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On Aging Well
By Alfred Norwood
A friend once said: “life is lived forward, but unfortunately it’s understood backward/”. Most of us are all like George Costanza in Seinfeld, who realized, too late, that by declining a date’s offer to “come up for a cup of coffee,” he and we probably missed something more than just caffeine.
In this and a second article you are offered an opportunity to look ahead and alter your own aging, rather than just react to it -- an alternative to saying upon your deathbed: “Life is a bitch; you’re born, you get old, then you die”.
While that gerontological insight is correct, it omits options in aging which may make “getting old” less noxious and even enjoyable.
First things first. Article I, herewith, will cover how long you will live and why. In it you will find out how you might even be able to achieve a few bonus years. Article II will explore what you can do to preserve the engine of aging -- your brain. Article III will cover what you can do for those who didn’t read and heed the first two articles.
How long will you live?
Let’s start with raw statistics. The insurance industry, which has a vested interest in knowing how long you will live, estimates that if you were born in the 1940s or ’50s you will probably live to be at least 76 if you are a female and 72 if you are a male. Please disregard this estimate if you are already older.
There are an increasing number of us who are outliving insurance estimates. In the most recent census the fastest growing demographic bloc in the U.S. was 100-105 years of age. It was expanding almost 400 pecent faster than the population as a whole. The second fastest bloc was 95-100 and the third fastest was 90-95.
People living beyond their insurance-age estimates have been tagged “4th Agers.” Their key to longevity was identified by the Gavrilovs, a married couple who emigrated from Russia and currently research longevity together at the University of Chicago, (http://longevity-science.org/).
The Gavrilovs have found that people who are relatively healthy when they reach their mid-70s automatically get a bonus life extension of 10 to 15 percent. They found this phenomenon is true, not for just humans, but for various types of animals.
Why ?
The Gavrilovs believe this extra longevity is a function both of lifestyle and genetics. To me it sounds a bit more mechanical: “4th agers” are built like top-of-the-line Xerox machines. They retain an ability to reproduce copies of body cells lost to wear and tear of aging and disease.
Humans, unlike Xerox copiers, are entirely built from cells, not nuts and bolts. Beginning at inception these cells divide to produce more cells. During gestation the number of cells increases. The embryo gets bigger, and groups of cells grow into organs. Organs grow into body systems. Organs like your heart, blood, eyeballs, etc., are groups of cells that have grown together to perform specific body functions.
Systems like the digestive or the nervous system are organs connected to other organs. Still, at the lowest common denominator, we are nothing but billions of cells.
The good news is that every one of these cells has an innate ability to reproduce itself a fixed number of times. If we drink too much and the booze kills a few brain or liver cells, in the short run we’ll reproduce and replace them, suffering only a hangover.
Now for the bad news. The Gavilovs found that cells can only can reproduce a fixed number of times. Once they make that last copy, you’re Xeroxing days are over. As cells fail they cause the organ to fail, which causes the system to fail. Short of transplants, systems failures signal imminent death. If you die of “natural causes” your body simply suffers a cascade of failures as one organ puts stress on and causes the death of other organs and one system failure causes other systems to fail. But don’t check out yet.
The “4th agers” are, as noted, those people who haven’t used all their cell copies by age 75. The chances are high they haven’t had sufficient diseases or trauma to break their cellular Xerox machines or, and here is the part that’s unfair to all the rest of us, their parents simply gave them a few extra copies by virtue of genetics. Since these fortunate few still have copying ability, their cells, organs, and body can replicate lost cells and carry them gloriously into über-aging.
Extending your warranty
Now here’s some additional good news. Every cell in your body contains the DNA; the formula required to replicate every other cell in your body. Unfortunately, about half of your body’s cells are dedicated to some specific job and make only duplicate copies of themselves, e.g., liver cells making only more liver cells. But the other half are chimera.
Chimera are capable of reproducing cells different from themselves; e.g., you drink too much and, if you’re lucky, a spleen cell could make some liver cells when liver-cell copies are no longer available.
There is also the stem cell. Like that half of your own cells which can duplicate cells different from their original purpose, stem cells can be injected into the organ which is about to fail. The stem cells use their own local intelligence to diagnose what cells are missing and morph themselves into the absentees. But since stem-cell therapy is still experimental, let’s stick to using your own Xeroxable cells.
Unfortunately, this is where the story gets kind of gnarly. Nobody knows for sure how to turn on the cell copier at a cellular level. So prospective “4th agers” can do one of two things to slow down the use of cells and save copier capacity.
Strategy 1 – Preservation through Calorie Restriction
In a study conducted by the Pacific Health Institute, 779 out of 1,915 men who became “4th agers” ate only 1,900 calories a day. The average American male ingests 2,500 calories a day. There is ample evidence that excess weight increases risk of conditions ranging from diabetes to cancer to Alzheimer’s. Evidence suggests the excess fat cells increase chronic inflammation, which may cause cell death. Cell death triggers cell reproduction, and there goes another of your limited cell copies.
The guru of calorie restriction is Stephen R Spindler, Ph.D., a biochemist. The bible of people practicing calorie restriction is The Longevity Diet, by Delaney and Walford (http://www.longevitydiet.info/). It turns out that the key to this life extension is to include all the nutrients your body needs within a 1,900-calories daily allotment. This is a third less calories than the average American consumes. As my wife says: “If I ate like that, why would I want to live the extra years?”
Strategy 2 – Preservation through moderation
Old Ben Franklin’s “Everything in moderation” provides the key to Strategy 2. Ben died in 1790 at the age of 84, which equates to 100+ today. In longevity, research on everything from diet to exercise affirms the benefits of moderation. For example one serving of tuna fish a week is good; it oils your cardio vascular system. More servings are not good; tuna fish can contain heavy metals which can poison you. Some exercise is good but too much reduces immunity and your ability to fight off colds and infections. Drinking a glass of red wine is good. It appears to preserve cognition and memory as we age. Drinking a bottle of red wine is not so good. Over-indulgence in alcohol tends to pickle not preserve.
Strategy 3 – Preservation through gluttony
Just kidding, there is no strategy for living longer by living large. While it would provide a nice symmetry to our other two strategies, it won’t wash. Think about it: When was the last time you saw an obese centurion? Being overweight is definitely tied to the 3D trifecta of aging diseases -- diabetes, dementia, and depression. Fortunately, by following either Strategy 1 or Strategy 2 you will not have to worry about Strategy 3. It will take care of itself.
Article II will discuss how we can manage aging through the use of the one organ that controls the aging process the most: your brain
Alfred Norwood is the president of Behavior Science, Inc. His company works with nursing homes, hospitals, and home-care givers to improve their quality of care for dementia patients. He is the progenitor of Caregiver Rounds, a self-managed team approach to drug-free dementia care, and Sound and Loving Care, a similar program for family caregivers. For more information on either please call (800) 734-6186 or visit www.behaviorscience.com.
