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Aging With Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives
Next year, America's 78 million baby boomers will begin turning sixty. The aging of this large and powerful demographic has brought an increasing focus on aging-related matters among politicians, business leaders, marketers, community leaders and others. What does aging mean for bodies, minds, emotions and spirit? To what extent is senior health and longevity pre-determined by genetics, and to what extent can we influence it? How can we as a society better understand the needs of an aging population?

This numbers-based trend is matched by changes America's baby boomers themselves bring to any life stage they encounter. As a group, the baby boomers have always manifested independence, curiosity, and strong-mindedness. These characteristics may not be traditionally associated with old age, but the baby boomers won't conform to stereotypes. Approaching their senior years, they are rejecting terms like "senior" and "elderly," instead seeking out new ways to redefine later life stages. Surveys show they believe senior health is achievable and they will be living life to the fullest as they get older. And they are getting a lot of support from experts who say they have it in their power to control their destinies this way.

Since 1986, David Snowdon, an epidemiologist with a special interest in aging, has conducted research dubbed "the Nun Study" by those from whom it's received widespread attention. Tracking the lives of 678 elderly nuns belonging to the order of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Snowdon gathered information on their aging processes. Their similar and insular lives meant relatively little variation among subject lifestyles, enhancing the integrity of his results.

In this book Snowdon details and analyzes his results. In a pilot study he found links between level of education and senior health. This encouraged him to expand his work to other convents and to focus mostly on Alzheimer's disease. With subjects aged 75 to 104, he examined health during life and brain tissues after death. Among his findings is a clear inverse proportion between rate of Alzheimer's and linguistic ability. He also discovered that certain antioxidants, physical activity and a good attitude all had significant, positive impacts on the aging process.

Snowdon gives us a compassionate book that does indeed offer intriguing clues about the ingredients for a meaningful, happy and relatively healthy old age. His research adds to the growing number of studies showing rate and ravages of age to be largely dependent on a person's lifestyle and personal qualities. Baby boomers, to whom personal choice and control over one's own destiny is very important, will find this to be great news as they approach their own old age with sleeves rolled up. The more they feel they can make a difference to their own health as seniors, the more likely they are to embrace those things in life that further the bid for vitality. This book is therefore a smart clue about the directions in which boomers will be trying to transform their own lives and outlooks, to better ensure long and enjoyable lives.

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