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    Level 1-2 Lesson 5 Reading Text

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    Johan Zamora
    Tortoises are known for their long lifespans of up to 200 years, which makes the author question whether they would want to live to 100 years old. Scientists are studying genes linked to longevity and identifying communities where healthy long lives are common, such as areas of Italy and Japan where many elderly residents eat diets high in fruits and vegetables. Research is exploring both lifestyle and genetic factors that may protect against aging and diseases like cancer, with some groups found to share genes associated with long lifespans. While genes, environment, and diet all likely contribute to longevity, an element of luck is also involved in living a long and healthy life.

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    Level 1-2 Lesson 5 Reading Text

    Uploaded by

    Johan Zamora
    33 views1 page
    Tortoises are known for their long lifespans of up to 200 years, which makes the author question whether they would want to live to 100 years old. Scientists are studying genes linked to longevity and identifying communities where healthy long lives are common, such as areas of Italy and Japan where many elderly residents eat diets high in fruits and vegetables. Research is exploring both lifestyle and genetic factors that may protect against aging and diseases like cancer, with some groups found to share genes associated with long lifespans. While genes, environment, and diet all likely contribute to longevity, an element of luck is also involved in living a long and healthy life.

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    Tortoises are known for their long lifespans of up to 200 years, which makes the author question whether they would want to live to 100 years old. Scientists are studying genes linked to longevity and identifying communities where healthy long lives are common, such as areas of Italy and Japan where many elderly residents eat diets high in fruits and vegetables. Research is exploring both lifestyle and genetic factors that may protect against aging and diseases like cancer, with some groups found to share genes associated with long lifespans. While genes, environment, and diet all likely contribute to longevity, an element of luck is also involved in living a long and healthy life.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    33 views1 page

    Level 1-2 Lesson 5 Reading Text

    Uploaded by

    Johan Zamora
    Tortoises are known for their long lifespans of up to 200 years, which makes the author question whether they would want to live to 100 years old. Scientists are studying genes linked to longevity and identifying communities where healthy long lives are common, such as areas of Italy and Japan where many elderly residents eat diets high in fruits and vegetables. Research is exploring both lifestyle and genetic factors that may protect against aging and diseases like cancer, with some groups found to share genes associated with long lifespans. While genes, environment, and diet all likely contribute to longevity, an element of luck is also involved in living a long and healthy life.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Life Level 1-2 Reading Text

    A long and healthy life?


    A long and healthy life?

    Tortoises are famous for living for a long time. They can often live for two hundred years. I
    don’t think I want to live that long, but, these days, we are all living longer. This article
    about long life made me think a lot. Do I want to live to be 100? Do you?

    How long will a baby born today live? One hundred years? One hundred and twenty years?

    Scientists are studying genes that could mean long life for us all. There are already many,
    many people who live to more than 100. In fact, there are now so many healthy elderly
    people that there's a name for them: the wellderly. These are people over the age of 80
    who have no major illnesses, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, or diabetes.

    There are many scientific studies of communities where a healthy old age is typical. These
    include places like Calabria in southern Italy, and the island of Okinawa in Japan. In Calabria,
    the small village of Molochio has a population of about 2,000. And of these 2,000 people,
    there are at least eight people over 100 years old. Researchers ask people like this the
    secret of their long life. The answer is almost always about food and is almost always the
    same: “I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables,” “I eat a little bit of everything,” “I never smoke, I
    don't drink.”

    So, in the past, scientists looked at things such as diet and lifestyle for an explanation of long
    life. But these days they are also looking at genetic factors. Researcher Eric Topol says that
    there are probably genes that protect people from the effects of the aging process. The new
    research into long life investigates groups of people who have a genetic connection. One
    interesting group lives in Ecuador. In one area of the country there are a number of people
    with the same genetic condition. It's called Laron syndrome. These people don't grow very
    tall—just over one meter. But Laron syndrome also gives them protection against cancer
    and diabetes. As a result, they live longer than other people in their families. On the other
    side of the world, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, there's another group of long-lived men.
    They are Japanese-Americans, but they have a similar gene to the Laron syndrome group.

    In Calabria, researchers constructed the family trees of the 100-year-old people. They
    looked at family information from the 19th century to today. They think that there are
    genetic factors that give health benefits to the men. This is interesting because generally, in
    Europe, women live longer than men.

    So what really makes people live longer? Probably, it's a combination of genes, the
    environment and one more thing—luck.

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