Give longevity a closer look & start adding years to your lifespan

There’s a line in Linklater’s movie Waking Life that stuck with me: “And the funny thing is that our cells are completely regenerating every 7 years. We’ve already become completely different people several times over. And yet, we always remain quintessentially ourselves”. It turns out, the statement is not that accurate and though most of the cells in our body renew every 7 to 10 years, some may take up to 25 years and a small bit stay with you forever (NPRs got a nice 3 min video on it).

For me however, this 7 year renewal idea stuck and I like looking at my life in batches of 7 year-opportunities to work on a stronger and healthier body. So, as last year I embarked on my latest stretch of a 7 year journey I began researching longevity and now, I think we all owe it to our species to keep informed with where it’s at. I mean, if the goal is to live long and prosper after all.

Here’s where we’re at. Most of us are quite fatalistic about our mortality, some consider that their time here is somehow pre-determined and out of their hands while others stubbornly work for better and longer lives, a few dream of never before seen increased lifespans and a handful tie their hopes around immortality up in digital clouds.

Now, for the sake of this story, I won’t expand on the fatalists, the determinists nor the immortalists but I do want to tell you about the stubborn and the dreamers, which I sincerely admire. Along the way, I will share 3 valuable insights into longevity to jumpstart your way to a longer, healthier life.

So far the best book I read on the subject is called Extra time — 10 lessons for living longer better by Camilla Cavendish and the reason I recommend it is that it’s well researched and touches empathically on many aspects of aging in our society today.

Falling birth rates and longer life spans are changing the demographics of the world. Everything that’s gotten better over time is helping us live longer. Japan, for example, is now the home of the world’s oldest society, which means more old people than children and one of the lowest birth rates (1.4 births per woman). In China, Cavendish writes, the joke is that by 2100 the old population will be so huge that they’ll be able to see it from space, The Grey Wall of China. By then, the balance could swing towards 65+ being the largest demographic group in the world.

Our stages of life are changing as well. As research has shown, the brain continues to mature into our mid twenties, so adolescence extends to that stage, then mature independent adulthood lasts longer and we see middle age does so too. In Japan, there’s even talk about a new young-old group of people, between 60 and 75 that are much more active, healthy and productive than their counterparts 30 years ago.

“[…] those aged between 75 and 84, half still have none of those disabilities.”

All over the world, there’s an increasingly growing group of stubborn beautiful people that are not giving in to aging. You must have heard about some of them, or maybe you even know one or two. They’re the ones that pick up cycling at 50 or more, they make dietary changes that result in increased vigor, they hike with their grandchildren, they’re energetic and cheerful while supporting the old-old, they don’t even want to hear about retirement…

What we can learn from the stubborn old right now is that if you want to age gracefully and be a beautiful active citizen that spreads hope around the younger generation you can do it. As research as shown over and over (insight no. 1):

You can add years to your life, you have the power to start doing that today. Just improve your diet and exercise routine. That’s it, extra time — check!

Now, while there’s a little something we all could do to increase our lifespan right now, there might be a lot neuroscience and genetics could do to help us live longer while staying stronger and healthier.

The most wonderful news in neuroscience for the aging and also for the avid learners is the discovery of neurogenesis which has been taken seriously only for about three decades.

Since we proved that neurogenesis, the creation of brand new cells in the adult brain happens in humans, there has been a surge in the study of neuroplasticity with great hopes for behavioural change and improving cognitive skills. As neuroscientist Andrew Huberman puts it in this interview, “neuroplasticity is a gift”, it’s a wonderful gift we discovered humans have and some will use this gift for their growth while others won’t. Which brings me to insight no 2:

Thanks to the gift of neuroplasticity you will never be too old to learn. So whether you want new skills or to reactivate old ones, go for it. If you do the behavioural work, the rewiring will happen. Your brain has got you!

Lastly, there’s genetics and my second favorite book on the subject, Lifespan: Why We Age — and Why We Don’t Have To, by David Sinclair. It came out in 2019 and has caused quite a hype surrounding the idea that science could make aging obsolete.

We have only begun to better understand the mechanism of aging. Dr. Sinclair and his lab at Harvard Medical School focused their experiments on reversing aging by working with genes that help extend lifespans. They’ve done it with mice and that’s a promising start.

But what I found most intriguing is Sinclair’s approach to aging. He argues that the medical community is focused on treating diseases individually when we could control the pathways that allow them to develop instead. If medical research funds would support aging research as a means to stop the diseases that are killing us most often we might see revolutionary results.

Sinclair thinks we should see aging as a disease and he argues that until we do so, there will be a slow down on innovation, not sufficient funding, disparity between rich and poor for aging interventions and an increased global healthcare cost to treat age-related chronic diseases (economist Dana Goldman estimates that delayed aging over 50 years could add more than $7 trillion to the U.S. economy).

If you’ve read so far, I hope you feel inspired to work on your healthspan and lifespan and also to share these insights with your loved ones. As insight no. 3, I leave you with a quote from Sinclair’s website:

“Across the globe, scientists are working on treatments and therapies that are designed to extend healthy human lifespans well beyond what we know today. Will you help educate the world about this coming revolution? ”