Living to an especially old age usually comes as the result of following some basic health tenets like maintaining a healthy diet and exercising. However, there are a very lucky select few who make it to 100 years old while still boasting an impressive health span, meaning they have no or limited health issues that affect their quality of life. One such centenarian is Hilda Jaffe, a 102-year-old woman who still maintains complete independence living in her New York City apartment. And while there’s no simple answer, doctors believe there are a few reasons for her exceptional longevity.
RELATED: The 3 "Ultraprocessed" Foods You Must Avoid for a Longer Life, 30-Year Study Finds.
Jaffe is in excellent physical health and stays active.
Even if someone is lucky enough to make it past their 100th birthday, it’s not uncommon for their physical health to be a serious concern due to mobility issues, heart disease, cancer, or other conditions. However, Jaffe appears to be an outlier, even having participated in a handful of studies to help understand exactly how she’s managed to stay in such good shape.
“My primary-care doctor says, ‘You’re the only centenarian who walks in without an assistant or a cane. You’re off the charts,’” Jaffe told The Washington Post in a recent interview.
Jaffe credits part of this to staying active even in her elder years, walking at least 3,000 steps each day while running errands or grabbing a bite to eat in her Manhattan neighborhood. Whenever the weather is bad, she’ll complete the same number by walking around the hallways of her apartment building, per Fortune.
She maintains a relatively normal diet.
Jaffe takes a casual yet effective approach to deciding what she eats. Besides never being a smoker and abstaining from alcohol, she maintains a relatively simple diet that typically includes a trip to her favorite diner for a breakfast of bread, eggs, cheese, and decaf coffee, per Business Insider. However, she admits that she’ll allow herself to indulge in a hamburger or French toast from time to time.
Depending on how she’s feeling, she’ll usually have a sandwich with meat or cheese or cook up some eggs for lunch. Her dinner is typically a salad with some type of protein on it or simply heated-up leftovers from a nearby restaurant.
RELATED: A Daily Walk Could Add 11 Years to Your Life—If You Do It for This Long.
Jaffe manages to stay mentally stimulated, too.
Despite living alone, Jaffe says it’s rare that she ever feels isolated or undersocialized. In fact, she maintains a relatively busy schedule, regularly attending the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, taking the time to check out visiting exhibits at the city’s major museums, participating in a book club at her synagogue, and regularly chatting with her family and friends through apps and over the phone, per The Washington Post.
Perhaps most impressively, Jaffe volunteers a few times a week as a tour guide at the New York Public Library’s Bryant Park branch. Some researchers say this kind of stimulation might be just as important as other heavily-touted longevity focuses like diet and exercise.
“There is research to suggest that if you remain engaged, maintain a broader social circle, if you remain cognitively stimulated, that you will have better cognitive aging, and you are at less risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease,” Sofiya Milman, MD, director of human longevity studies at Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Institute for Aging Research, told Fortune. “There’s good evidence to support that. Whether that will make you live to 95 or 100, I think the jury is still out.”
She also remains positive and optimistic about the world.
While she may be the interest of many in the medical community, Jaffe is far less self-important when it comes to her impressive age, which she still heavily credits to good genes. Instead, she says she stays grounded by focusing on taking what comes her way each day and not fretting over the things she can’t control, calling herself “pragmatic.”
And she hasn’t lost her sense of wonder. “It’s always important to just keep an open mind,” she told Fortune in a video interview. “If something looks interesting, go for it! Just stay open.”
Jaffe also admits that despite rigorously following her doctor’s orders and staying on top of her physical health, she’s aware that she has no more control over her future now than she did in her younger days—which in itself is liberating.
“My joke is I’m going to be done in by a bicycle delivery person cutting through the pedestrian crosswalk,” Jaffe told The Washington Post. “[Until then,] I live in a state of surprise. Every day is a new day. I don’t take it for granted at all.”
RELATED: 104-Year-Old Woman Reveals What She Drinks Every Day for Longevity.
The takeaway.
Besides making it to her 102 birthday, Helen Jaffe has impressed her doctors with her overall health at such an old age. She maintains a relatively simple diet that’s high in protein, gets at least 3,000 steps in every day, and maintains a highly active social calendar—including a long-running stint as a volunteer tour guide several times a week. Doctors credit all of this, along with her pragmatic outlook, for her notably long lifespan.
