A few years back during an Anti-Aging lecture to over 1000 people I asked a question, “What is your life worth?”
The answers were somewhat stunning and ranged all over the place- from $10,000 to Priceless.
I am still not sure I understand the dichotomy in answers but it led me to ask another question.
“Do YOU believe that it is possible to extend your health span and your life span beyond the few years that come with each generation. By the way on that note since I was born there have been 4 generations, Baby boom, Gen X Gen Y and now Gen Z.
The life span in this country has improved by about 18 years since I was born but it is generational and might start to go down with the newer generations.
Without getting into the reasons why, I personally do not think it will decline, but it will slowly increase by 5 to 8 years per generation and slow down dramatically when we approach the mid 90’s.
I would also say that very little if any of this can be attributed to Allopathic (MD like me) medicine. If you look at trends like heart disease allopaths will tell you its due to cholesterol medicine and lifestyle modification. Given the rising incidence of diabetes in both more and younger populations I don’t think this is true either. I think that heart disease declined already in the 60’s and the continued decline was due to decrease in smoking and to a lesser extend more people exercising. The high carb low fat diet did not do us any favors!
Now with diabetes on the rise I think we will see a resurgence of heart disease again in Gens X and Z especially if the dietary parameters do not change! This is a good time for me to remind you about the Horrendous Diet download and our very new Sugar Balance Support Formula (SBSF).
If you are over 50 I think you need to be very aggressive about your sugar control because something out there (could just be the high carb diet but may also be toxin related) is causing a mess of diabetes and no question its epidemic!
Now back to the lifespan and health span question.
Most people I surveyed felt that you could live healthier but not longer and that the 2 were not necessarily linked. In other words, you could be healthier and still die long before your 80th birthday.
I beg to differ.
While the 2 are not mutually inclusive, you have to be healthier to live longer and better. Now I am excluding the few miserable years you might add by spending your retirement on prescription drugs.
Come to think of it if it would not land me in jail via the FTC and FDA I would actually tell you that that is a goal of mine for you. Can you imagine what that would do to Big Pharma? They’d jail us all for spoiling their plan!!!!
The other thing that struck me was that most people did not believe you could extend life past the few years that your generation will grant you. When I asked why even the anti-establishment folks were quick to cite Nobel laureates and big wig scientists who said just that, “you can’t live longer”.
So, it seems that spending money time and research on life extension is Anti- Establishment to the max!
Now here is the almost stupid Catch 22. I say almost stupid because its always stated that there is no way anything shows extension of life so far in humans or when you figure in the research design flaws, even in higher mammals.
The real reasons no one will be able to prove the kind of life extension we would all like to see is the way the study would have to be designed. You’d have to have a fair number of people locked in a totally controlled environment where everything from diet, exercise and even mood was totally controlled and similar in all subjects.
After all, using telomeres as a measure all of those things and more can affect life span.
You’d also have to have scientists totally committed to the project for an entire life to avoid bias and confusion in the study results. They would have to live almost as long as the controls.
Finally, since none of us has an expiration date stamped on our forehead we would still not really be able to say that for sure we extended life. You’d have to know how long you were going to live to begin with.
So, I am the first to admit there are no guarantees.
But I know from YOU, and the rest of my audience you and I share this belief!
It is 100% worth trying and worth the time money and effort.
We are pioneers my friend.
Here’s to you!!!
Dr. Dave