May You Be Forever Young

Prevention.com gives us a quicky article outlining 14 Surprising Signs You’ll Live Longer Than You Think. Their list:

1. Your Mom Had You Young
2. You’re a Tea Lover
3. You’d Rather Walk
4. You Skip Soda (Even Diet)
5. You Have Strong Legs
6. You Eat Purple Food
7. You Were a Healthy-Weight Teen
8. You Don’t Like Burgers
9. You’ve Been a College Freshman
10. You Really Like Your Friends…
11. …and They’re Healthy
12. You Embrace New Challenges
13. You Don’t Have a Housekeeper
14. You’re a Flourisher

Some of these aren’t so surprising, but still a decent list.

Aubrey de Grey on “Why Fight Aging”. Amusing and pointed. Worth your time.

About has a bit on the relationship between wealth and longevity.

Research shows that people who make more money also live longer.

Here’s an example: In a study in Germany, researchers examined a national database that contained the data from all (5 million) retired German men over the age of 65 (as of 2003). What they looked for was data on deaths grouped by lifetime income, type of work and other variables. They grouped the men into five groups based on their income level. They showed that mortality for retired German men varies by 60% with life expectancy at age 65 ranging from 14.9 to 18.5 years. Former manual workers had a 35% higher risk of death than salaried workers (and those on public insurance had a 44% greater chance than those using private insurance). In the end, a retired manual worker on public insurance in the lowest income group is 3 times more likely die than a wealthier, privately insured former salaried worker.

Just came across Why We Age. It has a nice, simple page called How to Live Longer with five simple-on-the-surface steps. I’ve included all of the text for the last one to give you a feel for the writing.

• Step one - Eating for a long life
• Step two - Exercise your body into a long life
• Step three - Learn the lessons of the hundred year olds. Don’t stress
• Step four - Sleep
• Step five – Develop strong and loving relationships

It has been shown that individuals who live longer also have a higher likelihood of being surrounded by loved ones. They tend to get married, have children and have a close circle of friends. These individuals therefore have emotional support around them in times of stress and hardship. All of which means that their levels of stress, are reduced. Reduced stress causes a cascade of other benefits to the body:

A reduction in the levels of damaging hormones, such as Cotosol
Deeper and more effective sleep
A reduction in blood pressure
A strengthening of the immune system

Have a look.

When you think of long-lived creatures, I bet naked mole rats don’t spring to mind first. Perhaps they should.

Some of the “hottest” research on naked mole rats today concerns senescence, or aging. Naked mole rats in the lab have reached up to 28 years of age. And it’s not just the controlled environments of their captivity that are doing this. Braude has observed mole rats in the wild that are 17 years and older. But these are the breeders. Lab researchers didn’t realize that in the wild workers only live two or three years.

And my favourite quote from the article:

For a rodent of this size, they are ridiculously long-lived.

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The Times reports on research that says staying married helps you live longer.

The Office for National Statistics has published definitive proof that married couples live longer, enjoy better health and can rely on more home care in old age than their divorced, widowed, single and cohabiting peers. Children who live with their married parents are also healthier, and can expect to stay in full-time education for longer, whatever their economic background.

And:

Mortality rates are also greatly affected by marital status. The mortality rate among single men under 34 is about 2½ times higher than that for young married men. Widowed and divorced men over 80 have a mortality rate one third higher than married men. Single, widowed and divorced older women all have higher mortality rates than their married peers.

Gives you another reason to sing that Queen song, “Can anybody find me somebody to love.”

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Life Extension has an article called Death by Medicine that cites fairly chilling statistics about the dangers of conventional medicine.

The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. (By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001 was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 553,251.)

They’ve posted the whole article online.

If SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) is your thing, you’re going to want the up-coming book from Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae called Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Biotechnologies That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime (Amazon). Here’s how Reason described it:

Aimed squarely at folk who want to know more about the science of repairing the molecular damage that causes aging, but find navigating the wild waterways of scientific publications too intimidating or time-consuming, this is a step by step, detailed explanation of how we could achieve radical life extension within our lifetimes, as best we understand from our present knowledge of our biochemistry.

If you’re used to the “eat this, take supplements and exercise” longevity bookshelf, Ending Aging is a big step up - very much more “research this science to develop this specific therapy based upon that sound basis established over the past two decades.” You’ll be seeing more of that in the years ahead, and this exactly where your attention should be focused if you care about your own longevity.

I put in my order.

Reuters featured Aubrey de Grey recently, with a look at financial implications of life extension.

“Longevity risk” — the chance that people live longer than experts expect — is now a regular topic in the pension industry because this risk is considered difficult to plan for.

Corporate pension funds have been turning to cutting-edge tools such as swaps to hedge risks on their portfolios, but to date coping with the risk of a higher-than-expected lifespan has proven a tough challenge for pension funds.

The Wall Street Journal looked at longevity insurance (excerpt here, subscribers here), which is insurance that pays a guaranteed income, normally after someone turns 85. Given that lots of people fear running out of money if they live too long, it is interesting to see insurers appealing to that fear. The WSJ calls these policies “a new spin on deferred fixed annuities”.

Longevity insurance porvides guaranteed income typically starting after a person turns 85, in exchange for an initial investment made some 20 years earlier. Payouts are fixed and cover you and your sponse for as long as you live.

The main advantage over a deferred annuity? Higher income payouts. Possibly much higher (the article compares a $137 monthly payment to a $710 monthly payment).

The downside? Much less flexibility, like no withdrawals before 85, and typcially no death benefit. If you die before then? Tough beans. There are more flexible schemes, but the cost is lower monthly payments. The Journal gives the expected caveat that longevity insurance should only be part of the financial plan.

Appropriate financial management is going to be a key to a sucessfully extended lifespan. No question there. But perhaps the best longevity insurance won’t come from an insurer. It’ll come from living a lifestyle that promotes longevity, and from embracing the life-extension opportunities as they safely emerge.

Update: Zen Personal Finance did a piece on this, which points to a SmartMoney article.