With all the hype about reverse aging comes the question: What kind of lifestyle does it takes to beat the odds and live a very long life?
Forty-five-year-old Bryan Johnsons $2-million-a-year attempt to reverse aging has left longevity experts both fascinated and highly skepticallargely due to the fact that genetics and pure luck, which factor heavily into how long you live, are far out of our control.
You just cant exercise your way to living to 100, let alone to the world-record-breaking 122 or something like that, Dr. Andrew Steele, longevity scientist and author of Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old, told Fortune. No amount of diet or exercise is gonna get you that magical combination of genes.
Dan Buettner, longevity expert and founder of Blue Zones LLC, which studies places around the world where people live the longest, tells Fortune that Johnson is a walking experiment and worth paying attention to. But it will take notable results a decade from now to really cause intrigue, he says.
I applaud anybody whos tried to use science to live longereventually, theres going to be an intervention thats going to represent a big leap in life expectancy, he says. I dont think its here yet.
Most important, Buettner says, is that anything worth making a difference must be adhered to over a long time, and Johnsons routine seems unsustainable.
Most of what he does requires such heroic discipline and presence of mind that fewer than 2% of Americans have the follow through on that, and I feel Ive questioned even if he does, Buettner says. His regimen is so time-consuming and so difficult.
In Buettners research, its been made undeniably clear that socialization and purpose ground the people who live the longest.
Purpose andsocial connectivity are accessible to all of us, he says.
Living longer also means enjoying how you get there.
The same things that will get us to age 100 are things that make the journey enjoyable, Buettner says.
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