Here are 13-steps for a long healthy life summarized from [1] by @ColinKeeley on Twitter:[2]
- Our Goal
- Lifespan is the number of years you live
- Health span is how long you’re healthy enough to do the things that matter to you
- Longevity means maximizing health span and lifespan
- Our goal is to live longer and live better and it all starts with prevention...
- Avoid Icebergs
- Medicine 2.0 (medicine today) deals with problems after they present themselves.
- Medicine 3.0 focuses on prevention over cures.
- We are trying to avoid icebergs in the distance
- It is better and easier to avoid the first heart attack than treat it after
- The 4 Horsemen
- There are four major killer diseases: 1. Cardiovascular disease, 2. Cancer, 3. Neurodegenerative disease, 4. Type 2 diabetes and metabolic dysfunction
- Metabolic health is the common thread
- Exercise is our best prevention
- Exercise
- Exercise is "by far the most potent longevity drug”
- Weekly:
- Weight training 3 days
- Zone 2 training 3 hours—Zone 2 training to stimulate mitochondrial function
- VO2 max training 1 day
- Get as fit as possible to prepare for natural decline with age
- Marginal Decade
- You want to intentionally train for the activities you care most about continuing into your later years
- Build up the strength and stamina while young to combat the predictable decline as you age
- Want to ski at 80? You better be in top 1% condition at 50
- Diet
- Avoid fads. Attia recommends Keto (hard) or Mediterranean diet (easier). More monounsaturated fats & less carbs.
- Avoid Standard American Diet: • Highly refined carbohydrates • Processed oils • Added sugar
- Eat more: • Real food • Avocados • Olive oil • Protein • Nuts
- Diet Questions—Are you undernourished or overnourished? Are you undermuscled or adequately muscled? Are you metabolically healthy or not?
- Most have poor metabolic health, are over nourished, and are undermuscled.
- You want to reduce energy intake while adding lean mass.
- Heart Disease
- Everyone 18+ has some degree of heart disease. Accumulating every day.
- Get your ApoB and Lp(a) tested. Those matter more than cholesterol.
- Goal: ApoB 20-30 (baby level)
- Impossible to get there with diet and exercise alone. 80% of his patients take statins.
- Sleep
- Poor sleep impacts everything. It gives even seemingly healthy people "old-man blood": hormone and inflammatory levels of someone decades older.
- Cancer
- Cancer is closely linked to metabolic dysfunction. Get healthy to avoid it.
- This chronic inflammation creates an environment that induces cells to become cancerous.
- Otherwise aggressive early screening is our best defense. Late detection is a death sentence.
- Neurodegenerative Disease
- Most difficult of the horsemen. Medicine 2.0 can't do anything for us.
- What's good for the heart is good for the brain. Exercise & sleep are our best weapons.
- Exercise maintains glucose homeostasis and healthy vasculature.
- Sleep heals the brain.
- Metabolic Dysfunction
- Basically an issue in your body's fuel processing. On a spectrum.
- Heart disease, cancer, and dementia are all built on metabolic disease. Each one is amplified by metabolic dysregulation.
- Exercise, diet, and sleep are our weapons here.
- Emotional Health
- Emotional health issues are one of the biggest roadblocks to longevity in his patients.
- If you are not happy, why would you want to live a long time?
- Take care of your emotional well-being just like you would heart disease.
- It's ok to admit you need help.
References
- Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia and
- Thread by @ColinKeeleuy on longevity
- Exercise and Its Benefits (Travel to Health)
- Exercise for Bone Health (Travel to Health)
- Travel to Health website (link)
