50+ - the latest statistics

Saga have commissioned a new report on the over 50's which has produced some fascinating stats.

• ONE in eight of the people who turn 50 this year will live to the grand old age of 100
• One in seven of the runners in this weekend’s London Marathon will be aged 50 or older and  46 per cent say they are taking more exercise than they have ever done before.
• Three-quarters of the age group say they are more concerned about being healthy than they have ever been. By comparison with their parents’ generation, today’s over-50s are less than half as likely to smoke cigarettes – 40 per cent in the mid Seventies, down to 15 per cent now.  
• They are also four times more likely to take health supplements and vitamins and six times more likely to be on a low-fat or low-cholesterol diet. One in five 60-year-olds say they have climbed a mountain in their 50s, and almost a quarter, or 23 per cent, have run or jogged at least a mile in their 50s. 
• One in six 70-year-olds claims to have run more than a mile at some point during their 60s. Six in 10 over-50s have tried “brain training” computer games and one in eight men over 50 claim to have taken Viagra in the past five years.