Announcing The Centenarian Playbook

Lessons from the one percent: those who make it to extreme old age.

👋 Hello, I’m Kevin Ferguson, author of 🍷 Rain on the Monte Bello Ridge,🍷 my forthcoming memoir about health, aging and winemaking. (Read the origin story of the book.) 🍇 This is my newsletter, which features longevity tips and stories from Grandma Kay’s long life. It also includes stories of the Gemello Winery, which her late husband, Mario, ran for nearly half a century. 📖 I’m sure you’ll find my maternal grandparents are quite lovable characters. You can subscribe by clicking on this handy little button.

Four Generations: Kay Gemello, 102, bounces her great granddaughter, Sidney, on her knee on her first birthday. Also pictured, Kay’s son, Mark (L) and grandson, JP.

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Announcing The Centenarian Playbook

I’m excited to announce a new edition to my Substack blog. I’m calling it The Centenarian Playbook, inspired by what I’ve learned about Grandma Kay’s genes, lifestyle and habits as well as other experts on aging, including The New England Centenarian Study, The Blue Zones among others.

What’s changing?

Not much. The Centenarian Playbook will not be replacing the stories and book research I’ve been publishing the first Monday (usually) each month. The Playbook posts will be an addition published on the third Monday of the month. Unlike some of the long form essays I’ve been publishing, these items will be more traditional blog posts (bite size tips and digestible takeaways) centered around health and aging topics.

If you are new to my Substack, The Rain on the Monte Bello Ridge book project was initially inspired by my late grandfather, Mario Gemello, who helped his father launch the Gemello Winery in Mountain View during the Great Depression. His life long work climaxed by his wine winning the prestigious Judgment of Paris¹ blind tasting in 2002, three years before Mario passed away.

As I compiled stories about him, while caregiving for my grandmother during the pandemic, a lightbulb went on. There’s a bigger story here: How is Grandma Kay, his centenarian widow, still going almost two decades after losing her spouse of 64 years?

What is her longevity secret?

The book’s narrative is a blend of Mario’s and Kay’s two stories.

Today’s Longevity Takeaway

Many people often think of "making it to 100” as a goal. I did too, for some time. But researching the aging process, while losing people close to me of debilitating diseases, changed my thinking. For example, my father passed away last year at 86 of a lung disease caused by years of smoking. It was hard to watch him struggle in his last few years, as he seemed to have lost his will to live.

Setting a goal of living to 100 started to feel arbitrary. But Dr. Tom Perls, founder of the New England Centenarian Study, told me in an interview there are valuable lessons in studying the one percent of people who make it to extreme old age. Grandma Kay is part of his study, and meets that threshold. One percent of women make it to 102. One percent of men live to 99.

Perls said by making tweaks to your lifestyle, like not smoking, eating healthier, you can minimize the chances of suffering from age-related diseases,  like Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, that cause most people to die in their seventies and eighties.

I’ll be sharing more of this research from the New England Centenarian Study in the March edition of The Centenarian Playbook.

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1. The original Judgment of Paris was held in 1976. Gemello’s 1970 Cabernet Sauvignon took first place in the re-enactment held in New York during the 25th anniversary of the original event.