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Today, I attended the funeral of my last surviving uncle, on my fathers side of the family. He died at the age of 96. Both his brothers died of massive colonic bleeding, at a much younger age, one at 65, and I believe the other was 53. Apparently, his only major health issue occurred when he was in his late 80s. A section of his colon rolled over, and caused a blockage. The doctors were able to manipulate it back into the correct position, but a few days later, it happened again, so they did a Hartman proceedure on him, (a colostomy). Due to his advanced age, they were afraid to reverse it with a resection, so he was stuck with it for the rest of his life, much to his displeasure.
Anyway, while visiting with friends and family, I spent some time thinking about the effects of GI issues on longevity. It seems that my father died at the age of 65, due to massive colonic bleeding, (he received 113 units of blood, while in the hospital, but still bled to death). My grandfather died at the age of 62, due to a blood clot, following surgery for a knee injury, after he fell on a plow because his team of horses shifted position when he was climbing onto or off of it. But my great-grandfather apparently lived almost to the age of 101.
So I'm wondering when the GI issues began in the family. No conclusion can be reached regarding my grandfather, since he died from the complications of surgery. In my father's generation, though, 2 of 3 brothers had a bleeding problem which cut their lives short, and the other had a somewhat minor GI issue, which may or may not have contributed to shortening his lifespan. It definitely lowered his quality of life, so I'm guessing that it was a contributor.
I'm not sure where that leaves me, because my mother also had GI issues, (I'm guessing celiac disease, but her doctors were never smart enough to test for it, and it was off my radar, also, back in those days). So I'm guessing that I inherited those undesirable genes from both my parents, because I've been through not only years of problems with gluten, but also a serious bleeding episode. Since I no longer have a colon, (it was removed last February, as a result of the bleeding issue), and I'm following a strict GF diet, that should effectively undo most of the potential future effects of the bad genes, (I hope), so it will be interesting to see if I've also inherited any longevity genes, and if I have, how much their potency has been mitigated by the adverse digestive system genes.
Love,
Tex
That's for sure.
I aged about 20 years during that time. Seriously. Going by appearance alone, after I started the GF diet, I was able to roll back about half of those years, but some of them were obviously permanent. The gray hair, for example, didn't go back to the dark brown color that it was previously. 
