Want to live longer? Be patient, do more exercise, sit less

DNA of people with quick tempers ages faster than those who are easy-going

*Least active were five times more likely to die than most active

Do you want to live a long, healthy life? Be patient and move more.

Indeed, patience is not just a virtue. It could also help you live longer.

Research shows that the body’s Deoxy ribo-Nucleic Acid (DNA)/genetic material ages more quickly in people who are impatient – and women are particularly prone to the effect.

The finding published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences comes from researchers in Singapore who put more than 1,000 healthy students through a test of patience.

This involved a game in which they were told they could either be given a gift of $100 the next day or wait a month for larger amount.

They were then asked how much this would need to be for it to be worth waiting for.

The more money a volunteer said they would need, the less patient they were deemed to be.

Also, move more and sit less is the main message from a new study on the link between exercise and longevity in the over-50s.

You do not have to build up a good sweat to improve your chances of living longer; just an extra 10 minutes of light activity per day can make a difference, say the researchers.

The study, published in the journal Medicine & Science i n Sports & Exercise, examines data from around 3,000 people aged 50-79 who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It finds that even among people who exercise, those who spend less time sitting and more time moving around tend to live longer.

First author Ezra Fishman, a doctoral candidate in demography at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, United States (US) says:

“The folks who were walking around, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor tended to live longer than the people who were sitting at a desk.”

The study participants wore accelerometers – ultra-sensitive activity trackers that record when the body moves – for seven days.

The researchers then compared this activity data with deaths recorded over the next eight years.

Meanwhile, researchers in Singapore put more than 1,000 students through a game in which they were told they could either be given a gift of $100 the next day or wait a month for larger amount.

They were then asked how much this would need to be for it to be worth waiting for.

The more money a volunteer said they would need to wait for, the less patient they were deemed to be.

The volunteers also gave blood samples which provided clues to how quickly they were ageing.

The researchers zeroed in on tiny structures called telomeres.

These are biological caps which are found at the ends of chromosomes and protect the DNA in them from damage, much like the caps on the ends of shoelaces prevent fraying.

As we get older, our telomeres get shorter and shorter, leading to DNA becoming damaged and raising the odds of age-related illness.

Shorter than average telomeres are seen as a sign of ill health and premature death and the structures are considered so important that the scientists who discovered them seven years ago were awarded a Nobel prize for medicine.

The researchers zeroed in on tiny structures called telomeres.

These are biological caps, which are found at the ends of chromosomes and protect the DNA in them from damage, much like the caps on the ends of shoelaces prevent fraying.

As we get older, our telomeres get shorter and shorter, leading to DNA becoming damaged and raising the odds of age-related illness.

Shorter than average telomeres are seen as a sign of ill health and premature death and the structures are considered so important that the scientists who discovered them seven years ago were awarded a Nobel prize for medicine.

Now, research has shown there to be a clear link between shorter telomeres and impatience.

This stood even when other factors, including socio-economic status and how healthy a person’s lifestyle was, were taken into account.

It isn’t clear just how impatience speeds up ageing but it maybe that related to the stress associated with making hasty decisions.

Impatient people may also be drawn towards unhealthy lifestyles, and the study may have failed to fully account for this.

Differences in sex hormones may explain why women are particularly affected, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

The researchers said that while it is possible that there is something about shorter telomeres that sparks impatience, they believe it to be more likely that hastiness causes the damage.

Least active were five times more likely to die than the most active

When they analyzed the data, the team was struck by the results. The participants whose accelerometers recorded the lowest level of activity were five times more likely to die during the follow-up than those with the highest levels of recorded activity.

Those with the lowest level of activity were also three times more likely to die than the participants in the middle range of activity.