There is a “new” oldest person in the world, current to March 2025. A Brazilian nun who is 116 years old relaced a Japanese lady who died December 24th, 2024, also at the age of 116. The oldest person ever recorded was a French lady who lived to 122 years. Sadly, men just don’t seem to live this long!
Would you wish to live that long life? Do you think you are healthy enough to not only do it, but do it on your own terms?
How would you like to live that long life?
Would you plan to work right up to that last day or spend those ‘golden’ years in retirement?
Would that retirement be spent with grand and great-grandchildren, gardening, fishing, hunting, traveling, golfing or whatever it is you enjoy, right up to the end, then one morning wake up dead?
Or are you to live to three score and ten, then through one health crisis upon another, spend the next ten years barely hanging on, confined between the bedroom and bathroom?
As of 2022, the average life expectancy of a Canadian woman is 83.8 and 79.3 for men.
In the mid 2000s I attended a Rotary convention with Karen here in Fort St. John. The keynote speaker was BC media mogul and multimillionaire David Black. He didn’t talk about how he came to own so many newspapers or got so rich, but chose to talk about life, the need to understand how much time each one of us has left and to appreciate what remains. His message was that life is a yardstick and when you reach the end, that is it, there is no more. Zero is at birth and 36 inches is at death. It shows just how much life remains as we pass by each successive inch.
David asked each person in the room to estimate how much longer they had to live and then contemplate how many Christmases and birthdays they had to celebrate with their children or years to enjoy with their spouse and do the things they want. So don’t put those things off or waste them as you don’t get that time back. At the time of his speaking, his wife Annabeth had either just passed or was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer. She passed in 2006.
After hearing this message, Karen asked me how many years I had left. I said whatever equated to age 72. Karen thought that was pessimistic, but not me, as my family history shows my forbearers passing at ages between their early 50s to late 90s, so I picked something in-between. It seemed like a long way away at the time, but now only two years remain. I do think I will make it, but one can never be 100 per cent certain. If you are a betting person, take the ‘over’!
This past Christmas my investment advisor sent me a book titled Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Dr Peter Attia with Bill Gifford. My first thought was ‘will I want to read this book?’ Next was ‘when will I have time?’ And finally, ‘why did I get it?’ Was my advisor wanting me to live longer so my heirs and successors must wait longer to close my accounts?
Jesting aside, I took the book on our winter holiday and read it. As I sat on the deck of a cruise ship in 30C-plus weather reading, a few people walking by did comment they had also read the book and enjoyed it. Being a cruise ship, most were at least as old as I, many a fair bit older, and like most ‘old’ people, one’s health is always a topic of interest and discussion.
The book begins with the author’s note: “Writing about science and medicine for the public requires striking a balance between brevity and nuance, rigor and readability. I’ve done my best to find the sweet spot on that continuum, getting the substance right while keeping this book accessible to the lay reader. You’ll be the judge of whether or not I hit the target.”
He does and I highly recommend it. Generally, this book is an easy read, a bit technical and detail-oriented for the first half, then more subjective and interesting in the second. The author explains his reasoning behind many of our illnesses and ailments and then what he calls the three phases of medicine and how they have typically dealt with our health.
Medicine 1.0 – “Hippocrates, but lasting almost 2,000 years…conclusions that were based on direct observations and abetted more or less by pure guesswork, some of which was on target, some not so much.”
By in large, they knew how to recognize illness, but not so much in figuring out the cure or cause part.
Medicine 2.0 – “Arrived in mid-19th century with the advent of the germ theory of disease, which supplemented the idea that most illness was spread by ‘miasmas’, or ‘bad air.’
What the author calls medicine 2.0 eradicated deadly diseases such as polio and smallpox and the containment of HIV and AIDS.
Medicine 2.0 has been far less successful against long-term diseases such as cancer, yet despite that, our average age has steadily increased, nearly doubling since the late 1800s. It is what we have today and has not been all that successful against what the author calls the “Four Horseman”, that being heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and Type 2 diabetes and related metabolic dysfunctions.
He then spends some time looking to the future and what he calls medicine 3.0.
Medicine 3.0 – “… is not to patch people up and get them out the door, removing their tumors and hoping for the best, but rather to prevent the tumors from appearing and spreading in the first place. Or to avoid that first heart attack. Or to divert someone from the path to Alzheimer’s disease. Our treatments and/or prevention and detection strategies need to change to fit the nature of these diseases, with their long, slow prologues.”
I couldn’t agree more, as missing body parts and/or an endless supply of pills and operations can keep one living longer but doesn’t always equate to a better life.
The book goes on to discuss strategies, options and some of his lived experiences. Our early years can mean we ‘live fast, die young’, and when we get past the part where accidents are responsible for most deaths, we reach the being ‘responsible’ adult part. This is where accident levels decline but surviving economically can mean we forget about what keeps a body healthy and fit. Often through personal neglect, we begin to add on the pounds a bit every year, and with those extra pounds, stop doing the things that made us healthy to begin with.
“I will do it later” is the common refrain.
As we move to the older years and begin to think about being that healthier person again, we discover that it has become harder and harder to reform a body that can no longer easily respond to and correct years of neglect and abuse.
Although this book applies to all age groups, it is especially targeted for those in their 30s and 40s.
The age when so many lose track of their physical and mental fitness due to family, work or other preferences, and an ‘I’ll do it later’ attitude. Chances are and, as the author explains, our current societal values say only the minority will change their lifestyle and fix things to set themselves up for that longer and healthier life. For those who do change, even though most won’t make it to be a centenarian, they will live longer and healthier lives versus those who do nothing and stay on the trajectory of unhealthy lifestyles.
The author’s recommendations and conclusions are not that much different than any doctor or health enthusiast recommends:
1) Eat more protein and less sugar.
2) Continue aerobic exercise.
3) Maintain muscle mass through one’s 50s and 60s so the body can be in good physical shape for the aging that is guaranteed to come.
Smoking is no longer a big part of that list as most have stopped, and that has significantly increased our average life span.
He goes on to write about that even if one waits until the later years to correct one’s physical liabilities, you can – just to a lesser degree of success as compared to someone who never let themselves get out of shape to begin with or started corrections before they turned 40.
His theme of maintaining a core body strength and muscle mass will help with one’s balance and prevent falls and accidents, especially in later life when frailty sets in. One bad fall can result in a couple of months spent laid up which can then shave five to 10 years off life expectancy as age prevents that muscle from being restored to its former mass.
Though the book has its limitations, it is a good read. Outlive explains some of what the authors believe to be the weaknesses of modern medicine and describes some practical steps one might take to improve their own life though the art of storytelling.
So why did those centenarians live so long?
According to the author it is a combination of mental, physical and sexual health, a commitment to physical fitness and the lack of internal body fat, and some just plain and ordinary good luck.
He also says those who tend to live longer are also more likely to have shorter periods of illness before they die.
For those who follow American politics and the appointment of Robert F Kennedy Jr. to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, despite some of his “wacky” ideas on medicine, he does get it right on his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign. So does Canada.
Evan
