Many Years Or Healthy Years?
Can You Have Both?
How would you like to live to 100?
HOW would you like to live to 100?
How would you like to LIVE to 100?
One question but with three different takes. The capitalized words take the emphasis in each question. Together, they sum up the conundrum that surrounds longevity, anti-aging, “living longer,” etc.
The conundrum is this: you could live to 100 but would you be healthy? And if you weren’t healthy, how much fun would it be to live to 100?
My mother lived to within 4 months of her 100th birthday. Her health for a woman that old was good and her mind was reasonably sound. But she was too physically weak to move around much and spent her final weeks being shunted from bed to wheelchair to bed.
She said to me, more than once, “Why am I still alive?”
How do you answer a question like that?
She had no interest in making it to her centenary. None whatsoever. She came from a close family in England and all her brothers and sisters had pre-deceased her. I was her only child and her two grandkids didn’t get around to visiting her much.
Yet, today, there is a real movement to live to at least 100, if not longer. Those radical anti-agers push drugs like rapamycin, a drug used to prevent organ transplant rejection. There is only anecdotal evidence that taking it daily as a life extender might have an impact. How will you be able to tell, frankly? You die when you die. Did the rapamycin give you another year, five years, 10 years? Right now, medical research has no answer.
So, obviously, the answer to “how to live longer” is by living healthier, of course.
It’s at this point that mainstream media stories, like this one in The New York Times, resort to the usual tried-and-truisms: diet, exercise, and rest.
Fair enough. But there are other opportunities where there HAS been research done to prove that methods exist to achieve ongoing health and, hence, prolonged lifespan.
Some background: aging occurs in the body for various reasons, without doubt, but one of the main factors lies in cellular health. Healthy cells continue to divide and reproduce healthy “offspring.” Cells that stop reproducing but don’t die fall into what’s known as cellular senescence; think of them as zombie cells – not dead but not really alive, either.
What happens with these zombie cells is that they end up releasing chemicals that can taint surrounding healthy cells. And that can lead to the creation of cancerous tumors.
Cell senescence increases with age so, as we grow older, it’s incumbent upon us that we do what we can to rid our bodies of zombie cells.
How? Certain supplements have been shown to flush the zombie cells from the body.
They include vitamin C, curcumin, collagen, CoQ10, and resveratrol. Others include vitamin D, fisetin, quercetin, and alpha lipoic acid (ALA).
The bottom line is this: physical aging is inevitable. Taking care of one’s body through proper eating, exercise, and rest is the foundation for living a healthier, longer life. Adding supplements from the list above can also help greatly at the cellular level (ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN BEFORE TAKING ANY SUPPLEMENT).
Here is further information on aging and the human body, also from The Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/well/live/aging-biology-dna.html
You can supplement your redox cell signaling instead of adding different substances to the body. The body knows how to heal itself at a cellular level without adding those other things, which may or may not be safe.
Redox cell signaling is the next generation in health and wellness, and it's already here.
That's a question everyone should be asking themselves, I think. "The conundrum is this: you could live to 100, but would you be healthy? And if you weren’t healthy, how much fun would it be to live to 100?" I would also ask myself, if I want to live to be 100, what do I need to be doing now to move toward that goal?