What Is Your Age?
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What is your age?
Well, it was clear from some reactions to last week's post that putting numbers on things triggers all sorts of emotions. Good and bad!
And, for this week, I guess I will bring up the ultimate number—our age.
Let me start by saying that our relationship with age is, well, let's just say, complicated. It's our constant companion and reminder of the life we live. And the older we get, the faster life seems to pass. And given that we all have an expiration date, it's not that fun to think too much about it.
I am turning 60 later this year, so I am sure there will be plenty of time to reflect on my own on what that particular milestone means. But again, it's just a number, isn't it?
I guess the core theme of these musings every week is that I believe that the best way to live our lives is to focus on what we can control and try our best to forget the rest. The more we concern ourselves with things outside of our control, the more unhappy we will be. Look at our public discourse as a case in point. So many people invest their emotions in things that they absolutely can't affect or control. To what end?
Whatever it is we are fretting and sweating about often won't get better just because we worry about it. Most of the time, our worries become obstacles between us and the only thing that can make our lives better—our own choices and our own actions.
When it comes to life span, it obviously (and sadly) varies a great deal. It's not entirely fair, of course, since it does depend partly on things you cannot control. Like who your parents were, the conditions of how and where you grew up, and what happened to you early on. But as the old saying goes: "Genetics loads the gun, but your habits pull the trigger."
And it is truly the case that our choices matter the most. There are a lot of things we can do to improve our odds of living well and living longer. The age that we typically associate with our life is more of a "chronological" age: the years we have lived since we were born. But there is an increased focus on something we call our “biological” age. That is the health of the physiological systems that produce health (and disease). You can be 70 years old chronologically but be 50 years old biologically. be. Or vice-versa. I know which one I prefer.
Here is the good news. (And I think it is really good news.) There is more and more scientific research devoted to what we typically refer to as "lifestyle as medicine". In other words, how your choices in your daily life affect those systems of yours. What we eat, how we move, how we sleep, how we breathe, how we love, how we work, etc. All those daily "choices" are like small deposits or withdrawals into our health checking accounts. And it is, of course, personal, too. We are not all created equal and the dosage and exact habits that maximize your personal health might look different from person to person.
Our healthcare system is not designed to deal with this. At all. At least, not yet. It was designed for episodic and acute types of care. It made sense since most people used to die from infectious diseases which require drastic intervention. But today, over 90% of healthcare dollars are spent on chronic conditions, many of which could be reduced, reversed, or at least improved significantly by modifying our lifestyles. This is a massive opportunity for humanity. We can all live better, live longer, and spend probably 5-10% less of our overall incomes on healthcare over time.
Sadly, this is a global problem that is even more acute and severe in the United States. Look at this graph, which says it all. America spends, on average, almost twice as much on healthcare as most other countries do. The OECD average was 9.6% in 2021 while the U.S. spent 18.3% expressed as % of GDP. (You can find varying numbers depending on when and who collected the data but all data shows the same point). The difference of 8.7% is more than twice what we spend on total defense in America. And more than we spend on education in total. The point I am trying to make is that our lifestyle choices in America are not only causing suffering and poor health, but are also crowding out the economic ability of us as a nation to invest in other important areas such as childcare, education, infrastructure, energy transition, or debt repayment. Just to mention a few.
This data is from an OECD report from 2018 called Health Statistics 2018 with data ranging from 2016-2018. And it hasn't gotten better. You can find more data here.
The topic of living well is fortunately a huge passion for both me and Jessica, personally and professionally. How to find ways to improve the lives of humans is the constant companion running through all conversations we have in our family. And we like it.
Many of my own investments are in companies trying to be helpful in bettering lifestyle choices. Such as Rōti, Picadeli, Fatty15, Sakara, EatLove, Unreal, Itrim, True Botanicals, Mixt, Biosense Readout, Nicks, and more. And Jessica, of course, is leveraging her background as a professional athlete, dentist, and lifestyle coach by writing a book about healthy habits and launching her own platform. So, as you can tell, we are both obsessed. Yes, there I said it! But it is a good obsession to have.
During our journey, we have also been fortunate to get to know so many scientists, researchers, and fantastic people who are pioneers in the world of lifestyle as medicine. They have taught us much and inspired us more. From Dean and Anne Ornish to Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Mark Hyman, just to mention a few.
Dr. Mark Hyman just released his new book with the appropriate title, Young Forever. In it, he talks about how and why we age and what the hallmarks of aging consist of. He gives essential advice on what we can do to find a better balance between what we are doing too much and what we are getting too little of.
I try to keep up with Mark, but I can't. He is a role model in every sense of the word for me. And he is older than me chronologically, but certainly younger than me biologically. And looks far better! But we all need inspiration and he is certainly one for me. And for those interested in eating better, I can also highly recommend his recipes. We use them all the time in our kitchen, as they are practical, simple, delicious, and get you a long way towards eating and feeling better.
So, here we go. Here is Mark's latest book. Here is one of our favorite cookbooks from Mark that we use all the time. Here is a link to his recipes that you can bookmark for future use. And here is a great podcast interview about his new book where he unpacks the messages in the book.
Let me just finish by saying that changing our lifestyle is not easy. Believe me, I am still trying my best. And I fall back often. But like anything in life, it takes a village. And I can't think of a more important "project" for the population of America to get busy on than helping ourselves make better choices. We would all benefit from it.
The best part is that many ingredients to a healthier life are free. We can all be kinder. We can all show more love to our neighbors. We can all breathe more intentionally and through our noses. We can sleep more. We can take more walks and enjoy the outside. We can show more gratitude every day for all the good things in our lives. And we can eat less processed foods and only ingredients that we can pronounce. That would all go a long way!
Have a great week!
