THE findings of a Boston university and Boston Medical Centre study, carried in the Journal of The American Geriatrics Society, reveal that the secret to longevity might lie in good genes.

The study of more than 600 seniors found that the children of centenarians tended to live longer and were substantially less likely to develop diabetes, suffer a heart attack or stroke over four years.

According to the results, there may be physiological reasons why longevity runs in families. The study suggests that children of centenarians tend to retain a "cardiovascular advantage" over their peers as they age. The study included 440 men and women who had at least one parent who had survived to age 100 or beyond, and 192 adults whose parents had lived an average life expectancy. The average age in both groups was 72 at the start of the study.

Sleep your way to creativity

SCIENTISTS say that sleeping could be the basis of creativity. Throughout the day your brain rarely gets a chance to stop and think. In a state of constant alertness, it responds to a stream of challenges from activities we are required to perform in the day.

But at bedtime, the mind has the time to relax and mull over events of the day. This is when new ideas and ways of thinking start to emerge.

"Think of your brain like a web," says Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University.

"During the day the web is very tight, so you can only put information in a certain number of places. During sleep the web expands, and with the luxury of time, those bits of information can be put into lots of different places to make new associations."

He adds that this process may help foster the formation of new ideas. Experts, however, are divided on whether this occurs when you dream, or during deeper, non-dreaming sleep.

Stressed out over Christmas shopping

APART from being hard on wallets, Christmas shopping can put the mind and body under dangerous levels of stress, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by the University of East London in partnership with Moneysupermarket Shopping, found that Christmas shopping increased blood pressure to high levels in 50 per cent of shoppers. This could lead to hypertension, which can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney problems, the study discovered. Even low levels of hypertension are linked with migraines, panic attacks and osteoporosis.

The study revealed that heart rates increased by an average of 10 per cent during Christmas shopping. Researchers asked 15 men and 15 women to purchase a variety of gifts within 75 minutes. Men felt twice as stressed while women were almost three times as stressed.