For several decades now It is common knowledge that after the age of forty you should start paying more attention to your body. This is when women should start getting mammograms and men should start paying more attention to their prostate. Over the next decade, you’ll start getting colonoscopies, and from there, it’s like a gradual march of doctor visits and tests until your body drops off sometime in your 70s or 80s.
But what if newfangled medicine has the wrong timeline? What if we unnecessarily test some middle-aged people for diseases they will most likely never get, while blindly ignoring people in their 20s who may be susceptible to colon cancer? Is there a way that, even as we age, we can stay vigorous in a meaningful way that doesn’t involve taking 12 horse-sized pills every morning?
Eric Topol certainly thinks so. Cardiologist, vice president of Scripps Research and author of the book Super Elders believes that up-to-date innovations in AI-enhanced medicine, bioengineering and anti-inflammatory awareness have the potential to revolutionize the way people age.
At Thursday’s WIRED Massive Interview conference in San Francisco, Topol told editor-in-chief Sandra Upson that while working on Super Elders he learned that there is a difference between life expectancy and health expectancy, and that neither situation has much to do with genetics. A “healthy” person, who is over 65 years aged and generally vigorous, has almost the same genetic makeup as someone who is older and has earnest health problems such as heart disease, cancer or a neurodegenerative disorder.
Instead, Topol said, there appears to be a correlation between a vigorous immune system and vigorous aging. Lifestyle can also affect your health. Topol recommends following a diet low in ultra-processed foods, focusing on sleep quality rather than quantity, and spending time outdoors. He also recommended doing exercises that focus on both aerobic work and strength and balance training, which can aid the body become more resilient as we age.
Photo: Annie Noelker
Photo: Annie Noelker
If possible, Topol said, people should avoid environmental factors such as air pollution, micro and nano plastics and chemicals, which Topol said have pro-inflammatory effects. Topol noted that all of these issues are not being addressed by President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., despite their Make America Vigorous Again agenda.
According to Topol, the average American’s life expectancy is approximately 63-65 years. On the other hand, life expectancy is around 80 years. This means that most Americans will spend the last 15 years of their lives in relatively destitute health, and one World Health Organization statistic states that most older adults experience only one “healthy birthday” after the age of 65.
“The health span should be extended as close to the life span as possible, and I think we can do that,” Topol told Upson. “This is a unique moment in medicine. In part because we have multimodal AI, but in part because we have up-to-date layers of data. We have never had organ clocks that tracked the rate of aging of every organ in the body, including the immune system. We have never had biomarkers like p-tau217, which tells us the risk of Alzheimer’s disease 10, 15, or even 20 years ahead. The biggest leap in cutting-edge biomedicine is the ability to quantifying aging rates.”