthy Silicon Valley biohackers who see aging as another disease to be cured, or at least slowed. But aging isn’t something to code your way through. Even the now-FDA-prohibited transfusion of plasma from someone between the ages of 16 and 25, a treatment known as young blood infusion, would not turn back the clock for a 50- or 60- or 75-year-old.
If Grandma Charlotte’s survivor’s spirit carried her through life’s challenges, it was love that fueled Grandma Ruth’s remarkable journey.
Quackery is quackery, so buyer beware. “Every year, someone is selling something new to reverse aging, and, trust me, it’s almost all based on junk science,” says Thomas Perls, director of Boston University’s New England Centenarian Study, which has been tracking the lives of older people since 1995. “If an antiaging remedy doesn’t show up in the standard medical literature with a clinical trial showing its benefits, stay as far away as you possibly can.”
Still, much research remains incontestable. We know people who quit smoking or never smoked have a lower risk of dying prematurely than those who smoke. Study after study highlights the benefits of quality sleep—seven to eight hours a night remains the standard—for both cognitive health and disease control. As for the benefits of reducing risk and nurturing relationships: Neither of my grandmothers was a daredevil, and both enjoyed long, stable marriages that kept them safe and anchored. Even so, if I made a checklist of healthy aging habits, Charlotte and Ruth would score somewhere in the “Do as I say, not as I do” range. Neither was letter-perfect in her long journey.
But who is—especially over the course of an extended life? The oldest person Perls ever met was Sarah Knauss, one of his study participants. Born in 1880 in Pennsylvania coal country, Knauss lived independently until her failing eyesight and frailty led her to a nursing home—at age 111. She remained cognitively sharp and disease-free, even while enjoying a life that defied all expectations. “She loved sweets, like chocolate cake, and hated green vegetables,” Perls recalls, but none of that mattered. Knauss lived to 119, making her the third-oldest verified person in history.
Living as long as Knauss—or even my grandmothers—did not happen with shortcuts or simple solutions. But emerging science reveals practical, evidence-backed steps we can all take to add healthy, productive years to our lives. “The amazing thing is, a significant portion of Americans now have the opportunity to get into their late 90s and 100s,” Perls says. “With healthier habits and new ways to delay age-related disease and disability, it’s much more the situation of ‘the older you get, the healthier you’ve been.’ ”
Part II
The New Secrets of Aging
WHEN MY GRANDMOTHERS were younger women in the 1950s, living to 100 was rare—only about 2,300 Americans reached that milestone each year. Grandma Charlotte and Grandma Ruth lived to see that change dramatically. Last year, more than 101,000 Americans celebrated their 100th birthday, and by 2054, that number is expected to soar to around 422,000. This shift is part of a broader wave: Right now, 62 million Americans—18 percent of us—are 65 and older. By 2054, that group will grow to 84 million, almost a quarter of the population.
When my grandmothers were younger women in the 1950s, only about 2,300 Americans reached 100. Last year, more than 101,000 Americans celebrated their 100th birthday.
But here’s what’s fascinating: While more of us are living longer than ever, the reasons aren’t quite what you might expect. Scientists studying long-lived people have discovered surprising factors that go beyond the usual advice. These three hidden keys tell us something deeper about how humans thrive in their later years.
Resilience
NEW RESEARCH SHOWS that mentally tough people tend to live longer, especially women. Looking at more than 10,000 older Americans, scientists last year found that those with high resilience—who stay calm under pressure, keep going when things get hard and feel their life has purpose—were half as likely to die over a 10-year period as less resilient people. Think about that. While there might be other factors at play, the findings suggest that building mental toughness may be as important for a long life as physical health.
Longevity researcher Barzilai’s uncle, who died at 102, lived through challenges most of us can hardly fathom. A Holocaust survivor, he endured five concentration camps, subsisting on the barest of rations and sheer willpower. “There wasn’t enough food, but at least the Germans paid for everything,” he would joke for decades afterward.
Barzilai believes these trials weren’t merely hardships his uncle survived. They might have actually helped him live longer. In biology, the concept is called hormesis, or, as you might know it, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” a bit of wisdom that may have started with 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
“You have to go through stress in order to increase your capacity to deal with greater stressors later on,” says Barzilai.
The principle is similar to the way intense exercise creates temporary inflammation that ultimately strengthens muscles and builds endurance. In aging, hormesis suggests that surviving difficult situations—like war or great loss—can prepare the body for other challenges. “The body adapts to stress by strengthening its defenses,” Barzilai says, describing it as a kind of biological “toughening up,” often called the select survivor effect.
This effect might help explain why some groups known for enduring systemic adversity, like Holocaust survivors, WWII veterans and older Black Americans, often exhibit remarkable resilience and longevity. Despite hardships that should, by all accounts, have worn them down, they developed an extraordinary ability to push forward.
My grandma Charlotte was the embodiment of the select survivor. She lost seven siblings in the Holocaust, an unimaginable trauma she never talked about. It must have given her deep scars and steel-like strength. Getting through life’s darkest moments had forged in her a resilience that no ordinary hardship could break.
Love
IF GRANDMA CHARLOTTE’s survivor’s spirit carried her through life’s challenges, it was love that fueled Grandma Ruth’s remarkable journey. After more than 60 years in a devoted marriage with my grandfather, she found new joy and companionship after his passing. At 87, she met Herman, a retired chemist, and together they shared five blissful years—holding hands, walking on the beach, and even arriving late to my wedding because they were reading poetry to each other in their hotel room.
No geriatrician can write a prescription for a passionate affair, but love remains an often-overlooked cornerstone of healthy aging. Strong social connections are linked to a 50 percent greater chance of living longer. The bond between you and the people around you might be the ultimate key to aging well. The renowned Harvard Study of Adult Development, now in its 86th year, has tracked the lives of hundreds of individuals over decades. Its most striking conclusion? The single strongest predictor of healthy aging isn’t wealth, social status or even lifestyle. It’s the quality of your relationships. Or, as former study director George Vaillant put it: “Happiness is love. Full stop.”
Marital satisfaction, in particular, seems to act like a longevity booster shot. Among people in their 80s, those in happy marriages reported that their moods stayed steady—even on days when they were in more physical pain. The study also showed that people in warm, supportive relationships tended to live longer and happier lives than loners. In fact, loneliness as we age can be as damaging to health as smoking or alcoholism. Meanwhile, people with strong social support experienced less mental decline as they aged and were less likely to overindulge in smoking or drinking. And the benefits of healthy relationships aren’t just emotional—they’re cognitive too. A recent finding of the study showed that women who felt securely attached to their partners were less likely to be depressed, reported greater happiness in their relationships. They even performed better on memory tests two-and-a-half years later than those with weaker ties to loved ones.
These findings tracked with Grandma Ruth and her decades of loving partnerships. But what about Grandma Charlotte, whom I mostly remember bickering with my grandfather all day? It turns out good relationships don’t have to be perfect—or look perfect to outsiders. Some of the couples in the Harvard study—well into their 80s—argued daily. But as long as they felt they could rely on each other when it truly mattered, those everyday spats didn’t seem to harm their mental health or memory.
Faith
TOM COLE HAS spent decades studying what keeps people going into their later years. The rabbi and coauthor of The Oxford Book of Aging sees longevity through a different lens than most researchers do. Beyond genetics and lifestyle, he argues, there’s something more fundamental: the power of belief itself.
“I don’t think you can live to an old age without a belief system,” Cole says, “whether that’s religious faith or simply a deep conviction that tomorrow holds promise.” This framework of belief, he explains, creates a kind of spiritual resilience—an inner force that helps people push forward through life’s darkest moments. Cole has found this particularly true among Holocaust survivors and others who’ve faced severe hardship. Many describe moments of profound connection that sustained them: a guiding voice, an unseen presence, a warm light that appeared when all seemed lost.
The science backs this up. Research from Ohio State University found that religious affiliation alone can add as much as nine years to a person’s life. A separate study showed women who regularly attended religious services had a 33 percent lower mortality rate. But the power of belief extends beyond religion—what matters is having something meaningful to believe in, whether it’s family, community or a personal mission.
Whether faith or optimism, it’s common among people who live a long time. Boston University School of Medicine psychologist Lewina Lee’s research reveals that people who maintained a positive outlook had 50 to 70 percent greater odds of reaching age 85 than the least optimistic groups in her study. Likewise, those who embrace the positive aspects of aging—such as accumulated wisdom and emotional maturity—live an average of 7.6 years longer than those who don’t. Yale public health psychologist Becca Levy found that these optimistic individuals gain their advantage through multiple pathways: They exercise more, make healthier food choices and show lower levels of stress-related inflammation in their bodies.
These benefits mirror those seen in highly conscientious people, suggesting that our mental outlook shapes our physical reality. Deborah Kado, codirector of the Stanford Center on Longevity, sees this play out in her oldest patients. She routinely asks them what they look forward to, and their answers reveal how the prospect keeps them going: a grandchild’s visit, lunch with a neighbor, a weekly game of Rummikub with friends. “These anticipations become anchors,” Kado explains. “They give life its forward momentum.”
She tells me about a 105-year-old who fractured her hip but was determined to attend her great-granddaughter’s wedding. That single goal—that belief in a future moment—mobilized not just her recovery but her entire family’s support network. “Having something meaningful on the calendar,” Kado says, “can literally add days to your life.”
Both my grandmothers embodied different forms of this life-sustaining belief. Ruth lived for “approach goals”—always anticipating the next gathering, the next travel experience or holiday. Charlotte found her anchor in a conscientious affinity for ritual: meticulously scrubbing her stove, triple-wrapping her egg salad, never missing prayer time. Her deep faith that these actions would keep her and her family safe—and keep the “evil eye” at bay—lent structure to her days. Though their beliefs took different forms, both provided a spiritual foundation that gave them meaning late into life.
Part III
The Limits of Age?
PERLS, WHO RUNS the New England Centenarian Study, has a life expectancy calculator on his website, Living to 100. It asks 40 quick questions about health and family history, then estimates how long you might live—along with tips to add more years. When I tried it, the result said I should expect to live to 104. My first reaction? “Amazing! Just like my grandmothers.” My second? “I’d better start saving.”
The truth is, even with all the tools and data at our disposal, we still don’t fully comprehend what stands between us and the numbers on those tables. Some experts believe we’ve hit a natural limit on age span. In October, S. Jay Olshansky, a leading researcher at the University of Illinois, Chicago, concluded, in the absence of forthcoming aging interventions, “as long as we live now is about as long as we’re going to live.” His study predicts that maximum human life expectancy will plateau around 87 years—84 for men, 90 for women. Many countries are already closing in on those averages.
This conversation is reframing how we think about aging. The focus is shifting from simply extending life to improving the quality of the years we have. For instance, health organizations typically recommend scaling back cancer screenings at certain ages—prostate cancer at 70, breast cancer at 75, colonoscopies at 85—on the assumption that these tests might not significantly improve outcomes. Perls disagrees. “At any age, why die of something if we have the tools to identify and treat it?” he asks.
Barzilai is looking beyond prevention to what he calls gerotherapeutics—medicines designed to target the aging process by reducing inflammation and repairing cellular damage. Some of these treatments are already in use. GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, originally developed for diabetes and obesity, show promise in reducing the risks of heart disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Combined with exercise, nutrition, sleep, and meaningful social connections, these advances could help us enjoy the longest possible “health span,” as Barzilai calls it.
Both my grandmothers, different as they were, managed to do just that. Grandma Ruth, the extrovert and explorer, lived fully until the end. On a trip to Paris in her late 90s, she brushed away offers at the airport to sit in a wheelchair. “Don’t treat me like an old lady!” she said. Grandma Charlotte, the cautious and inwardly focused survivor, endured with equal strength. Up until the end, she was scrubbing her dishes clean and saying her prayers at the breakfast table. In their own ways, they represent what’s possible over a very long life—but not in ways that fit neatly into any prescription or blueprint.
After all my research, I’m convinced that neither of them was “right” and neither was “wrong.” My family and society created a narrative of contrast that seemed to make sense but doesn’t. Ruth was the “shining example” and Charlotte the “anomaly.” But the reality is more nuanced. Longevity doesn’t obey the simple scripts we impose on it. Both grandmothers found their own ways to persist, and both ways delivered. Ultimately, lasting vitality isn’t about conforming to expectations or explanations. It’s about finding a way to hold on—to meaning, purpose and life itself—in whatever way works for you.
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