People have been obsessed with cheating death for millennia, but until recently, little had been understood about how to extend life—or if it was even possible.
Scientists now say they are getting closer to unlocking the secrets of longevity. Billions of dollars are being spent on an effort to find drugs and other therapies that could help people live healthier for longer.
But what if the fountain of youth was already within our reach: everyday habits, backed by science, that could transform your health now?
Dr. Eric Verdin, president of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, says that while continued research into aging and potential longevity therapies is necessary and exciting, researchers have already identified four simple factors that could help people live healthier, longer lives.
“Most people today could expect to live to 95 in good health based on what we know about these four factors,” says Verdin, who is also a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “When I tell this to people, they don’t really believe me. They think this isn’t true, but it is. That’s what the data says.”
So, what are these factors? Nutrition, physical activity, sleep, and social engagement.
“People will think, oh, that’s boring. I know this. My grandmother knew this. But I would say, not so fast. Educate yourself about what it means,” says Verdin. “When we say physical activity, what does that mean? What’s a healthier diet?”
Longevity researchers have been probing these questions and have unearthed some compelling answers, Verdin says. As part of TIME’s series interviewing leaders in the longevity field, we spoke to Verdin about this research and other advancements in the science of aging.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
How would you define aging?
Imagine two trucks, both made in the 1940s. One is rusty and has all the telltale signs of age and the other one is in pristine condition because a car collector has been maintaining it and repairing it so it’s essentially in the same state it was in when it rolled off the assembly line.
The difference between these two trucks is maintenance and repair and the same thing is true for us. From the day you’re born, your body is subjected to a whole series of insults—ultraviolet light from the sun, gamma rays coming from space, the oxygen that we breathe that induces oxidative stress, gravity that pulls on your nerves, on your tendons and so on. All of these forces generate insults and cause damage to your DNA, to your proteins, to your cells in general. But our bodies are imbued with a whole series of protective mechanisms that allows it to repair damage and it’s doing that continuously.
Aging is the subtle, progressive degradation of these repair pathways over time. This degradation causes you to slowly accumulate small defects—a wrinkle, for example. A wrinkle is a cross-linking of some of the collagen fibers under your skin. Once it’s cross-linked, you cannot undo that. You cannot repair it. Now imagine that at the level of the whole organism. That is what aging is.
The implication of this is that if we could understand what these maintenance and repair pathways are and can figure out how to target them, then we will be able to slow down aging. This is what a lot of the longevity field is now dealing with.
What prompted your interest in longevity research?
My lab started working more actively on aging around the mid-1990s, which was an exciting time for aging research. Aging had previously been viewed as a sort of non-specific process that was very hard to study. But from around 1988 to 1995, a number of labs identified a whole series of genes that, when mutated, could actually increase lifespan [in yeast and animals]. People had previously predicted that finding these genes would be impossible because aging was thought to have multiple causes: oxidative stress, gamma rays, gravity. But what these discoveries showed was that despite the multiplicity of insults that lead to aging, there were a number of central genes that could change the whole paradigm of how well and how fast you age. That really created a lot of excitement. Since then, hundreds of genes have been identified that appear to control aging.
My lab has focused mostly on epigenetic regulation [which is the process by which genes can be turned on or off by certain biochemical mechanisms]. Epigenetic regulation is very relevant to aging because during the aging process, these mechanisms become a little loose. My lab has identified, cloned, and characterized some of the key enzymes that modify histones [a type of protein that plays a central role in epigenetic regulation]. Another area that we’ve worked a lot on is ketogenesis and the role of ketone bodies.
Does that have anything to do with the “keto” diet?
It does. Ketone bodies or ketones [a type of chemical that is produced by the liver when it breaks down fats] are a form of energy that our body can use like fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. But other than being an energy source, we discovered in the 2000s that ketones are also signaling molecules that are speaking to the epigenetic regulatory mechanism. We found that a type of ketone known as beta hydroxybutyrate is an inhibitor of [an enzyme that modifies histones and is involved in aging]. Based on this, we postulated that ketones might have an anti-aging effect. We put mice on a ketogenic diet and showed that they actually did live longer. Median age was increased and they had better brain aging and so on. I think the reason you’ve heard about the ketogenic diet being healthy is in large part because of that work.
There are multiple ways to enter a state of ketosis. One way is prolonged fasting. It takes at least 21 hours of fully fasting to get into ketosis. The other way is to restrict carbohydrates. This is what a lot of people on the ketogenic diet do. They eat, but they don’t eat more than between 30 and 50 grams of carbohydrates a day, which is not very much. The last way is to take a supplement that has ketones in it. I have designed some novel ketone esters—these are ketone precursors that you can take as a supplement that will put you into ketosis within 30 minutes.
We are currently recruiting participants for a couple of clinical trials at the Buck Institute [a California-based biomedical research center focused on aging] that are testing these ketone esters. One of them is testing to see what level of ketone supplements are best for people. What is the proper dose? How long does it last? And the other one is targeting aging. We want to see if taking ketone esters can help people who have signs of a condition associated with aging called frailty, where people have loss of muscle mass and don’t have good balance.
We have 22 research groups at the Buck Institute working on all kinds of different topics related to aging. Some are studying the basic mechanisms of aging in animals, others are studying the role of aging in diseases like Alzheimer’s. Over the last 10 years, we’ve been building up a whole infrastructure to allow us to start doing clinical trials. We now have several underway.
Based on what we know today, can we extend lifespan in people?
That’s the question I was hoping you were going to ask.
How much of a role do you think genetics plays in longevity? It turns out that almost all of your life expectancy is determined by non-genetic factors—more than 90%, according to some research. To me, that’s an incredibly powerful message, because it means you cannot be fatalistic about your own aging. Your decisions about whether to live healthily or not are going to have a huge effect on how long and how well you live.
So, how do you do this? By thinking about what I call the “five pillars of aging”: nutrition, physical activity, sleep, community, and interventions like drugs or supplements.
I always tell people that we currently have no drugs and no supplements that have been proven to increase lifespan in humans. I get bombarded every day on Instagram by this supplement or that supplement that promises to make me live longer. But nothing has been proven. There are some drugs that can increase lifespan in mice but more research is needed to make sure they are safe and effective in humans.
The field of aging research occupies itself with this last pillar quite often and people sometimes think that we are only developing drugs. That would be a tragic mistake to make because although we have no proven drugs or supplements, the field has shown that the other four pillars have clear effects in terms of aging. Most people today could expect to live to 95 in good health based on what we know about these four factors. When I tell this to people, they don’t really believe me. They think this isn’t true, but it is. That’s what the data says.
People will think, oh, that’s boring. I know this. My grandmother knew this. But I would say, not so fast. Educate yourself about what it means. When we say physical activity, what does that mean? What’s a healthier diet? If you ask people if a vegetarian diet is healthier than a regular diet, most would probably tell you that, yes, it is healthier. But many studies don’t support that.
I think about the four factors almost like a bank account or a stock portfolio. If you exercise a lot, you might get an extra five years of life. If you eat well on top of it, you might get an extra three or four years and if you sleep well, you’re probably going to get another two or three. The most powerful effect is actually from community: how many relationships do you have in your life that you’d consider strong, people who you can really count on? That could be a partner, it could be a spouse or children or a friend. It doesn’t have to be anything bound by society. It just has to be a type of relationship where you feel like the person is watching over you and cares about you and will be there when you need them. That’s the strongest factor, by the way, which is really interesting, and it’s the one that’s the hardest to study in the lab.
Tell me more about the different pillars. What kind of diet appears to help you live longer?
The data is really clear that restrictive diets don’t work because many of them are not well-balanced and people have a hard time being on them for a long time. That includes the keto diet and also veganism and vegetarianism. I love the Mediterranean diet for a number of reasons: it’s very balanced, it includes a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits.
Ultra-processed food should be avoided as much as possible and eating a lot of saturated fat from meat isn’t healthy. If you’re going to eat meat, eat low-fat meat that is organic.
The most important thing to avoid is sugar. Sugar is the enemy of healthy aging, especially fast carbohydrates like cereals and fruit juice. The reason is, they make your glucose levels spike, which triggers a disproportionate insulin response. The surge of insulin then causes your glucose levels to get too low, which triggers hunger and then you restart the cycle.
I would recommend that people use a continuous glucose monitor [CGM] to understand their own carbohydrate metabolism. I’ve argued that every high schooler should have a CGM for two weeks which can show them the impact on their blood sugar of what they’re eating. I do it from time to time to remind myself of the consequences of eating that ice cream.
How about physical activity and sleep?
There is still a lot to be learned about what an optimal exercise regimen might be for most people. We do know that sitting is worse than smoking in terms of risk, so I tell people to stand up between Zoom calls. Do some squats, move around the house, go grab a coffee.
Walking for 35 to 40 minutes a day has enormous health benefits. Just 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night will have a really profound effect on your health. You can get even more benefits if you start lifting weights, especially if you’re older. Also, balancing exercises and stretching.
As for sleep, we know that something like 70% of the population is not getting adequate sleep. Most people need seven or eight hours. Some people might tell you, oh, I only need six—and I can tell you that in 99% of those cases, they’re deluding themselves. Not getting enough sleep has a big effect on things like metabolism and inflammation.
What is your advice to people who want to experiment with drugs or supplements for longevity?
I think there are drugs coming in the future—maybe in the next five to 10 years—that will have a protective effect against the aging process. Those are coming, but they’re not here yet.
There are a number of physicians now specializing in this who really understand the risks and the consequences. This is not something that you want to just play with by yourself. I hear so many stories of people buying supplements on the internet and taking them, and then they show me their numbers, and as a physician and a scientist, it doesn’t take very long to realize they’re actually harming themselves.
Educate yourself. Listen to serious people. Avoid the hype. Remember that supplements are unregulated. The first question that you want to ask yourself when you buy a supplement is, who’s making it? How do I know that what’s on the bottle’s label is actually in the bottle?
My attitude is, let’s start focusing on the four pillars that can bring everybody to 95 in good health, which would be transformative to society.
The post 4 Science-Backed Habits That Could Help You Live Longer appeared first on TIME.
