Living to be 100 years old requires incorporating a few healthy habits into your daily routine.

Not smoking, keeping off extra weight, and getting a good night’s sleep are just a few very simple things that you can do to reach the 100 year mark in good health.

“The vast majority of individuals we study live independently for most of their lives, and we have found that the older you live usually means the healthier you’ve lived.” Dr. Perls and other researchers have connected activities and factors that may tack on additional months and years and those that’ll whittle down your time. “We have a great deal of power over our longevity, and the decisions we make every day contribute to our life expectancy,” says Dr. Perls. “I know that after working with centenarians, I have changed my habits. I lost 30 pounds and think twice before grabbing a high-fat snack at the checkout counter.” To better your chances of joining the 100 club, check out what researchers have learned about these life extenders and enders.

People suffering from arthritis and osteoarthritis are encouraged to exercise at least 20 minutes per day.

A recent study found that most patients were not meeting even the minimal recommendation of low impact physical activity which is vital to their health.

“Even though they have joint disease, patients need to be reminded that physical activity is actually good for them,” Dunlop added. “People with arthritis should be as physically active as possible, even if they accomplish less than the recommended levels. When it comes to physical activity, there is good evidence that the benefits far outweigh the risks and being inactive is especially detrimental to health.”

A study reported in The Lancet makes it pretty clear that growing your own spare parts may be a real possibility in the near future!

Growing technology is allowing science to put stem cells hard at work growing those hip and knee joints that we’re wearing out as we age.

In a decade or so, people now clamoring for metal and ceramic replacement joints may instead be able to have a fully functional biological replacement — a joint grown within their own bodies to their specific physiology.

To date, researchers have successfully grown replacement shoulder joints in rabbits, using an implanted biological “scaffold” upon which new cartilage developed, according to a study reported in The Lancet.

In fact, the secret to living to 100 or more may be all in the genes.

New research suggests that your life choices might not be the crucial factor in determining whether you make it to 95 or beyond; it finds that many extremely old people appear to have been as bad as everyone else at indulging in poor health habits during their younger years.

This is not an excuse to make unhealthy diet choices or to skip regular exercise.

You may be genetically blessed with long lived genes but the quality of your life may be impacted by your environment and habits.

A long life can still be plagued with chronic illness or debilitating ailments.

A healthy lifestyle is still the best defense against disease.

Surveys show the vast majority of older drug addicts and alcoholics reported first using their substance of choice many years earlier.

However, older people metabolize alcohol differently from their younger counterparts causing more severe damage.

That lifelong use can lead to liver damage, memory loss, hepatitis and a host of other medical issues.

A minority of people find comfort in drugs and alcohol far later in life, fueled by drastic life changes, loneliness or legitimate physical pain.

Seniors use the drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism whether it is loss and loneliness or feeling of displacement.

Experts have observed a rise in illicit drug use, while treatment for alcohol has dropped even though it remains the chief addiction among older adults. The 2008 statistics show 59.9 percent of those 50 and older seeking treatment cited alcohol as their primary substance, down from 84.6 percent in 1992. Heroin came in second, accounting for 16 percent of admissions in that age group, more than double its share in the earlier survey. Cocaine was third, at 11.4 percent, more than four times its 1992 rate.