Longevity - What Exactly Does It Mean?

Longevity has become popular, but many people do not fully understand its meaning. So, how does science define longevity?

Longevity describes the ability to live a long life beyond the species-specific average age at death [De Benedictis & Franceschi 2006].

Key Aspects of Longevity?

• Lifespan: The total number of years an individual lives.
• Healthspan: The period of life spent in good health, free from chronic diseases and disabilities.
• Aging: The progressive decline in physiological functions and increased disease susceptibility over time.
• Genetic Factors: The influence of genes on the aging process and lifespan.
• Biological Age: A measure of how well or poorly the body is functioning relative to its chronological age (the number of candles on your birthday cake).
• Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms: The processes at the cellular and molecular level that contribute to aging (DNA damage, telomere shortening, epigenetic alterations, and mitochondrial dysfunction).
• Environmental Factors: The impact of lifestyle choices, diet, exercise, stress, and exposure to toxins on longevity.

Goals of Longevity Research?

• Understanding Aging
• Extending Healthspan
• Preventing Age-Related Diseases
• Improving Quality of Life

My Perception of Longevity

I explain longevity using a simple graph that shows longevity as a function of lifespan and healthspan.

Lifespan is rather easy to explain, it is binary and objective. It’s the number of years you live. For the most part, you are either alive or dead (although there might be some edge cases, which we do not consider here). Lifespan does not say anything about the quality of your life.

Healthspan is intuitively obvious, but a bit more complex to explain as it is far more subjective and it consists of 3 components:

• Body /Physiology: specifically, how long can you maintain muscle mass, functional movement and strength, flexibility, and freedom from pain
• Brain/Cognition: namely, how long can you preserve cognition (i.e., executive function, processing speed, short-term memory)
• Spirit/Emotion: how robust is your social support network and your sense of purpose

"Body/Physiology" and "Brain/Cognition" very predictably decline with age although the way of decline is very individual and does not have to be necessarily pathological, whereas the emotional health component describes a flatter U-curve.

Our longevity coaching goal is to move the green line to the pink one—to live longer (more x-axis) and live better (altered shape of the decline curve). In other words, to maximize the quality of your entire life by extending both healthspan and lifespan, so you remain healthy and functional for as long as possible.

Some self-reflexion:

I ?realize that I have passed my prime time physically and cognitively. Physically I have definitely lost a good amount of explosivity, flexibility, and mobility. Cognitively, I have less raw intellectual horsepower in the form of less processing speed, lower memory capacity, etc. ( I better stop here….:)).

We cannot stop this biological decline process BUT we can greatly influence it, by staying active, engaged, and brave.

Conversely, the third component of health span “emotional health” (self-awareness, ?gratitude, purpose, balance, positive relationships) does not tie to age at all. What I always try to remind myself is that this is something I can look forward to, provided that I do the required work. I can be emotionally better off in a decade from now, and I am definitely better off today than I was some years ago.

Final Thought

I view longevity as the quest to live a long and healthy life, focusing on extending both lifespan and healthspan. It's about maintaining good health and functionality for as long as possible, not just living longer.

LONGER YOUNG – KEEP IT UP!