Health: Our Greatest Asset
Have you ever thought about living forever? Solving death may be closer than you think - just ask Google!
Ikaria, Greece is known as the island where people forget to die. Ironically, it’s inhabitants don’t forget much as Ikarians are almost entirely free of dementia, a memory deteriorating syndrome that plagues the rest of the world at a clip of nearly 10 million new cases each year. In fact, Ikarians have managed to escape many of the chronic diseases that spread throughout the world today, which is partially why 1 in 3 Ikarian citizens live to be over 90 years old (compared to less than 1 in 100 in the U.S.), with many of them becoming centenarians.
Some locals credit the clean air and relaxed atmosphere for their increased longevity, while others attribute it to their plant rich diets and active lifestyles. Rumor has it, Ikaria is an island that lacks clocks, stress and sorrow. Regardless of the exact recipe, if we have the ingredients to live a longer and healthier life, why aren’t more humans interested in a taste?
We’ll get to that soon.
A centenarian is a human that lives beyond their 100th birthday. Currently, there are just shy of 600,000 centenarians in the entire world. The U.S. leads the way with around 97,000 living in-country, while Japan takes home the gold when it comes to having more centenarians per capita. As of 2021, Japan had 6 centenarians per 10,000 people or approximately .06%. Over the last 60 years, the number of centenarians living at any given time across the planet has increased 28-fold. It’s statistics like these that have me bullish on both health and humanity.
Since the number of centenarians continues to grow exponentially, it’s easier now than ever to observe the daily habits of the super-healthy and incorporate similar strategies into our own regimens.
So with all of this information only seconds away on the World Wide Web, why do the vast majority of humans fail to adopt healthy lifestyles?
It’s possible that humans are ill-informed. Or maybe such changes are too difficult to implement or just less enjoyable…
Most people find it easier and more fun to eat pizza, drink beer & sit on the couch, watching Netflix for hours.
All things equal, I too prefer a slice of Domino’s pizza, a cold Miller Lite and catching up on the latest season of Stranger Things to attending a 45-minute Peloton class followed by a bland protein shake.
According to MedicineNet, only 2.7% of Americans live a healthy lifestyle, consisting of moderate exercise, maintaining healthy levels of body fat, a nutritional diet and avoidance of smoking. Does that mean the other 97.3% of Americans don’t want to live longer and healthier? Not necessarily. More likely, humans aren’t well-informed around the positive impacts exercise and good nutrition have on our lives. In addition, they may not fully understand the negative impacts lack of exercise and a poor diets bring.
David Sinclair, Ph. D., Professor in the Genetics Department of Harvard Medical School, has dedicated his professional career to understanding why we age and how we ultimately slow its effects. In his book, Lifespan, Dr. Sinclair explains that scientists have agreed that there are, in total, nine hallmarks of aging, which include the following:
Genomic Instability (DNA)
Deregulated Nutrient Sensing
Loss of Proteostasis
Altered Intercellular Communication
Stem Cell Exhaustion
Telomere Attrition
Mitochondrial Dysfunction
Cellular Sensence
Epigenetic Alterations
Dr. Sinclair further states, “address one of these, and you can slow down aging. Address them all, and you might not age.”
Is it really possible to cure aging?
Google thinks so.
In 2013 Google launched a company called “Calico,” (California Life Company) that has an ambitious business mission to “Solve Death.” Imagine a world where humans get a tune-up every 3,000 miles and replace any parts that show the wear and tear of getting older. Slow runner? Let’s upgrade your legs. Eyesight starting to go? No worries, we have the newest model in our showroom. Let’s change the color from blue to hazel while we’re at it. The possibilities are endless.
Although you may think solutions like these aren’t possible for another 100 years, if at all, many technological improvements have already been made.
In 2001, an electrician from the United States, named Jesse Sullivan, touched an active cable containing approximately 7,000 volts of electricity and unfortunately lost both arms, up to his shoulder. Thanks to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Jesse has new, robotic limbs that are controlled by thought alone. His bionic arms aren’t only controlled by his brain, but they are the first of their kind to sense pressure when touched.
Elon Musk, Tesla founder and once richest man in the world (I mean universe), is fascinated with merging technology with the human body. His company, Neuralink, which intends to bring features of a computer to the human brain, showed a video of a Macaque Monkey playing a video game with his mind (no, not Donkey Kong). Although human brains have been around for over 200,000 years now, there is still a lot we don’t know about them. Whatever the unknown information consists of, Elon intends to push the limits and find out how we can use it to better the lives of humankind.
The health-tech list of innovation goes on and on.
Whether you’re an electrician, monkey or eccentric billionaire, health is our greatest asset and we owe it to humanity to put in the time and resources needed to explore this untapped realm. Unfortunately, due to the extensive research and complexities involved in improving human health, we can’t sit back and wait on technological upgrades to bail us out.
We must be better informed and we must act now to become healthier and live longer.
If you’re interested in learning about ways to become a healthier person, subscribe to my Substack. There are many happiness, health & wealth (in that order!) write-ups on the way!
And remember, every life has a lifespan… for now.
Very interesting and well-written—keep the articles coming…I’m intrigued!