Living Longer is Not the Point
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Living Longer is Not the Point
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Average life expectancy in the UK has risen from roughly 50 years to over 80 in the last century. That is not a small thing. But the average person will spend their final 8 to 12 years living with significant functional limitation – unable to get off the floor unassisted, unable to carry their own shopping, unable to walk at a pace that would let them cross a road in the time the light gives them.
Medicine has become extraordinarily good at keeping people alive. It has not yet become equivalently good at keeping them capable. And the conversation about longevity, as it exists publicly, is almost always about duration. When people hear the word they hear "more years." The question that actually matters is what those years will contain – and the answer is determined not at 70, but at 40.
Muscle mass declines by 3 to 8 percent per decade after 30. VO₂max declines by roughly 10 percent per decade. Bone mineral density peaks at around 30 and falls thereafter. None of this is disease, and most of it will not show up on a blood test. It is the background rate at which capacity is being spent in every adult who is not actively working against it.
You can find a companion essay for this podcast episode at dmitrysokolovmd.com.
