How are your parents/grandparents doing? What are their health issues/longevities/etc? Do you have longevity in the family?

[Alex K Chen]

/ages at which they developed (or didn't develop chronic illnesses) if any

[Mike Lustgarten]

I don't-the longest lived person in my family was my maternal grandmother, 95y. On the paternal side, my dad, who is currently 80, but before that, 67y was the max. This is a major reason why I'll need to science the sh** out of aging if I want to get to 123+

Hbu Alex?

[Saul]

Good luck.

  --  Saul

[Alex K Chen]

Half of my grandparents tend to die of "weird" causes that don't reveal *that* much about their intrinsic rate of aging.

No history of cardiac disease or cancer in the family (though one uncle suddenly got a heart attack at 70-something)

Grandpa on dad's side lived to 90 [Taipei]. He was a smoker and died of smoking-related causes [he had bronchitis and constantly coughed the last 10 years of his life), so there's not much to learn from here (other than him being more robust than most to smoking)

Grandma on dad's side lived to 91 or 92 [Taipei]. She was supposedly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but it's unclear if she had it. She got very frail towards the end of her years.

Grandpa on mom's side died at 81-82. This was due to autoimmune disease, so not much to learn

Grandma on mom's side (is 94) [in Chengdu - so there's v. high air pollution though some Chinese like Song Ping are v. resistant to it] is still very cognitively alert (doesn't seem to show too many signs of age *mentally*, but got implanted with pacemaker and needs supplemental oxygen

Parents have never had any major health issues. They're reasonably healthy for their age (and they don't have great diets, though I think they reduced the amount of rice they ate a few years ago) and their diets aren't full of *trash*/processed food (though they did fry *everything* they eat, which is not ideal). Dad is health-conscious but not in all the right ways. I checked the health records of dad/mom and there's nothing super-interesting in them, which I guess is "good", but they probably are not super-agers.

Mom has REALLY high HDL levels (like 80s). Dad has HDL in the 40s. My HDL is in the 50s.. My parents have very low RDW values (lke 12ish). Dad has hemoglobin A1C of 5.2. They have decent fasting glucose. That said, they show their age (mom used to look younger than her age, but not really anymore). Jimmy Carter always showed his age and isn't a super-ager (his rate of aging was just not determined by any extrinsic disease, like it is for most white people).

[I have the strangest diet and it may not be the best for me, esp when I go on nut binges, which I didn't used to do...] I know Steve Horvath reduced his GrimAge by abstaining from grains (I once gave him acarbose earlier this year), and I think bigu is a good principle...

Mmy entire family is fairly neurotypical and has no issues with mental health (other than some neuroticism) - I'm the only "crazy" (/ultra-high-openness/non-straightedge) [1] one in the (extended) family. That my family has no history of mental health issues probably bodes well for my mental health long-term (even though I've gone through a lot simply due to middle school....)

fwiw my grandparents had very large families (back when chinese birth rates were high)

I just told dad to wear a mask when mowing the lawn - I wish I did this much earlier..

I might attach some photos later.

[1] depends on what definition of "crazy" you use, it can also be the opposite... I don't know anyone else whose parents could be more different from them [other than sue klebold's son...]

Edited November 7, 2023 by InquilineKea

[Gordo]

WIth my grandparents the women lived into their nineties with some serious cognitive decline in one case and osteoporosis in the other case.  The men died younger one in an accident and the other I think was heart attack (overweight).  My Dad is in his early 80s and seems to be doing pretty well, cognitively sharp, he is mayor of his town and very active, manages a huge public garden and his own private gardens and fruit trees.  But he has already had skin cancer, thyroid cancer, and prostate cancer.  I know cancer is likely coming for me eventually.  But in his case removal surgeries were all successful and there are no current concerns.  More recently he has passed out twice for difficult to figure out reasons, had minor injuries as a result of falling both times.  They prescribed him a beta blocker for this after observing some minor heart related issue (I think it was an irregular heartbeat but only happens rarely).  My mother is doing fine, about to turn 80, has had breast cancer but no current problems.

I'm not sure there is a whole lot to learn from all this, other than don't get overweight, eat healthy foods, get exercise, sleep well, do cancer screenings.  We still need some new technologies to emerge if we hope to do significantly better with aging than those before us.