Chris Higgins
How Long Will You Live?
by Chris Higgins - January 14, 2010 - 5:11 PM

Dan Buettner, a writer, explorer, and endurance bicycler, gave a TED Talk in September 2009 entitled: How to live to be 100+. In the talk, he cites the Danish Twin Study, suggesting that much of our lifespan (within certain biological limits) is dictated by our lifestyle, not our genes. So what is the optimal lifestyle? Which diet is best? What sort of exercise is best? How do spirituality and social life affect lifespan? Buettner decided to initiate his own study, in which he studied the world’s “Blue Zones”—regions of the world where people live to very old age, and remain relatively healthy. The cool part here is that Buettner, at least as far as I can tell, is not a crackpot. He isn’t promising to stop aging via pills or any other magical cure. What he’s looking at is how to live just a bit longer — specifically, about 12 years in the US.

So can you live to 100 and beyond? The short answer is: probably not. An individual must have the right genetics AND the right lifestyle to achieve this. But given that we can’t currently change our genes, what lifestyle would give us the longest, healthiest lives? That’s what Buettner’s talk is about.

Discussed: procreative success, myths about aging (including “treatments that stop aging”), how cell replication interacts with aging, typical capacity of the human body (90+ years), life expectancy in the US (~78 years), the Blue Zone in Sardinia (with 10x more centenarians than in the US), the Blue Zone in Okinawa (with the longest disability-free lifespan in the world) and calorie restriction, the Blue Zone in Loma Linda California (Seventh-Day Adventists), a 97-year-old open-heart surgeon, the nine “common denominators” among all the Blue Zones.

If you can make time for this twenty-minute talk, I think you’ll be surprised by the last five minutes, in which Buettner shares the nine specific diet and lifestyle factors revealed by the Blue Zones.

What Do You Think?

Do you have relatives who have lived to be 90, 100, or longer? Were those “good years” or years of suffering? What are you doing in your life to extend your lifespan — if anything?

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Comments (11)

  1. Thanks for this lecture; I found it very interesting. It told us what most of us already know but don’t want to acknowledge: longevity is a function of our lifelong health and personal interactions, not a quick fix cure-all.

    posted by Amanda on 1-14-2010 at 5:29 pm

  2. I watched this talk about a week ago, and one thing I found was that he acknowledges the idea that it’s not just about living longer, but really enjoying those years as well. I forget the Japanese term he mentions that translates to, “the reason you get up in the morning,” but I especially liked that idea.

    posted by Drew C on 1-14-2010 at 6:10 pm

  3. My great-grandmother lived to be 107. From what I understand she remained feisty to the end. Maybe that’s the secret; stay feisty stay young

    posted by JaneM on 1-14-2010 at 6:41 pm

  4. My great-grandmother saw 106 and two grandparents made it past their 90th year. In the case of the former, she was healthy and independent until the last year or so. But, she was lonely as she outlived her husband by roughly 30 years and even some of her children.

    posted by Jim on 1-14-2010 at 7:14 pm

  5. My grandmother is 96 years old. She took very good care of herself, eating homemade food and food she grew in her own garden. She still has her own teeth and has suffered from very few health issues. However, she has been saying for years (before I was even born) that she wants to die. She has watched two husbands, all her sibilings, and most of her peers passed away, as well as a son and a daughter in law. I’m not really sure why people are so obsessed with living longer when most older people (>80 years) that I know are praying for their lives to end.

    posted by Mrs. Coffee on 1-14-2010 at 9:34 pm

  6. My grandmother turned 100 last July; although she is now blind and needs a wheelchair, I would think that she being very resilient and strong most of her life has certainly contributed.

    Like many children of today, she suffered the divorce of her parents, her mother’s death from cancer when she was only a teenager, the virtual absence of her father after the divorce and the subsequent parenting skills from her grandmother.

    It is sad that only in the last few years, she is unable to cook, bake and sew–things she loved dearly. But, she worked hard always…through 52 years of marriage, raising 4 children. I think her work ethic has certainly contributed to her longevity.

    And @ JaneM: she still proudly states that she is feisty! She says that she is “too mean to die!”

    posted by Marty on 1-14-2010 at 10:31 pm

  7. There are quite a few people in my family (grandparents, great-grands, great-aunts, uncles) who have lived into their 90′s and several made it past 100. As far as I know, most were still fairly active and healthy, too. My surviving grandpa is 95 and going strong. They’ve basically been healthy eaters and none have been drinkers, smokers, etc… but they’ve not done anything special… I think it’s in our genes!

    posted by ann on 1-15-2010 at 11:07 am

  8. I too think it’s genetic…I have many relatives that have lived well into their 90′s and hundreds…..still very active, mobile, and vital. It seems to me that they have lived good lives, albeit all of them survived england and rationing during the second world war. The elderly relatives I have spoken to believed that having interests, hobbies and a constant zest for learning new things has made the difference…as well as maintaining a positive attitude…something else I think is genetic!

    posted by Sandie on 1-15-2010 at 11:14 am

  9. My great grandma lived to be 92. She did have slight alzheimers though. She died when I was 6 though so I cannot comment on her quality of life.

    Her daughter, my grandmother, is well on her way at 86. Everyone tells her she looks 10 years younger than her true age and she can still walk fast, drive safely, and think swiftly. She has gone through alot of pain in her life too, losing a husband, a daughter, and more recently, aquiring a set of illness of her own. If her quality of life declines anymore, she may not want to live any longer.

    posted by KayTee on 1-15-2010 at 12:02 pm

  10. In high school I interviewed a 104 year old great uncle who was still quite healthy. I was surprised to hear from him that he smoked and drank all his life, didn’t really care much about his health, but there he was, old and strong. So, I personally think there is a luck factor also involved! ;)

    posted by Jared on 1-15-2010 at 12:17 pm

  11. This reminds me of a couple things. The famous Kellogg brothers of the 1890′s, for one. The Dr. was the health nut and his brother was the business man that ate and lived much differently. They both died at age 92, within a couple weeks of each other. Secondly, the Okinawans credit a particular plant for their longenvity–called Bitter Melon, among other things. Oh, one last tidbit. There are a couple of genes in the human body that go by the name of Sirt (ond and three or something similar) that can be activated by ingesting a certain plant material called Resveratrol. This ingestion mimicks what happens when people are starving to death. Amazing things happen. The Dr. that discovered this phenomenon sold his company to a large Pharm Co. a couple of years ago for 3/4 of a billion $. Still think there’s nothing to chemical compounds?

    posted by Ed on 1-16-2010 at 11:34 am

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