Gyles Brandreth’s seven secrets to a long life – and they’re simpler than you think

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W hile he has not reached his centenary yet, Gyles Brandreth is fairly certain he knows how to get there.

Hoping to have enough "snap in my celery" to get there, the veteran broadcaster and author, currently aged 78, has written a new book outlining what he sees as the seven secrets of living to 100 .

“I think of myself as still quite young (bless me) and I am hoping to have snap in my celery for at least another 20 years,” he says in the book. “That’s why I have written this book. It’s a self-help book and it’s myself I am hoping to help!”

Aside from selfish reasons for writing The 7 Secrets of the Hundred-Year Life , Brandreth, who’s regularly featured on Channel 4 ’s Countdown and ITV ’s This Morning , is also hoping to help even the currently young live to be centenarians through following seven simple tips he identified with the help of his physiotherapist and co-author, Finola Burrell.

He says: “I’ve known a lot of people who’ve lived to be 100 years of age, and I thought maybe I should try and put all their secrets into a book in case it would help other people live to be 100 – but actually how to have good living, because they want us to be 100 and just be sitting in a corner looking sad.

Brandreth, who was the Conservative MP for Chester between 1992 and 1997, says the number of people living to 100 globally has surged from roughly 23,000 a century ago to nearly 722,000 today, and is expected to reach four million by 2054.

And if you want to be one of them, he advises following all of these tips…

Brandreth says happy people live seven to 10 years longer than unhappy people, and to be happy, you need a positive outlook.

So he advises: “You need to look up and out rather than down and in. Busy people are happy people, and that’s why one of the golden rules is to cultivate a passion, have something you love doing, that makes you want to get up in the morning.

He says it’s also important to live in the moment, and be able to cope with change. “Change is the salt and the soup of life,” he says. “As people get older, they find change difficult. People say don’t rock the boat, but in fact, a little gentle rocking does you good.”

Globally, a less-than-optimal diet is estimated to cause around 11 million premature deaths, as detailed in The Lancet.