Outlive - The Science and Art of Longevity

What if you opened the mail one day and found a letter that said, “You have 10 years left.”  What would you do to have the most purposeful last decade of life?

This question was asked at a recent Shaklee conference by one of the keynote speakers, Peter Attia.  It certainly makes you think, doesn’t it?  Attia is on a mission to encourage people to live well in their older years and to upgrade health care from the treatment of illness to promotion of wellness.

Some of the key points in his presentation and book include:

• Many chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s Disease (which Attia refers to as the ‘Four Horsemen’) are quite prevalent in contemporary societies. These diseases are not simply binary – one day you don’t have it and the next you do. Rather they are more accurately considered on a continuum, and we should each take proactive measures to mediate their occurrence in our lives.

• Prevention is preferable to treatment and each individual should know their risk factors to enable them to create lifestyle actions to foster good long-term health.

• Control the controllables

o   Exercise

o   Sleep

o   Food and supplementation

o   Emotional health and connection

• The sooner you start taking care of your health, the better

Finally, he encouraged us to think about the activities we hope to do in the future – perhaps travel, play with grandchildren, leave a legacy in our community, or pursue hobbies. Attia suggests we should train purposefully like athletes planning to have the physical capacity to comfortably do those activities well into our 8th and 9th decades of life. He refers to these activities as the Centenarian Decathalon.

If you are interested in learning more, I encourage you to check out the book Outlive, or listen to his podcast The Drive.