Genetics vs. Lifestyle: How Family History Shows Longevity Isn't Just About Healthy Habits
By
ggm
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Summary
The article discusses the role of genetics versus lifestyle in longevity, using personal family history as an example. The author notes that their grandparents and great-grandparents lived hard lives with unhealthy habits like high-fat diets, drinking, and smoking, yet lived into their 80s, suggesting genetics plays a major role in lifespan. However, the author emphasizes that while these relatives lived long lives, their quality of life in later years was poor due to health issues like alcoholism, poverty, heart attacks, emphysema, and strokes, leaving them deeply unhappy. The piece argues that healthy living still matters for quality of life, even if genetics determines lifespan to some extent.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledOf all of my grandparents and great grandparents, they all lived really hard lives eating high fat diets, drinking and smoking, and lived into their 80s.
Genetics is really the biggest determining factor outside of going completely off the rails with binge eating and drug use.
Their quality of life from late 60s on was not great: alcoholism, poverty, multiple heart attacks, emphasima, a stroke here and there, from which they eventually, sort of, not really recovered.
They were deeply unhappy people who never really seemed to have time o
