Forget Longevity
A guest post by Arnon Krongrad, MD
If you want to live ten more years, are you better off doing five more pushups a day or walking a thousand more steps a day?
Exactly. Nobody knows.
So what makes anyone think we know how to modify our longevity?
Let me be clear about where I stand. I want to live a long time. That is exactly why I've stopped chasing longevity. The word has a real meaning: long life. I'm all for it. The problem is that the entire field built around longevity doesn't measure the thing it’s devoted to. It talks about all kinds of instruments for lengthening life, but never shows that they do. That’s like saying a new financial instrument will make me rich but never showing me its returns.
Go back to the pushups and the steps. Two sensible interventions and no one can tell you which one, if either, causes longer life. If we can't answer a question that basic, we should be honest about how little we actually know. To paraphrase the Mooji Baba: when you know you know nothing, then humility prevails and knowledge can come in.
It gets worse. Most of what gets sold as longevity today rests on biomarkers, and for most of those markers, contrasted with simple functional measures, e.g. handgrip strength, we don't have even crude epidemiology tying them to a longer life. There are exceptions. But the long menu of markers people obsess over? Untested against the only outcome that matters. Objectively assessed, so-called longevity medicine is wishful-thinking medicine or serum-marker medicine.
[I’m not opposed to markers. Once a year I measure my resting heart rate and fasting insulin.]
I'm not willing to optimize a target I can't measure and for which no intervention has been proven. Here is what I do instead: I pursue functional supremacy. The difference between longevity and function is the latter can be measured. How many pushups can I do? Can I remember where I put my keys? Is my mood flat? These physical, cognitive, and emotional functions are definable and measurable; all with effective interventions. And unlike with the biomarker du jour, we have clear epidemiological evidence that shows they’re associated with long life. Pursue function you can measure and you can plausibly argue that longevity will come along for the ride.
That reframes the whole project. I don't aim at the number of years, because I can't see it. I aim at the fitness, the memory, and the mood, because I can. Chase what you can measure, and let the years follow.
The plan itself is simple. Avoid poisons: harmful pharmaceuticals, non-native electromagnetic frequency (EMF), processed food, and so on. Get nutrition straight. Stay active; I train ten to fifteen hours a week. Get to bed at bedtime; for me, that’s 9 o’clock. None of it is exotic. None of it is for sale. We’re talking about knowledge and habits that, applied continuously, compound and deliver returns.
A practical note. As you consider your personal situation, it may help to set a goal: walk your grandson down the aisle, exit the pool without using the ladder, and so on. My goal is to lead a hike out of Fort Ticonderoga on July 4, 2076, the three-hundredth birthday of the United States, when I'll be 117. You’re invited. Reserve your spot for the Tricentennial March at the link here and remember to pack a sweater. It gets cold.
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Arnon Krongrad, MD is a surgeon-scientist and the founder of Ezz, a private knowledge sharing club devoted to functional supremacy ( https://worldofezz.com ). He lives in Miami.