Finally, a regimen to extend human life expectancy.

The US has the most expensive healthcare system worldwide. Yet measures of healthspan and life expectancy are well below the major industrialized nations. With the US population aged 65 and older projected to double by mid-century a healthcare crisis is looming. Within this context huge interest and investment has emerged in technologies and drugs to address aging with an expected benefit to healthspan. The thesis being that such basic interventions will reduce morbidity caused by many chronic diseases where biological age itself is the major risk factor. In the light of limited progress to date, a recent study out of the Harvard School of Public Health is quite refreshing: less than half dozen lifestyle interventions can greatly increase healthspan. Perhaps these are familiar: cessation of smoking, >/= 30 minutes of moderate daily exercise, high quality diet (limited processed food), modest alcohol intake and maintenance of an optimal body mass index (BMI) of 18.5 to 24.9 kg/m2. From age 50, women engaging in all of these behaviors versus those that do zero can expect to have a life expectancy of 43.1 additional years (an extra 14 years) with men gaining 37.6 years (an extra 12.2 years). A regimen to extend life expectancy is at hand. However, there is room for optimization by including the effects of sleep, intermittent fasting and/or caloric restriction. Moreover, the extension of life expectancy by adherence to a healthy lifestyle revises the healthspan threshold for anti-aging treatments under development and should provide a better set of controls for clinical trials investigating novel treatments of aging.

PMID: 29781380 DOI: 10.1089/rej.2018.2088