If Living Healthy Is So Important to Longevity, Why Do Some Unhealthy People Live so Long?
Written with Ann Arbor Holistic Health Practitioner, Maral Salerno, FDN-P
Maral’s journey with gut issues after pregnancy led her to explore a more holistic path that she now uses to support others. She is a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner with 20 years of experience, a Certified Anusara Yoga Teacher, and a Thai Massage Therapist. Maral also holds a B.S. in Political Science from the University of California San Diego.
Discover how everyday habits, stress management, community, and clean living shape the way your genes express themselves. Learn what a functional approach to longevity looks like and how small daily choices can support a steadier path toward vibrant aging.
Every family has that one relative who eats whatever they want, never exercises, and somehow lives to ninety. At first glance, it feels like a mystery. But as Maral Salerno, FDN-P explains, longevity is far more than a list of good or bad habits. It’s a story about stress, environment, and the way our bodies interpret the world around us.
The Hidden Role of Stress on Gene Expression
When we think about stress, we often picture long workdays or emotional strain. Maral reminds us that the body sees stress in three distinct categories: “We have biochemical stressors, biomechanical stressors, and mental, emotional, spiritual stressors,” says Maral Salerno, an Ann Arbor Holistic Health practitioner. Each type plays a role in how our genes express themselves over time.
This is where the concept of epigenetics comes in. According to Maral Salerno, FDN-P, “You could have someone who has great genes, but if they don’t manage those three different categories of stressors well, their genes start to express poorly. Or someone with poor genes can actually get them to express better depending on what they do.”
In other words, the daily choices we make shape the way our genes behave. Genes load the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger.
Why Some Older Adults Seem Surprisingly Resilient
We’ve all seen older adults who smoked, skipped vegetables, and still outlived their healthier peers. Maral points out that many of these individuals grew up in a dramatically different world.
“Earlier generations didn’t have the proliferation of pesticides. They didn’t even have genetically modified foods,” notes Maral Salerno, an Ann Arbor Holistic Health practitioner. Their bodies developed during a time when soil, food, water, and air carried fewer contaminants. That early window matters because “youth is the most impactful time for how genes are regulated (epigenetics) and environmental factors (nutrition, stress, toxins, sleep, exercise) can have long-lasting effects because the body is still building long-term biological set-points.” she explains.
The exposures of modern life, from heavily processed foods to environmental toxins, will likely make the “grandparent paradox” far less common in the decades ahead.
The Foundations of Longevity
When asked which habits truly move the needle, Maral didn’t point to obscure superfoods or complicated protocols. Instead, she emphasized the basics.
1. Meaningful Connection
According to Maral Salerno, FDN-P, “A connection with God and a connection with community” often determine whether someone thrives despite imperfect habits. She’s seen people try every supplement and regimen without progress simply because “they’re isolated.” Connection calms the nervous system. A calmer nervous system shapes gene expression in a positive direction.
2. Clean Food and Clean Water
Maral encourages people to focus on real, minimally altered foods and to pay attention to water quality. “People really need to clean up their water,” says Maral Salerno, an Ann Arbor Holistic Health practitioner. Distilled water that is later remineralized is her preferred option, especially given rising contaminants.
3. Movement and Sleep
These are the quiet engines of long life. “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” says Maral Salerno, FDN-P, urging people to move their bodies daily, even if it’s a short walk. Movement supports circulation, detoxification, mood, and rest. Sleep then closes the loop by supporting restoration at a cellular level.
4. Antioxidant-Rich Foods
Berries, fish, and phytonutrient-rich foods support cellular resilience. But Maral also cautions that individual needs vary: “Depending on certain people’s gene expressions, they might need different nutrients,” she notes.
A Simple Takeaway
Even though longevity looks mysterious from the outside, the core inputs are surprisingly grounded: nutrient-dense food, clean water, daily movement, restorative sleep, meaningful connection, and reducing exposure to unnecessary stressors. As Maral puts it, “Stay away from processed foods. They really do a number on everybody’s bodies.”
If you found Maral’s perspective helpful, the next step is to explore how genetics and luck shape longevity through the lens of Ann Arbor Holistic Health’s founder, Gary Merel. His article below dives deeper into why some people live to ninety-five despite poor habits, and why the rest of us can benefit so much from intentional living.
Did you know that people who live to be 95 are just as likely to make unhealthy lifestyle choices as anyone else? At least that’s what one study from the Yeshiva Institute for Aging found. Smoking, drinking, failing to exercise, eating processed foods—some people do these things all their lives and somehow still manage to outlive their healthier peers. Likewise, some people who make all the right choices (eating Paleo, exercising, wearing sunscreen etc.) are sometimes the ones who get the sickest.
People who do end up living to 95+ are a rarity (~ .01% of the population). But several studies have shown this group to smoke, drink, and lead sedentary life-styles just as much, or, in some cases, even more than the general population. At first, this might seem absolutely baffling. You might be wondering: is all my work to stay healthy done in vain if people who do just the opposite outlive me?
The answer is: of course not. The real story behind these long-lived, yet unhealthy people is luck—more specifically, the luck of winning the genetic lottery. Oftentimes, people who live to be very old simply have longevity encoded within their genes. They might interact with environmental factors differently than others. Their good genes work to counteract the effects of bad behavior and bad habits. Some genes not only slow down cellular aging, but also provide an anti-aging effect—giving some people a huge advantage when it comes to living a long, if unhealthy, life.
Now you might be wondering, how do I know if I’m one of these people? Well, you can’t—that is, until you actually live to be very old. In other words, only time will tell if you made out with the genetic winnings—and the odds aren’t in your favor. For 99.9% of us, life-style choices matter a great deal. While a small segment of the population might seem to defy the idea that how we live our lives dictates how old we live to be, the fact is, these people are the exception to the rule; they’re going to live a long time no matter what. The rest of us actually do have control over how long we do or don’t live; which is really a good thing if you think about it.
But we don’t always have complete control. On the other side of the spectrum, you could practice healthy habits your whole life and still fall victim to disease, particularly cancer. A study from Johns Hopkins found that most incidences of cancer are caused not by unhealthy lifestyles, but by plain old bad luck… but is it really just bad luck?
The answer, again, is: of course not! The study found 22 cancers that were tied to random gene mutations—but nine others, including skin cancer, colorectal, and lung cancer, were proven to be tied to environmental and life-style factors. Breast cancer was not evaluated in the study.
The moral of the story is that some cancers (particularly some of the most common forms) leave more room than others for taking measures of prevention. I.e., what you choose to eat and put on your skin does affect your risk of developing some forms of cancer. Additionally, several studies have shown that healthy living tends to turn off cancer-promoting genes and turn on cancer-suppressing genes—more evidence that making healthy choices does affect our risk of developing cancer.
At the end of the day, the work you do to stay healthy matters. A combination of conventional medicine and holistic health almost certainly has a meaningful effect on how old we live to be. And even if you do happen to be one of those people who will live to be 100 no matter what, or one of those people who unfairly falls victim to disease, living healthy will, at the very least, improve the quality of however many years you do live—whether that’s 45, 75, or 100+.
Ready to get a clearer picture of what your own body needs to feel its best? Our team can help you sort through stressors, daily habits, and nutrition choices so you can move forward with confidence. Schedule a free consult today and start building a plan that supports long-term vitality.
