Monday, April 04, 2005

100 Years...

In Biology today we were discussing death. We were handed a longevity quiz. This self test will supposedly tell you in 20 questions or less how long you will live. Curious as to how long you have left to repent?

Will You Live To Be 100?*

  • Do you smoke or chew tobacco, or are you around a lot of secondhand smoke? Yes (-20) No (0)
  • Do you cook your fish, poultry, or meat until it is charred? Yes (-2) No (0)
  • Do you avoid butter, cream, pastries, and other saturated fats as well as fried foods (e.g., French Fries)? Yes (+3) No (-7)
  • Do you minimize meat in your diet, preferably making a point to eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, and bran instead? Yes (+5) No (-4)
  • Do you consume more than two drinks of beer, wine, and/or liquor a day? (A standard drink is one 12-ounce bottle of beer, one wine cooler, one five-ounce glass of wine, or one and a half ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.) Yes (-10) No (0)
  • Do you drink beer, wine, and/or liquor in moderate amounts (one or tow drinks/day)? Yes (+3) No (0)
  • Do air pollution warnings occur where you live? Yes (-4) No (+1)
  • A. Do you drink more than 16 ounces of coffee a day? Yes (-3) No (0)
    B. Do you drink tea daily? Yes (+3) No (0)
  • Do you take an aspirin a day? Yes (+4) No (0)
  • Do you floss your teeth every day? Yes (+2) No (-4)
  • Do you have a bowel movement less frequently than once every two days? Yes (-4) No (0)
  • Have you had a stroke or heart attack? Yes (-10) No (0)
  • Do you try to get a suntan? Yes (-4) No (+3)
  • Are you more than 20 pounds overweight? Yes (-10) No (0)
  • Do you live near enough other family members (other than your spouse and dependent children) that you can and want to drop by spontaneously? Yes (+5) No (-4)
  • Which statement applies to you?
    A. "Stress eats away at me. I can't seem to shake it off." Yes (-7)
    B. "I can shed stress." This might be by praying, exercising, meditating, finding humor in everyday life, or other means. Yes (+7)
  • Did both of your parents either die before age 75 of nonaccidental causes or require daily assistance by the time they reached age 75? Yes (-10) No (0) Don't know (0)
  • Did more than one of the following relatives live to at least age 90 in excellent health: parents, aunts/uncles, grandparents? Yes (+24) No (0) Don't know (0)
  • A. Are you a couch potato (do no regular aerobic or resistance exercise)? Yes (-7)
    B. Do you exercise at least three times a week? Yes (+7)
  • Do you take vitamin E (400-800 IU) and selenium (100-200 mcg) every day? Yes (+5) No (-3)
    Step 1. Add the negative and positive scores together. Example: -35 plus +40 = 5. Divide the preceding score by 5 (5 divided by 5 = 1).

    Step 2. Add the negative or positive number to age 84 if you are a man or age 88 if you are a woman (example: 1 + 84 = 85) to get your estimated life span.

  • As for me, well, I could live longer. Everything above was a direct copy of the page, except I changed the values in the example to my score. I've been starting to feel old lately, but if this study has any accuracy, I'll be around for another 60 years. I guess I don't have to be in a hurry to move on in life after all...but I'm still impatient.


    * = After completing a study of 150 centenarians, Harvard Medical School researchers Thomas Perls, M.D., and Margery Hutter Silver, Ed.D., developed this quiz.

    6 comments:

    Fei said...

    How about
    "Do you have any mortal enemies?"
    Yes (-35) No (0)

    or

    "Do you eat at the cafeteria?"
    Yes (-7) No (+7)

    or for me, it would be

    "Do you eat?"

    Rare Insights said...

    You should check out this link, it's a whole lot quicker and more pleasing to the eye...

    http://www.deathclock.com/

    Rossie said...

    Hehe I checked deathclock years ago and it told me I'd be in my eighties. I'm not entirely happy about that. All the women in my family tend to go a bit batty a decade or so earlier. I'm going to be a dribbly, cranky old woman. Probably without teeth. But with lots of cats.

    Jared said...

    If that death clock is right, I'll be dying much earlier than I thought...*gulp*

    Fei said...

    Rossie, take the advice of the questionaire. Smoke, drink accessively, don't exercise, eat all the unhealthy food you want/can, be a couch potato, and ooh, don't forget to not
    floss!

    If I don't do that, I'll live till I'm 94! I don't want to get that old!

    Fei said...

    http://www.okcupid.com/death That's a pretty good quizette thingamajiggy. Tells you how long you will live to and what you might die of.

    Takes into consideration a whole lot of factors. Check it out.