How To Live To Be 103

Head off the diseases that could threaten your future with this take-charge-now plan.

You left that important file at home—again. If you miss your 4 P.M. snack, you become the office dragon lady. And there are times when you're so stressed, your head feels as if it's about to explode. These are all normal (if vexing) symptoms of a busy life. And yet, there's that nagging worry: Could they mean more? After all, your grandma's absentmindedness morphed into Alzheimer's disease, your mom's once-minor blood sugar issues turned into diabetes and your workaholic dad had a stroke.

While it's smart to keep your family's health history in mind, you can relax—you're not necessarily doomed to repeat it. A better way to look at it is motivation to live healthier. Knowing who had what and when can help you gauge your genetic susceptibility to a disease, but more often, how you live determines whether you'll actually get it, says Suzanne Steinbaum, D.O., director of the Center for Cardiac Health at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. In other words, even if you were dealt a bum lot of genes, you still have remarkable control over your health. Still worried? Remember this general rule: The later in life an illness struck a relative, the lower the risk of it happening to you. On the following pages, SELF helps you keep your real risk in perspective and steer clear of five common ailments, so you can put yourself on the path toward a long, healthy life.

Live long without...
Heart disease

You may be a poster girl for low cholesterol and blood pressure, but everyone needs to think about heart disease. It's the number-one killer of women. Over time, the gunk (fat and cholesterol) from unhealthy food begins to stick to the sides of otherwise-smooth arteries. Eventually, a clot can form and break off, blocking blood flow and depriving the heart of oxygen, causing irreparable damage.

Know your true risk.

With heart disease in particular, a healthy diet and active lifestyle can often trump a family history, Dr. Steinbaum says. As long as you're aggressive in staving off and treating other risk factors (see below), those arteries should stay as clear as a freeway at 4 A.M. For the average Jane age 18 to 44, the risk for heart disease is about one in 112. But if your mom had a heart attack before 65 or your dad before 55, your risk is higher, Dr. Steinbaum says.

What ups your chances

Smoking, chronic stress and a sedentary lifestyle all contribute, as do high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity or diabetes. Ninety percent of people who have heart attacks have at least one of these risk factors and usually more than one.

How to stay safe

Sweat.. Walk briskly for at least three hours a week or do some vigorous (heart-pounding, heavy-breathing) exercise for 30 minutes, three times a week; you'll reduce your risk as much as 40 percent, according to a study in The New England Journal of Medicine .

Do yoga.. While the active part of the practice does your body good (Vinyasa yoga burns up to 540 calories per hour), the meditative component helps your heart, too. Researchers at Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island, found that harboring hostility (that means you, Omarosa!) may be a bigger predictor for heart disease than smoking. And yoga reduces feelings of aggressiveness, according to a study in the International Journal of Psychosomatics .

Quit smoking.. One to four cigarettes a day double your chances of having a heart attack, because smoking increases blood pressure, cholesterol and the tendency for your blood to clot. For help, visit www.quitnet.com.

Eat oat bran.. A diet high in fiber (shoot for at least 25 grams a day) can keep your ticker tocking. Load up on granola, dried figs, brussels sprouts and beans for cholesterol-lowering soluble fiber. For every 5-gram increase of cereal fiber you get a day, you can cut your risk by more than a third. Mmm, bran.

Pick up a bottle of wine.. And enjoy it! Moderate amounts of any type of alcohol (a bottle of beer, a glass of wine or a shot of liquor) can help prevent your platelets from sticking together, which is what leads to buildup in arteries, research shows.