Living beyond age 100 may become commonplace.

Now, before I go down this rabbit hole, a disclaimer: Extending lifespan beyond known biological bounds is still sci-fi stuff.

However, also consider modern innovations that were also once considered sci-fi:

• Airflight (planes/jets/helicopters/jetpacks)
• Space travel
• Landing on the moon
• The International Space Station
• Driverless cars
• Mobile phones
• The internet
• Lab-grown meat
• Machine learning
• Video calls
• 3D printing
• Smart homes
• Underwater exploration
• Online metaverse
• Wearable tech
• DNA sequencing

So with an open mind, let’s dive in.

Aging = A Disease

Research focused on the root causes of human mortality is increasingly pointing towards one common denominator: aging.

Aging? As the cause of mortality? Yes, bear with me.

At it’s most basic level, aging is nothing more than an accumulation of damage: breakages in the machinery of your cells combined with build ups of metabolic waste which lead to the failure of biological systems. With the exception of acute accidents, the most common causes of death (heart disease, cancer, neurological disease/degeneration) all increase as we age.

On June 18, 2018, the World Health Organization even added a new disease code which every country in the world is encouraged to use. The code was MG2A: old age.

Aging From 30,000 Feet:

• Lifestyle and genetics influence cellular health.
• Cellular health determines our rate of aging.
• The process of aging leads to biological misfires, cellular breakdown, and disease/death.

Two Theories of Aging:

While slowing down the process of aging could help in forestalling disease, it’s still unclear to what degree aging can be slowed, paused, or reversed.

As it stands now, there are two basic theories surrounding aging/lifespan:

1. Biological Limit on Life: According to this theory, humans (along with all other species) have a natural limit to their lifespans that cannot be exceeded. Using mathematical modeling, researchers from the journal Nature Communications predict that after 120 to 150 years of age the human body loses its ability to recover from illness and injury.
2. Longevity Escape Velocity: Also known as age escape velocity and actuarial escape velocity, this is the situation in which technology extends a person’s life expectancy at a faster rate than they are aging. In other words, the potential for immortality. Some gerontologists believe that the odds of LEV are as high as 50% and that we could learn the answer within the next 15 years.

Regardless of which theory ultimately ends up proving correct, it is quite likely that lifespans will continue to be extended (perhaps dramatically) beyond the averages of today. According to the CDC, the average life expectancy for a female in the US is 80.5, for males it is 75.1.

Odds of living to 100 (with vitality)

Simply making it to the triple digit milestone is currently out of reach for many. Per data from the Social Security Administration, for a married couple where both spouses are 65 years old, there is a 8.7% chance that at least one member of the couple will live to 100.

Now, while the US does have the highest number of centenarians globally (approx. 97,000 people, or 0.03% of the US population), they are a rare bunch.

Getting to 115 is currently a 1-in-100-million proposition. And reaching 130 is a mathematical improbability of the highest order. At least it is right now.

However, for those able to invest in their health and maintain physical and cognitive function over these next 10-15 years, the future is looking bright.

According to Dr. David Sinclair, author of Lifespan and co-director for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School, “if even a few of the therapies and treatments that are most promising come to fruition, it is not an unreasonable expectation for anyone who is alive and healthy today to reach 100 in good health—active and engaged at levels we’d expect of healthy 50-year-olds today.”

The Science

You may have heard the following:

Genetics load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Studies of family genealogies and identical twins place the genetic influences on longevity at between 10% and 25% which, by any estimation, is surprisingly low. Conversely, your lifestyle accounts for 75%-90%.

In other words: Our DNA is not our destiny, lifestyle plays an outsized role.

With recent advancements in both technology and medicine, our longevity rates may be increasing faster than many realize.

Perhaps the greatest leap forward occurred in 2012 when Shinya Yamanaka discovered what he referred to as the “elixir of life.”

And no, the “elixir” was not a trendy food or supplement. It was the discovery of a process called “reprogramming” – that is, in a crude oversimplified sense: using genome-editing CRIPR technology to revert mature cells into younger cells.

This discovery would earn Yamanaka the Nobel Prize of Medicine.

Following Yamanaka’s discovery, we’ve entered a period of exponential medicine: genome sequencing, RNA transcriptomics, Wnt pathway modifiers, vaccines, liquid biopsies, CAR-T cells, gene therapy, exosomes, and stem cells are just a sampling of the technologies (many of which the world’s billionaires are fast-tracking).

The ability to reprogram cells along with these other interventions could prove revolutionary in delaying biological decline.

For instance, when it comes to cancer, the body is always producing cancer it’s just that our immune system zaps the cancer 99% of the time. Early stage cancers, those in stage 1 and stage 2, are highly curable. It’s when a cancer metastasizes beyond those initial stages that the fight typically becomes more difficult.

In the case of cancer, as opposed to being reactive to the symptoms before it’s too late, there is now proactive screening for 60+ different cancers to catch them in the earlier, more treatable stages.

Proactive care, as opposed to reactive treatment, is the future of healthcare.

Lifespan vs. Healthspan

In a previous blog on the Centenarian Olympics, we discussed the idea of “backcasting” – or reverse engineering – the tasks that you would need to be able to complete at age 100 to maintain independence and how you could begin training for them today. The reason for this is that, for many of us, the goal is not to simply increase the quantity of years lived. Instead, it’s to increase the quality of our years by decreasing the number of years nursing disease.

Between 1950 and 2020 the world population swelled from 2.9B people to 7.8B people. During that same window of time, average (global) life expectancy rose 26 years, from 47 to 73 years of age. While life expectancy has risen, maintaining health, function, and overall quality of life has lagged.

Unlike the average lifespan, which is now 79.3 years in the US, the average healthspan (i.e. period of one’s life that one is healthy) is only 63.1 years old. In other words, roughly 1/5 of an individual’s life is now spent managing end of life morbidity.

With new medical advancements and lifestyle improvements it’s looking more and more likely that there are solutions to close the gap between the quantity of your years (lifespan) and the quality of them (healthspan).

Financial Planning & Playing the Long Game

At wHealth Advisors, we view the traditional definition of “wealth” – your investments, salary, net worth etc. – as a bit limiting and one dimensional. Like the term “success”, true “wealth”… ehmm wHealth… is more nuanced, nebulous, and unique to each of us. What is optimal for me may not be optimal for you.

Therefore, the wHealthy person is the one with a uniquely optimized balance of financial independence, health (mental/physical/emotional/spiritual), rest, and social connection. They are also likely to have sufficient degree of autonomy and purpose in their professional and/or personal life.

All the returns in life – whether in finances, health, knowledge, or relationships – are the product of good decisions being compounded over long periods. Therefore, improving our overall wHealth is not typically something we can change dramatically overnight, it’s incremental.

Final Thoughts

As financial planners, we feel immense responsibility – and gratitude – in applying our technical expertise to empower our clients to be the people, and live the lives, they’ve always dreamed of.

The maxim of “health is wealth” is all too cliché and oftentimes not met with action. Like with finances as is the case with health – the best time to have started investing in it was 10 years ago… the second best time is today.

So, assuming that you could live with vitality to (or beyond!) age 100 – how might that change the way you make decisions today?

Would you make any changes to your current lifestyle?

Would you invest more into (or divest from) certain relationships?

Would you dedicate more attention to any areas of your overall health (mental, physical, emotional, spiritual etc.)?

Would you make different career decisions/transitions?

Would you invest more time, energy, and intention into closing the gap between who you are today and the best version of yourself?

Let us know so we can begin planning for that future today!