What is the single, most important thing you can change to ensure a longer and healthier life?
I answer a fair number of questions on Quora.com.
And I was recently asked:
What is the single, most important thing you can change to ensure a longer and healthier life?
Here’s my answer:
In my new book Super You: How Technology has Revolutionized What it Means to Be Human my co-authors, and I examined hyper-longevity extensively. We looked at all the aggregated longevity research and came to the conclusion that there is a key factor you can influence to live a long and healthy life than perhaps this one, however it is a bit recursive. Still there is a method to my madness. Stay with me. Here it is:
> Live as long as possible.
Now that may seem dumb given you’re asking how to live a longer healthier life, but let me explain. The science and technology that drives discoveries that advance human longevity are accelerating. That is true of all science and technologies. It’s all accelerating.
So the longer you live, the longer you will potentially live. Ray Kurzweil, who we consulted with on the book – which is based on his (ok, Vernor Vinge’s) technology Singularity theory. Ray popularized the thinking in his book The Singularity is Near
, and he has been the go-to guy on this topic – and generla transhumanism – in the last decade.
Technology is accelerating at an exponential rate. So the longer you live, the more access you will have to the technologies that will help you live longer. Ray said in a Playboy interview:
“I believe we will reach a point around 2029 when medical technologies will add one additional year every year to your life expectancy,” he told Playboy. “By that I don’t mean life expectancy based on your birthdate, but rather your remaining life expectancy.”
So there you go – do everything you can to avoid death in the next 13 years – and you’ll probably live a very long time and likely forever, if you choose.
Now 80% of your longevity comes from your genes. If your parents, blood uncles and blood aunts, and grandparents lived long lives, you’ll likely live as long and likely longer than them. If your brothers and sisters are alive and well, that’s also good news.
The other 20% factors are lifestyle-related, which you can change. So hedge your bets by following this key advice which was aggregated from a several well known longevity researchers:
Eat less of everything
Eat nutritiously and consume less animal protein and more beans. Pork seems to be the go-to longevity meat over all others.
Avoid obesity
Live with purpose
Live in a supportive community
Get and stay married (men benefit more than women)
Drink wine in moderation
Stay active
Manage your stress
Don’t smoke or abuse drugs, including alcohol
Since writing the book, I personally do several things to support my own longevity:
I take resveratrol supplements which supports cell repair (we interviewed David Sinclair, who discovered it)
I have had my doctor prescribe me Metformin off label for longevity purposes. It’s a cheap diabetes drug (free here in Florida with a prescription) that appears to support longevity. (Dr. Nir Barzilai of the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in NYC is the researcher on that).
I also mega-dose on pharmaceutical grade fish oil for brain health and as a triglyceride reduction therapy.
You can download my entire hyper-longevity chapter – called Hyper Longevity – How to Make Death Obsolete from Super You – for free – CLICK HERE
Good luck…and long may you live.
