The Long Haul: The Keys to Longevity

Welcome to The Long Haul! Every week, I’ll explore a longevity topic and then give a roundup of the big news in Longevity.

The past few weeks I’ve gotten into some pretty niche topics so I thought it would be a good idea to go back to basics – this is the most important issue you’ll read yet.

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The TL;DR

🏆 Nothing else matters in longevity if you don’t do these 7 things right:

Exercise
Don’t smoke
Eat healthy
Maintain a healthy weight
Limit alcohol intake
Stay social
Sleep

That’s it.

Today's Topic: The Keys to Longevity

Longevity is about extending our healthy years, not just living longer.

Each week I write about a building block that makes up the greater story of living a healthier life.

But none of those matter if we don’t focus on the 7 essential practices that impact longevity.

These 7 things have a massive impact on the length of your life. A 34-year study of over 100,000 people found that people who were healthy in these areas were:

65% less likely to die from cancer
82% less likely to die from heart disease
74% less likely to die during the study [1]

Here are the most important things to extend your life, ranked from most to least important:

Physical activity

Get enough exercise. It adds years to your life. “Enough” means:

3-5 hours of vigorous physical activity per week
- Hiking
- Jogging
- Carrying heavy loads [2]
OR 5-10 hours of moderate physical activity per week
- Brisk walking
- Light effort cycling
- Vacuuming & mopping
OR some combination of both [3]

2. Not smoking

If you don’t smoke - don’t start. If you do, quitting smoking is the single best thing you can do for your longevity.

I’m not even going to cite a source here. Smoking is bad, we all know it.

3. Eating healthy

Poor diet causes more deaths than any other risks globally. [4]

This chart shows the mortality rates associated with different diets.

The bars on the left show mortality rates by “Socio-demographic Index” — broadly speaking, orange indicates wealth, and blue indicates poverty.

In America, the biggest dietary risk factors are too much salt and not enough whole grains.

4. Maintaining a healthy weight

People hate Body Mass Index (BMI) as an indicator of health, and they’re right – weight doesn’t perfectly correlate to health. But, if you don’t happen to have a DEXA scanner or the lab equipment to analyze your own blood sample lying around at home, BMI does a good job of giving people a rough idea of their health.

Maintaining a Body Mass Index (BMI) between 18.5 - 24.9 is shown to help individuals live longer.

Bear in mind BMI has been shown to overestimate obesity risk in black individuals and underestimate it in individuals of Asian descent. [6]

But it’s still around because it’s an easily measurable indicator of health. It helps us understand if there’s a problem that we need to investigate.

You can calculate your own BMI here.

5. Limit alcohol intake

Limiting yourself to a moderate intake of:

One alcoholic drink/day for women
Two drinks/day for men

is associated with a lower risk of diabetes and heart disease. [1]

6. Stay social

People who experience social isolation have a 32% higher risk of dying early and those who feel lonely are 14% more likely to die early. Go see your friends.

7. Sleep

Sleeping 7-8 hours a day is associated with a 13% reduction in mortality risk.

Longevity isn’t complicated, but it does require consistent effort. And if you’re going to be consistent on anything, make it these 7 things.