Longevity

In an age of long commutes, late sports practices, endless workdays and 24/7 television programming, the image of Mom hanging up her dish towel at 7 p.m. and declaring "the kitchen is closed" seems a quaint relic of an earlier era. It also harks back to a thinner America. And that may be no coincidence. A new study, conducted on mice, hints at an unexpected contributor to the nation's epidemic of obesity - and, if later human studies bear it out, a possible way to have our cake and eat it too, with less risk of weight gain and the diseases that come with it. Just eat your cake - or better yet, an apple - earlier.

The man is tired. You can hear it across the long-distance telephone line, the conversation punctuated by frequent yawns. "A lot of sacrifices," he says. "I've been doing this for a long time. " Getting up early each morning to stop by the gym before work. Then hitting the pool each afternoon to practice. At 32, Troy Dumais rarely takes a vacation from diving. "I don't have that luxury," he says. "When I take a break for a week, it takes me three weeks to get back to where I was. " But when you ask him about quitting, about getting on with his life, the pace of the conversation quickens a beat.

Researchers have some reassuring news for the legions of coffee drinkers who can't get through the day without a latte, cappuccino, iced mocha, double-shot of espresso or a plain old cuppa joe: That coffee habit may help you live longer. A new study that tracked the health and coffee consumption of more than 400,000 older adults for nearly 14 years found that java drinkers were less likely to die during the study than their counterparts who eschewed the brew. In fact, men and women who averaged four or five cups of coffee per day had the lowest risk of death, according to a report in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

any amount and any type -- appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death, according to a long-range study that examined the eating habits and health of more than 110,000 adults for more than 20 years. For instance, adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat -- picture a piece of steak no bigger than a deck of cards -- to one's daily diet was associated with a 13% greater chance of dying during the course of the study. Even worse, adding an extra daily serving of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon, was linked to a 20% higher risk of death during the study.

I have traveled to the Palm Springs Life Extension Institute in search of Dr. Edmund Chein. Instead I find Tiffany Caranci. Tiffany is 20 years old and looks exactly how you might expect a 20-year-old named Tiffany to look: platform heels, low-slung skirt, hair streaked blond and black. She's brazenly sexy, and so very young. I am a man and not very young.

Practicing Transcendental Meditation -- a technique involving intense breathing exercises and the repetition of words, or "mantras" -- may have benefits beyond stress reduction. It might actually help you live longer. Researchers at five universities and medical centers including the Medical College of Georgia and the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine tracked 202 patients with high blood pressure for up to 18 years.

Re "Can We Live Longer?" [Dec. 25]: Have you considered the ethical issues involved in promoting longevity? Our planet is overpopulated as it is, and by helping people live longer, you simply exacerbate the problem. I'd like to see a report on the ethics of longevity. By the way, I am 72 and in perfect health. GARY BOOTH Newport Beach

The taller you are the longer you are likely to live, even if you were born 1,000 years ago, according to British researchers. Scientists know tall people nowadays tend to have a greater life expectancy than their shorter counterparts, but they had not been sure if that was also true for earlier generations. Anthropologist David Gunnell of Bristol University in southwest England and his colleagues studied 490 adult skeletons to determine the historical link between height and longevity.

Estrogen replacement therapy reduces the mortality rate of post-menopausal women by at least 20%, USC researchers reported last week in the Archives of Internal Medicine. In a study conducted at Leisure World in Laguna Hills, the researchers also found that the longer women were on the therapy, the lower their mortality rate from all causes, but particularly from heart disease and stroke.

Boys born in San Marino, a tiny republic surrounded by Italy, are expected to live to age 80, the world's longest male life expectancy at birth, but newborn girls in 31 other countries have even better prospects, the World Health Organization said Friday. Sierra Leone registered the shortest male life expectancy at birth, 37 years -- the same as that of girls in Swaziland, who were at the bottom of the female list -- in WHO's "World Health Statistics 2007."

In these increasingly partisan times, Mayor Virgil Harms, a lifelong Democrat in a sea of Republicans, recently celebrated half a century in office, a job he's won without spending a dime or sullying a reputation. Having no opponent, of course, helps. "I suppose if they didn't want me, they'd tell me," said the 84-year-old farmer and chief executive of Paoli, a tiny town near the Nebraska border. "If someone else wanted the job, I'd let them have it. " But no one else wants it, so Harms hasn't faced a challenger for 50 years, making him the longest-serving mayor in Colorado.

Kristofer Keith, the founder of the design group Spacecraft, will do just about anything with a room, so long as the treatment fits the space. His style is no style, no allegiances to any school, whether lean modern or thrift-store retro. But he draws the line at two things many of us having a hard time resisting: frozen yogurt and cupcakes. Speaking on the phone on his way to Mexico, where a restaurant awaited his discerning eye, Keith clarified his no-trendy-sweets position: "I don't like to see anywhere I design close.

Before she could present Jane Fonda with the UCLA Longevity Center's Icon Award, Jennifer Lopez had to pause midway in her recitation of Fonda's lofty achievements — actress, fitness guru, author and activist for environmental, human rights, health, women's empowerment issues and more. "You're busy like crazy," Lopez said. "I thought I was busy. " No doubt. Lopez herself had just been introduced as an "actor, producer, recording artist, entrepreneur, fashion designer, wife, mother and humanitarian," as well as People magazine's "most beautiful woman in the world.

Question: Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. has been a very good stock for me, but I wonder about the general outlook for commodities. What is your take? Answer: Freeport-McMoRan is the largest publicly traded producer of copper, and the mining company's fortunes are tied directly to the price of the industrial metal, which can be volatile. Global demand for copper will probably continue to come largely from China. Although Beijing has lately been raising interest rates to stem inflation by slowing the economy, the country is nonetheless expected to need large quantities of copper for the foreseeable future.

In some ways, the Peace Corps, which celebrates its 50th anniversary Tuesday, is a shadow of what it once was. It had so much pizzazz in the early days that newspapers proclaimed the names of new volunteers as if they had just won Guggenheim fellowships. Now, the number of volunteers ? 8,655 ? is about half of what it was at its highest in 1966, and not everyone knows the Peace Corps still exists. The first director ? the irrepressible, inspiring Sargent Shriver, who put the program together in six months ?

Eunice Sanborn, widely believed to be the world's oldest person, died in her Texas home on Monday.  She was 114.   As medical technology and health habits have improved, more and more people are living longer and more active lives.  So it hardly seems a stretch to wonder: with the right diet and attitude -- and a bit of good luck thrown in for good measure -- could pretty much anyone make it to 114 these days?   "No way," says longevity authority Dr. Thomas Perls.

Putting elderly mice on a very low-calorie diet for as little as four weeks reversed many of the changes in the activity of various genes that had occurred during normal aging, according to a new study. The research, which used a new technology to pinpoint which genes are active in mice at different ages, may help scientists understand how calorie restriction extends animals' lifespan and, eventually, to develop longevity therapies for humans.

Lastingness The Art of Old Age Nicholas Delbanco Grand Central: 275 pp., $24.99 Nicholas Delbanco sits on a swivel chair in his second-floor writer's study, his back to the desk, knees bent slightly as he props his feet on the edge of a couch. He exudes energy and warmth, his conversation vibrantly self-aware. Elsewhere in the house his wife, Elena, is packing for a flight they'll be taking in a few hours to visit her father on Martha's Vineyard, so Delbanco says he can only talk for an hour or so. He has places to go, things to do. Delbanco, whose prodigious writing has won him many honors, including Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, turns 70 next year.

We all know what aging looks like from the outside: wrinkled skin, gray hair, a growing need to turn up the volume on "Jeopardy. " But in recent years, scientists have made some breakthrough discoveries about how we age on the inside, right down to our genes. The science of aging has created a glimmer of hope that we could someday slow the process ? a dream that has already spread beyond the lab to the marketplace. Anti-aging research used to be mainly about finding new ways to get lab mice to take their vitamins.