For Healthy Longevity, Start Young.

By Karen and Erica

Do you want to live forever? Or at least til you are 100?

A lot of people do, apparently. We were somewhat amazed to read that longevity enthusiasts were preparing to take over Rhode Island.

One of the movement’s leaders pronounced that Rhode Island is a potential location for supporters to move to. He said that with as few as 5,000 to 10,000 ‘longevists’ moving to the state, they could take over the political structure.

According to MIT Tech Review, ‘Now a community of people is working on an alternative setup, including perhaps even establishing an independent state. Aging is ‘morally bad,’ they argue, and it’s a problem that needs to be solved. They see existing regulations as roadblocks to progress and call for a different approach. Less red tape allows for more innovation, they say. People should be encouraged to self-experiment with unproven treatments if they wish. And companies shouldn’t be held back by national laws that limit how they develop and test drugs.’

Golly.

Whatever, the plan, there will soon be a lot of us who have lived longer than many before us, with implications we have barely begun to consider. This article is a fascinating discussion of the issues.

“The world currently counts a billion people over 60. By 2050, that number will double. The world needs to innovate now to be ready for the longevity challenges of this second billion. The goal is developing, not just IQ or EQ, but also AQ, or ‘ageing intelligence.’”

Of course there are all kinds of scientific advances that serve to change the way aging is viewed.

Average life expectancy has increased around the world. By 2030, more than a billion people will be over the age of 65. Although we are living longer, the number of years we can expect to enjoy good health has remained relatively constant—so we now spend up to a quarter of our lives suffering from chronic diseases that threaten our autonomy and quality of life. As WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus points out, “Adding more years to life can be a mixed blessing if it is not accompanied by adding more life to years.”

To add more life to years, we must change our perspective. Instead of treating individual diseases one at a time—the conventional paradigm of medicine—we must embrace a new, bolder, prevention-oriented strategy that is solidly grounded in the biology of aging. Age is by far the greatest risk factor and driver for many chronic illnesses. This means that medications that target aging have the potential to delay or address multiple diseases simultaneously, increasing not just how long we live, but how long we remain healthy.

New discoveries are being made daily in the effort to slow cellular decline.

In the new study, the researchers genetically rewired the circuit that controls cell aging. From its normal role functioning like a toggle switch, they engineered a negative feedback loop to stall the aging process. The rewired circuit operates as a clock-like device, called a gene oscillator, that drives the cell to periodically switch between two detrimental “aged” states, avoiding prolonged commitment to either, and thereby slowing the cell’s degeneration..

Some even purport to reverse cellular decline. Sounds like magic to us.

In this new study, the researchers screened for molecules that could, in combination, reverse cellular aging and rejuvenate human cells. They developed high-throughput cell-based assays to distinguish young cells from old and senescent cells, including transcription-based aging clocks and a real-time nucleocytoplasmic protein compartmentalization (NCC) assay. In an exciting discovery, the team has identified six chemical cocktails that restore NCC and genome-wide transcript profiles to youthful states and reverse transcriptomic age in less than a week.

We do not operate in this scientific realm, of course, though we try to keep up. Luckily, some discoveries do offer actionable advice for the daily lives of those of us who are interested in healthy longevity, even if we do not plan to create our own nation state. (Lustre actually prefers intergenerational living.)

We do love to eat, and we have felt for some time that a healthy diet has many benefits. Apparently healthy longevity is one of them. It is best to start quite young, naturally. Too late for that. But it appears that adopting some Blue Zone principles might benefit us anyway.

We’ve been looking at a new book, Blue Zones are: Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Loma Linda, California; Ikaria, Greece; and Nicoya, Costa Rica. Blue Zone foods include olive oil, herbs, honey, nuts, beans and starchy vegetables—and wine, in moderation. While we await the book we have tried a few recipes from Beuttner’s website. Increasing the likelihood of healthy longevity while eating well seems a lovely approach.

Food is not enough, of course. Here’s a list of behavioral targets consistent with Beuttner’s findings:

“Buettner’s team identified nine healthy principles — called the Power 9 — they believe to be at the core of Blue Zone living:

1. Making movement a natural part of your day

2. Knowing your sense of purpose

3. Prioritizing stress relief

4. Eating until you’re about 80% full

5. Eating a largely plant-based diet

6. Drinking alcohol in moderation

7. Connecting with your community

8. Putting family (whether biological or chosen) first

9. Choosing social circles that support healthy behaviors”.

Clearly, living with people you like is crucial. A very long-term Harvard health study concludes that relationships are key to healthy longevity. Of its conclusions, the first is seldom acknowledged—that aging starts at birth.

Since aging starts at birth, people should start taking care of themselves at every stage of life, the researchers say.

“Aging is a continuous process,” Waldinger said. “You can see how people can start to differ in their health trajectory in their 30s, so that by taking good care of yourself early in life you can set yourself on a better course for aging. The best advice I can give is ‘Take care of your body as though you were going to need it for 100 years,’ because you might.”

Another idea seldom acknowledged is that as she or he ages, a person might change—for better or worse—so it is not correct to assume a person will never get nicer—or wiser—with age.

The study showed that the role of genetics and long-lived ancestors proved less important to longevity than the level of satisfaction with relationships in midlife, now recognized as a good predictor of healthy aging. The research also debunked the idea that people’s personalities “set like plaster” by age 30 and cannot be changed.

“Those who were clearly train wrecks when they were in their 20s or 25s turned out to be wonderful octogenarians,” he said. “On the other hand, alcoholism and major depression could take people who started life as stars and leave them at the end of their lives as train wrecks.”

What to take from all this? That aging is happening to every population; that healthy longevity is better than simply being alive longer; that there are things we can do for ourselves if we want to age well; and that the world is as fascinating now as it has ever been, especially for people who are aging.