In The New York Times, aging researchers challenged six claims about longevity, including that supplements extend life, women stay healthy longer, and taking good care of yourself can get you to 100

In The New York Times, aging researchers challenged six claims about longevity, including that supplements extend life, women stay healthy longer, and taking good care of yourself can get you to 100

On October 13, The New York Times published an article by Melinda Wenner Moyer.

The first claim is that longevity research aims to help people live longer. Steven Austad, a biologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says most of his colleagues want to extend healthy life: “If extra years are a side effect of people staying healthy longer, then that is wonderful. But that is not the goal.” The authors of a paper in GeroScience propose making life extension itself part of the goal as well.

The second claim is that people are getting healthier and living longer. According to an analysis in Lancet Regional Health – Americas, between 2009 and 2019, life expectancy in the United States rose by 0,5 years to 79,1, while healthy life expectancy fell by 0,3 years to 66,2. Austad says we are “extending the period of poor health at the end of life.” He compares this to a game of whack-a-mole: treatments for cancer and heart disease have improved, but other serious conditions, such as dementia, have become more common.

The third claim is that drugs and supplements extend life. Aladdin Shadyab of the University of California, San Diego, says no drug or supplement has been shown to extend life in humans, although some have extended life in worms and mice. Human biology is different. One common claim is that NAD+, which helps cells produce energy, declines with age and that supplements replenish it. In whole blood from seven groups of people, NAD+ levels were unrelated to either age or lifestyle changes. According to a 2007 review, growth hormone, which is used as an anti-aging treatment, increased the risk of swelling, joint pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome in healthy older adults.

The fourth claim is that women stay healthy longer. Women live longer than men, but Pankaj Kapahi of the Buck Institute says they often spend a larger share of their later years with illness and disability: “Many aspects of their health deteriorate substantially, especially after menopause.” Viviana Perez Montes of the US National Institute on Aging adds that most substances that have extended life in animals appear to work better in males. Males are also used more often in experiments: among 507 mouse studies supported by the institute in 2020–2021, 30,4% used only males and 12,6% used only females.

The fifth claim is that losing weight is always beneficial for people who are overweight. A pooled analysis of 30 observational studies linked weight loss in people aged 65 and older to a 59% higher risk of death compared with maintaining a stable weight. Observational studies have difficulty distinguishing intentional from unintentional weight loss, so researchers tested the effects of intentional weight loss in a trial involving 585 older adults who were overweight. Over 12 years, mortality did not differ significantly between those randomly assigned to a weight-loss diet and the other participants.

The sixth claim is that taking good care of yourself can get you to 100. In Science, Ben Shenhar and Uri Alon of the Weizmann Institute of Science and their colleagues recalculated heritability, the proportion of variation in lifespan explained by genetic differences. Earlier estimates from twin studies, 20–25%, were too low: when one twin dies in an accident or from an infection, the twins' lifespans differ for reasons unrelated to their genes. After accounting for these deaths, the heritability of lifespan exceeded 50%. Genes appear to play an even greater role in people who reach 95, says Sofiya Milman of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine: “There is really nothing different about their lifestyles.”