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If workers in Germany, the richest country in Europe, can enjoy 40 days off a year, why do we Americans take only 17 days’ vacation?

Even with this miserly number, more than half of us don’t even use all the vacation days we’re entitled to, and – this kind of amazes me – one out of four don’t take any time off at all.¹

Whatever the reasons for the difference (maybe because employees in every other advanced nation in the world have paid annual leave required by law), it’s vital to take a good break from work – your health and lifespan […]

Be happy. Enjoy life. It pays off in spades. Scientists even have an estimate as to how long it will take you to see a change in your physical health: about three years.¹

In our instant-gratification society, that may seem like a slow-working medicine, but while you wait you get to be. . . well, happier. And that seems like an end in itself.

The resulting better health brings a longer, potentially more satisfying life. But what really interests researchers today is not so much the link between feeling happy, good health and life expectancy, but whether life happiness by itself adds […]

If you want to maximize your life expectancy, you have your choice of special diets, exhausting exercise programs and complicated lifestyle changes you can adopt as you try to live as long as possible.

But you can also take the easy way out if you’re so inclined and still improve your odds of a long life.

Here are some easy tips to potentially add years to your life without making a commitment to huge changes in your daily routine. And studies show these low-effort methods work. . .

Want an unusual, but simple way to join the centenarian crowd?

Indulge in hot peppers.

No, I’m […]

“We may have a society in which robots will drift away from total metal toward the organic, and human beings will drift away from the total organic toward the metal and plastic, and that somewhere in the middle they may eventually meet.”

The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov made that prediction in 1965. Today many scientists are working to make this a reality in the medical field.

For instance, in 2015, a 34-year-old Los Angeles quadriplegic, Erik Sorto, became the first person to control a robot arm with his thoughts. Now he’s able to enjoy a glass of beer by his own […]

One of the hallmarks of aging is cellular senescence. Cells lose the ability to divide, differentiate, and replicate — yet stubbornly refuse to die.

These senescent cells not only lose function, but interfere with processes that create new cells when old ones die. They also harm nearby healthy cells by secreting pro-inflammatory factors and other tissue-damaging molecules.

Senescent cells don’t normally form before we’re past the age of 60, but they can arise in obese individuals and those with chronic diseases at a much earlier age. Whatever the reason you develop these “zombie cells” that refuse to die, they drive the aging […]

When Italian researchers analyzed the health and mortality of Italian seniors, they came to a startling conclusion: As far as longevity and life expectancy goes, quite a few of the people in their study had stopped aging.

They had reached what the researchers call a “mortality plateau.”

While other seniors kept experiencing an increased risk of dying with each passing year, the risk for these non-aging folks had leveled off. Their chances of dying from one year to the next stayed the same even as they got older and older.

As a result, the researchers believe that although the oldest person on record […]