New Book on Longevity Contains Some Surprises

We all know that longevity is a combination of good genes, healthy diet and exercise, and the presence of mind to stay out of the way of buses in the crosswalk. Or at least, that's what we thought we knew.

But University of California-Riverside aging researchers Howard S. Friedman's and Leslie R. Martin's new book, The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study, threatens to rock our preconceptions about what helps us -- and what doesn't help us -- to reach a ripe old age. As it turns out, paradoxically, some of the qualities that we thought were detrimental -- such as pessimism and obsessive devotion to a career -- actually may be the miraculous waters that Ponce de Leon once hoped to find.

The story begins in the early 1920s, when scores of elementary-school-age children identified as bright by their teachers were enrolled in a study by a Stanford University psychologist named Lewis Terman, who hoped to identify the qualities that would make a person excel in adulthood. (Terman's motives, it should be mentioned, weren't entirely laudable; as this 2000 Stanford Magazine article notes, he also was a proponent of eugenics, a since-discredited movement that aimed to improve the human gene pool, in part by preventing individuals deemed to be inferior from breeding.) Contrary to the stereotype of the frail bookworm, Terman believed that smart people were more physically robust and lived longer, more successful lives.

To test his hypothesis, Terman spent the next 35 years tracking his subjects and gathering a mountain of intimate biographical data. After Terman's death in 1956, the study was continued by other psychologists, who followed the surviving "Termites" up into old age. It became the longest-lasting research study ever conducted.

Ultimately, the study fell short of Terman's goal of finding a way to identify children with a genetic predisposition toward success so they could be put on a track to greatness. To be sure, many of his subjects did become luminaries. Ancel Keys went on to discover the link between cholesterol and heart disease, and Norris Bradley grew up to become director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Another, Jess Oppenheimer, became a writer for the 1960s hit TV comedy Get Smart. But other bright children in the study grew up into run-of-the-mill adults who didn't win any career accolades. And a 1968 follow-up by Terman's associate, Melita Oden, found that there was no significant difference in IQ between the successful and nonsuccessful subjects. Other qualities -- confidence, persistence and early parental encouragement -- had more of an impact.

But Terman's archives contained other revelations. Psychologists Friedman and Martin spent 20 years following up on what happened to Terman's subjects, determining their exact life spans and analyzing the vast trove of biographic data -- details ranging from whether they were breast-fed to their marital histories, exercise habits and degree of job satisfaction. But Friedman's and Martin's focus was different. They sought to identify characteristics that were linked not to intelligence and achievement but to longevity.

There were some shocks. Friedman and Martin concluded that many of the commonly accepted keys to a long life -- such as avoiding overwork and having a sunny outlook -- weren't as beneficial as they seemed, and in some people may have actually had a negative effect. They found, for example, that habitual optimists often neglected to follow doctors' advice or avoid risks, to the detriment of their health and safety. Comparative downbeat, neurotic people who paid attention to those details fared better. And sociable, outgoing individuals, they discovered, actually were more likely to smoke, drink and engage in risky behaviors, in part because they more often found themselves in settings where those behaviors were the "thing to do." Less extroverted, more nose-to-the-grindstone subjects, in contrast, tended to avoid those health hazards.

Friedman and Martin write that the best key predictor of longevity turns out to be conscientiousness -- "the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person, like a scientist...somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree." One example is Patricia, a young girl from San Francisco who told Terman that she enjoyed planning her work in detail and driving herself steadily to achieve goals. She was nonimpulsive but persistent. Patricia not only went on to do well in college, but lived into her nineties.

"If you are like Patricia, your habits, brain chemistry and social environment are likely to work together to decrease your risk of poor health and early death," the researchers write. To further drive that point home, they note that subjects who went on to careers in science -- where logical, methodical individuals tend to excel -- tended to have the most stable, healthy lives

But you don't necessarily have to possess those characteristics innately to become a golden-ager, Friedman and Martin reassure us. They cite the example of James, who as a college freshman was bored with school and seemed to be performing far below his intellectual abilities. He struggled to graduate from college, changing majors twice along the way. But by his late twenties, James had shifted dramatically. He liked his chosen career in public relations and had morphed into a detail-oriented person who persistently worked to achieve goals. He, too, ultimately lived a long life.

The Longevity Project should be read with some caveats. The group that Friedman and Martin studied -- predominately male Californians who grew up in the 1920s, and who were selected as exceptional by teachers -- may not necessarily provide an accurate picture of longevity factors in the population as a whole. And the authors sometimes venture away from science and into the same realm of subjective assumptions that they decry. For example, I'm not willing just yet to accept their thinly supported assertion that happiness is the outcome of good health and longevity, rather than a factor in those things. On this website, we've again and again told the stories of people whose lives seem to prove that optimism and a serendipitous, risk-taking approach to living are rejuvenating influences, which flies in the face of the book's conclusions.

On the plus side, the authors include a number of diagnostic self-tests that readers can take to gain more insights about how their personality characteristics and behaviors relate to longevity. All in all, I think this is a book well worth reading, because it compels us to think a little harder about a subject that's important to us all.

Here's The Wall Street Journal's review of The Longevity Project. From the Atlantic, here's a provocative Q&A with Friedman.