Healthspan

The first of many on this topic

When you Google longevity you get 328 million hits ranging from what some health ‘expert’ says is the ONLY good multi-vitamin for longevity (good luck substantiating that), to 18 ‘secrets’ for a longer life. I suppose they are no longer secrets. 2 of the early suggestions are to ‘get hitched’ and ‘lose weight’. Sure healthy relationships are known to increase longevity but does it only count if you’re married? And we assume everyone should lose weight, or are we just playing the odds?

The unfortunate part of all these ‘secrets’ and ‘hacks’ are they are SO general and most of the articles like the one mentioned above doesn’t even give an objective lens to help you understand. Lose weight if I’m a certain height and weight? A certain body fat %? What if I’m a 5’9” NFL running back weighing 225 lbs? I’m labeled as obese in a BMI chart, but losing weight would cause me to lose my job. These secrets should probably remain as such in the authors head, seeing as mediocre and general they are.

Should longevity even be #1 on our radar? If it is, the #1 indicator of longevity is how much muscle mass you have at 65, so get lifting. What about the title though which I heard first explained well by Dr. Peter Attia. Healthspan. Google that about you only get 3.75 million hits. So why is healthspan only 1.1% as popular as longevity? The reasoning I believe is most true is everything is communicated in an age-related manner. “It won’t be that easy when you’re my age”. “When you hit _ it’s downhill from there/won’t recover as fast”. “You have more energy when you’re younger”. Anti-aging products. “You can’t _ when you get up to my age”. Imagine accepting someone else’s reality as your own without questioning how you could fare better? Weird.

Longevity (length of life) is all well and good, but do you really want to live the last 15-30+ years on medications, lacking mobility, experiencing pain and injury, and having less vitality and energy if you don’t need to? This is where healthspan comes in. I think of healthspan as living the life you desire for as long as possible, able and healthy until the end. In many first world countries the life expectancy is 80+ and rising, and we should likely prepare to live to 100 just to be sure. 1 in 10,000 end up as a centenarian (living to 100). So how does one do that?

I’ll dive deeper in future healthspan posts so stay tuned. I’ll cover how no one should die from stomach or colon cancer if they have ‘regular’ (we’ll quantify this later as well) colonoscopies and endoscopies. I’ll also cover how people often can reverse 20 years of diabetes in less than 3 weeks. However for the purpose of today’s post it’s most important to know that purposeful exercise 3x/week adds approximately 4-6 healthy years to the end of your life. This means lower chances of disease or disability in those end years. Simply going from a low performance output to below average in objective measures gives a 50% decrease in all cause mortality. That is outrageous. You don’t have to be a superstar, just get to below average at least.

Strength and muscle mass give the most benefit for healthspan. When you’re strong you can live independently easier, you have better balance, likely less pain, and you avoid disease. We also know that keeping strength and muscle helps our bones stay dense. When you consider that after 65 if you fall and break a hip or femur only 50% are still alive after the first year, it’s good incentive to stay strong. Fun fact, there is only conflicting research at best that certain foods help us live longer. That helps me justify that Oreo blizzard I just ate. Much more to come on this topic.

1. Lift weights and exercise at least 3x/week 2. Healthspan > Longevity

Jacob Saunders