Accord­ing to the Cam­bridge Dic­tio­nary, longevi­ty means “a long life.” It might not be sur­pris­ing that research into extend­ing the human lifes­pan is called “Longevi­ty” or aging research in mod­ern med­ical sci­ence. How does this dif­fer from the rest of medicine?

Today’s med­ical progress has pri­mar­i­ly been respon­si­ble for increas­ing the aver­age human lifes­pan by address­ing health con­di­tions that pre­vi­ous­ly had a high mor­tal­i­ty rate and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing infant mor­tal­i­ty rates. In short, the length of human life span has increased – but not its limit. David Sin­clair, a Har­vard pro­fes­sor of genet­ics, states in his ground­break­ing book “Lifes­pan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To” (Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have to) that we have accept­ed death as a real­i­ty and steered med­i­cine in other direc­tions than treat­ing it. Above all, our med­i­cine has focused on treat­ing dis­eases that afflict us in old age – “we have made death a med­ical experience.”

Aging is a Disease
Despite remark­able progress in med­i­cine, the main prob­lem with our approach to dis­eases is that stop­ping one dis­ease does not reduce the like­li­hood that an indi­vid­ual will be afflict­ed or maybe even die from anoth­er dis­ease. How­ev­er, through longevi­ty research, we can look for cures for indi­vid­ual dis­eases and address a com­mon fac­tor under­ly­ing all dis­eases: aging.

“I believe that aging is a dis­ease. I believe it’s treat­able. I believe it can be treat­ed before our time. And I believe it will fun­da­men­tal­ly change every­thing we know about human health.” (David Sinclair)

Why should we care about Longevity?
After read­ing the above and under­stand­ing that this is just the begin­ning of promis­ing devel­op­ments for future gen­er­a­tions, please con­tin­ue to read. Myths about extend­ing life have exist­ed for thou­sands of years and still per­me­ate mod­ern culture—it’s hard to find some­one who has­n’t heard or read about the foun­tain of youth or the holy grail. Through mod­ern research, how­ev­er, it is becom­ing increas­ing­ly like­ly that we will find a way to extend the human lifes­pan much ear­li­er than we cur­rent­ly think.

Peo­ple assume that today’s liv­ing humans will live longer than ever record­ed. Stan­ford emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of devel­op­men­tal biol­o­gy Stu­art Kim has stat­ed that there are peo­ple alive today who will live 200 years old – he even bet with a col­league on this mat­ter. This bet will be worth approx­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion in the year 2150… if one of them cash­es it in. You’ll say these num­bers are opti­mistic, but Dr. Sin­clair has anoth­er the­o­ry. He believes that we may live for­ev­er. Yes, you read that cor­rect­ly. Regard­less of upper lim­its on human lifes­pan, it is clear that lead­ing fig­ures in longevi­ty research are increas­ing­ly con­vinced that humans can live far beyond the time we cur­rent­ly believe “belongs” to us – around 80 years.

For­ev­er alive…
How­ev­er, until the impend­ing geron­to­log­i­cal break­through, those inter­est­ed in longevi­ty act as if they will ben­e­fit from future devel­op­ments – and live long enough to ben­e­fit from each suc­ces­sive inno­va­tion on this front. Ray Kurzweil, a futur­ist, calls this strat­e­gy “bridges to immor­tal­i­ty,” i.e., you try pre­ven­tive health mea­sures to avoid dis­eases, assum­ing that if you can extend your lifes­pan by anoth­er 20 years, you will still be alive to ben­e­fit from these longevi­ty treat­ments. Anoth­er aspect of the longevi­ty move­ment is the per­son­al quest to max­i­mize what most of us would call “the good years”: our healthy and ener­getic years.
Since death has become a med­ical expe­ri­ence, i.e., as we age and feel our mor­tal­i­ty more keen­ly, we must increas­ing­ly go to the hos­pi­tal to treat dis­eases that devel­op through­out our lives. In addi­tion, we have to deal with mul­ti­ple new health prob­lems that arise par­al­lel to these dis­eases or as a result. In short, a per­son who does not die from acute con­di­tions like infec­tions but sur­vives chron­ic dis­eases has a high­er like­li­hood of devel­op­ing fur­ther chron­ic diseases.

…or stay for­ev­er young?
An essen­tial part of the longevi­ty move­ment is, there­fore, to encour­age indi­vid­u­als to take charge of their health – as an active, par­tic­i­pat­ing sub­ject rather than a pas­sive object that is treat­ed by doc­tors when prob­lems arise. Longevi­ty is about pre­vent­ing aging, which caus­es dis­ease, and avoid­ing prob­lems before they emerge (in con­trast to diag­nos­ing and treat­ing chron­ic dis­eases). Through this method, we can have a longer lifes­pan and – in the best case – expe­ri­ence geron­to­log­i­cal advances that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly extend our lives. In prac­tice, Longevi­ty is about tak­ing proac­tive mea­sures and mak­ing healthy deci­sions to adapt your lifestyle – poten­tial­ly avoid or at least mit­i­gate future health prob­lems. So, become the best ver­sion of your­self today to pro­long your best years and avoid extend­ed hos­pi­tal stays.

The Recipe for a Longer, Health­i­er Life
The ear­li­er you decide to incor­po­rate longevity-oriented habits into your daily life and lifestyle, the longer and health­i­er you will like­ly live. Med­ical experts are con­vinced that a pre­vi­ous­ly incon­ceiv­able lifes­pan of 125 years or more is with­in reach. The longer we can stay healthy, the longer we can live. And if the break­through in aging research suc­ceeds while we’re still healthy, we may well live far beyond 125 years – and pos­si­bly even for­ev­er. If you read this arti­cle, you are already tak­ing the first proac­tive step to invest in your­self, build healthy habits, and like­ly research your pos­si­bil­i­ties. If you need more in-depth infor­ma­tion about longevi­ty, reg­is­ter for our BIOCOA.CH AI, or if you’re look­ing for per­son­al guid­ance, sub­scribe to our BIOCOACH pro­gram. Good luck!

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