AN OLD WOMAN ON OKINAWAPhotograph by: Photo provided, The Ottawa Citizen
It's a relief that longevity expert Dr. Terry Grossman isn't going to suggest that eating birdseed is the only way to live forever.
After all, so-called "caloric restriction" has so far proven to be one of the few ways to extend life -- if you're a lab animal, that is. For most humans, subsisting on birdseed and carrot sticks would produce the dullest and hungriest eternity ever.
No, Grossman is arguing that all you have to do to live forever is adopt a few lifestyle changes and survive the next 20 years. At which point it will be possible to stop the clock, and perhaps even reverse it with cloned organs, bionic replacement parts and nanobots that putter about your bloodstream cleaning up messes, not to mention stem-cell therapies that replace damaged organs with your own DNA.
"Our basic thesis is that, right now, most of us don't have the possibility of living past 100. But in 20 years, the sky will be the limit," says Grossman, co-author with futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil of the new book Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever.
Still, one of those nine steps is calorie reduction. The other eight, if you're curious, are:
1 Talk to your doctor. Heart attacks are preventable if coronary atherosclerosis is diagnosed early, and cancer is more treatable and often curable if detected early.
2 Relax. Don't smoke or take drugs. Consume alcohol and caffeine in moderation. Have someone you trust in your life to share your thoughts and troubles.
3 Get your current health assessed. "Early detection is the second pillar that will enable you to live and remain healthy long enough to take full advantage of the next stages in technological evolution," says Grossman.
4 Eat nutritious food. Consume no more than 20 per cent of total calories in the form of carbohydrates. In other words, eat your vegetables. The non-starchy ones are low in glycemic load and heavy with vitamins and phytochemicals.
5 Supplement. "Vitamins can do more than prevent scurvy and rickets," says Grossman. He recommends that almost everyone over the age of 30 take a daily multiple vitamin as well as fish oil and vitamin D supplements.
6 Exercise. Thirty minutes of aerobic exercise at least three times a week, strength-training two or three times a week, and flexibility stretches after each session of aerobic exercise is essential. By the way, eventually you won't have to exercise, because "exercise mimetic drugs" will deliver the same benefits.
7 Use new technologies as they become available. With all that nanotechnology cruising around in our bloodstreams in 25 years, we'll be more cyborg than human.
8 Detox. Grow lots of houseplants and stay away from printers, copiers and fax machines.
Thousands of people have travelled to Grossman's clinic in Colorado, where he administers longevity evaluations. They can cost anything from $250 to $10,000 and involve 150 assessments, including a full body ultrasound and CT scan.
The majority of his clients are men. Women, he notes, are more likely to accept and pursue alternative treatments such as acupuncture, so are less likely to go in for a high-tech longevity diagnostic.
Grossman believes that virtually all disease is discoverable and, with an aggressive approach, treatable. "We have a lot better medicine today than most people realize."
In Canada, life expectancy has been on the rise. A baby born in 1991 could expect to live 77.8 years. By 2008, a baby born in 2005 was expected to live 80.4 years, according to Statistics Canada.
But in longevity circles, there has been fierce debate between those who believe eternal life will be a scientific possibility within a few decades and those who believe we can only make small gains in life expectancy. Even if we cure cancer and heart disease, the latter group says, it's simple frailty that kills old people.
Grossman believes the human body is capable of living to 150. Or, when new forms of virtual reality kick in, of actually living forever.
"I also think we can move our consciousness into virtual realms," Grossman says. "Artificial intelligence and virtual reality will be more like real reality. You won't be able to tell the difference."
Baby boomers will be pivotal. They likely won't make it, but their children and grandchildren will because they will be young enough to take advantage of new technologies.
So, to survive the next 20 or 30 years to get to the nanobots and the cloned replacement organs, Grossman suggests looking at the lessons learned from long-lived groups of people, like those who live in Okinawa, Japan. Studies there suggest that reducing caloric intake by even 10 to 20 per cent below maintenance requirements has benefits.
Long-lived populations have other things in common, says Grossman. They have low stress, good relationships and exercise. They don't eat a lot of red meat. And they are happy. Many groups of people with large numbers of centenarians live with remarkable levels of interconnectedness, says Grossman.
Having a good marriage, good relationships with children and friends, makes all the difference, he says. "How you live is just as important as what you eat and how much you exercise."
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By Joanne Laucius, The Ottawa CitizenMay 18, 2009
