UK sees more centenarians in past 20 years: study

Researchers have found a trend of increasing number of people in Britain reaching the age of 100 over the past two decades, according to a study released Monday by the King's College London.

The study was carried out by a team of the college. They used electronic health records of some 11,084 centenarians in Britain, and analyzed the trends.

The results showed a 50 percent increase in the number of females reaching the age of 100 years between 1990 and 2013, while a 30 per cent increase could be seen in the number of males reaching 100. That means women were four times more likely to reach age 100 than men.

Researchers said although far less men reached the age of 100, those that did tended to be healthier, with females more likely to experience multiple chronic illnesses and disabilities such as fractures, incontinence and hearing/visual deterioration than men.

Meanwhile, less life-threatening conditions such as arthritis were also shown to be more prevalent than the more serious illnesses such as diabetes and cancer across both men and women in the sample, according to the study.

There were a surprising number of 100 year-olds who had no major illnesses, and as the number of people living to 100 continues to increase, it's very important to understand the evolving health care needs of these people, said Nisha Hazra, leading author of the study from King's College London. Endit