Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 24, 1993 TAG: 9403190006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL LAITNER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
We're want 'em to last.
Health and fitness publishers are seeing a flurry of new interest in longevity, even while sales remain strong for their usual stock in trade - books and magazines on weight loss, hardbody workouts and daily wellness.
Atop the book pile is ``Ageless Body, Timeless Mind'' by Deepak Chopra, MD.
Chopra's book has been No. 1 on the New York Times list of non-fiction books for three weeks. In 342 pages, it touts meditation techniques, fresh food, moderate exercise and positive thinking as ways to achieve inner peace - not to mention a few extra decades.
Down the stack from ``Ageless Body'' are not one but two books named ``The Longevity Factor.'' And there are magazine stories on anti-aging diets and exercise plans, including the suggestive headline on Prevention magazine's August issue, ``Live Longer and Love Everyday.''
So what's going on? It's baby boomers again. They see the big five-oh looming and are suddenly jazzed about their mortality, say publishing honchos. In the lingo of market research, ``We've seen the rat moving through the snake and now is the time when it's starting to digest the longevity theme,'' says Patrick Taylor, spokesman for Prevention.
Forty-somethings ``see their parents and say, `I will not look like that when I'm 70, I will not have that illness,''' adds Susan Meskil, publisher of Longevity magazine, a 5-year-old monthly with a circulation of 350,000.
Smug boomers have always expected more from life. Now they want more life, period. To get it, they're demanding more than conventional medicine can deliver, spurring sales of pop-health publications.
They should stop and consider: The very existence of their parents is significant. After all, this has already been a century of remarkable change in longevity. In 1900, the average American life span was 47 years. Today it's about 75 years and climbing.
What's the theoretical limit? Depends on whom you ask.
Health experts say it will keep climbing if Americans simply quit smoking, eat leaner and get even a little more active. But that doesn't sell books.
``You can live to 120 years if you want to!'' exclaims the Phoenix physician who penned ``Dr. Mollen's Anti-Aging Diet.''
Want more? Chopra's book says: ``Without negative influences from within and without, our tissues and organs could easily last 115 to 130 years before sheer age caused them to stop functioning.''
And if you really want to push the envelope, try a bargain-priced, 87-page paperback that gives the magic of Merlin to a mineral supplement. In ``The Longevity Factor: Chromium Picolinate,'' biochemist Richard Passwater writes, ``There is good evidence that our neurons could survive 200 or more years if their support system continued to function properly.''
The other book called ``The Longevity Factor'' by Lyndia Bronte ($20, HarperCollins), counsels people about how to have a better longer life, including managing a second career.
Chopra, a vegetarian who fasts one day a week, is riding the crest of a tidal wave unleashed by Oprah Winfrey. She gave him a full hour July 12. A few days later, hundreds crowded a Madison Heights, Mich., union hall to hear physician Hema Reddy, a Chopra protege, lecture on ways to live longer.
The hall was dotted with heads of graying hair but there were plenty of middle-aged folks, and a few even younger. Angie Radzikowski, 23, of Canton, Mich., said she dragged her boyfriend along after seeing Chopra on TV. Her family has a history of cancer, and she said she hopes advice like Chopra's will help keep her disease-free.
``We just want longevity and more control of our lives,'' she said. Chopra ``makes it sound like you could live a lot longer and do it without wheelchairs and all the drugs people are taking.''
Nearby was Carol Conliffe, 41, of Windsor, Ont., a phone company employee seeking ``longevity and spiritual development.'' Although Chopra doesn't advise it, a chuckling Conliffe admitted she takes ``tons of vitamins.''
And don't expect the subject of longevity to die off. Prevention magazine's parent, Rodale Press, has a staff of some 100 writers, designers and illustrators producing the next crop. Due in 1994 are a matched pair of fountain-of-youth books: ``Age Erasers for Men'' and ``Age Erasers for Women.''
And what might follow this fresh longing for long lives?
``I think the whole mind-body revolution is going through four phases,'' Deepak Chopra said in a recent phone interview. ``The first was prevention. The second was wellness, and by that I mean physical and emotional health. The third is longevity. We want to maximize our lives.''
``And I think the fourth phase will be a springboard for a new feeling about the experience of wisdom, wherein the older generation will become the caretakers of society. We will have the benefit of youth in old age.''
Oh no. Boomers again. Hoping to call the shots from their nursing homes.
by CNB