Key Takeaways:
- Longevity has become a hot-button issue, particularly as so many of us enter our 60s, 70s and beyond.
- Improvements in technology can potentially help us adopt and stick with healthy habits.
- Emerging tech also can help catch health issues early on.
We all want to live long, healthy and fulfilling lives. The good news? The ability to do so may be more within your control than you realize.
Chances are, you know the basics: Eat right. Exercise. Sleep seven to nine hours each night. Stay hydrated. And you probably try to follow those best practices of health (much of the time, at least). If not, well—the numbers behind the power of healthy habits are hard to ignore. For example:
- According to research published in the journal Sleep, regularly sleeping less than five to seven hours a night causes inflammation and increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease and obesity. It’s also linked to a 12% increase in earlier death.
- Even 15 minutes of daily exercise could tack on an additional three years to your life, says a report published in The Lancet.
- One Harvard study, meanwhile, found that embracing just a handful of healthy habits—such as more veggies, fewer fatty foods, weekly exercise, weight control, limiting alcohol, no smoking—could extend life expectancy by 12 years (for men) and 14 years (for women), on average.
If the science doesn’t motivate you, maybe some tech-enabled tools will help. Today, as you’ll see, there are a plethora of medical services, apps, gadgets and other emerging connected health tools designed to help you maximize your efforts at day-to-day wellness—and live a much longer and better life.
The longevity trend
If you hadn’t already noticed, longevity has become a hot topic in recent years. One likely reason: Today there are more 65-year-olds than five-year-olds.
Consider, for example, the popularity of the book Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To by David Sinclair, Ph.D., co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School. Sinclair puts forth the idea that humans are on the cusp of an era when they’re not just living much longer than in centuries past but also leading better, healthier and more fulfilling lives. “I have come to see aging as a disease—the most common disease—one that not only can but should be aggressively treated,” he writes. “Prolonged vitality—meaning not just more years of life but more active, healthy and happy ones—is coming, sooner than most people expect.”
“What’s the upper limit? I don’t think there is one,” he adds.
Time will tell if Sinclair is right. But it’s worth noting that about half of the babies who were born in the U.S. in 2007 are expected to live to 104.
Living well—with some help from technology
That said, living longer isn’t enough. Becoming a supercentenarian is not fun if the last decade of one’s life is spent bedridden or suffering chronic pain—which brings us back to the importance of cultivating healthy habits.
With that in mind, consider some ideas* that could potentially set you on a path to a longer and healthier life of real significance.
Concierge medicine
Also known as boutique medicine, this membership-based model offers high-quality personalized care for those willing to shell out their own money (as concierge practices typically don’t take insurance). Prices vary widely depending on the situation, from a few hundred bucks a month to more than $20,000 a year for specialized treatment. One key benefit: fast access to preventive care services in an era when waiting lists for overworked physicians are getting ever longer. You might, for example, work with doctors who have a few hundred patients rather than doctors at traditional practices who may serve 2,000 or more patients.
Telehealth
It’s also possible to subscribe to a virtual healthcare service that can help connect you with clinicians where and when you need them. Telemedicine companies (one example: WorldClinic) focus on connecting traveling business execs and other busy professionals with on-demand care.
Health tracking
Personalized health-tracking devices and sensor-based wearables are other emerging weapons in the anti-aging arsenal. One of the most well-known of these wearables is the Oura Ring. Wear it on your finger to track sleep quality, exercise, and activity levels, active and resting heart rate, oxygen saturation, and more.
Sleep
We may be the only species on Earth that tries to deprive ourselves of sleep—which should tell us something right there. Getting four hours of sleep or less has been shown to reduce NK white blood cell immunity by more than 70%. One approach to boosting duration and quality of rest is a sleep mask that “blacks out” all light in the bedroom. (Manta is one such offering.)
* The examples and specific companies mentioned are for illustrative purposes only and do not constitute recommendations.
Exercise
Exercise is one of the most effective and essential ways to slow the aging process and prevent muscle loss as we get older. But aerobic activity isn’t always easy, especially on the knees, hips and other joints. One tech-enabled offering that may help in that department is an electro-muscle stimulation suit, a wearable that sends low-frequency pulses of electric current to various parts of the body in order to generate muscle contractions and build strength. Katalyst is a well-known brand in this space. Alternatively, VR headsets (such as the Oculus Quest) now offer a menu of virtual reality fitness apps that can get your heart rate up with e-boxing or even e-sword fighting—right in your living room.
Breathing
Breathing through your nose may have various benefits that breathing through your mouth doesn’t have—such as lowering blood pressure, filtering allergens and even decreasing anxiety. But mouth breathing while sleeping is common. In response, so-called mouth taping has become increasingly popular in recent years (driven by books such as Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art). It involves using a specialized type of skin-safe tape on your mouth to help promote nasal breathing overnight. Proponents say it’s greatly improved their sleep quality; others say the improvement is negligible. Of course, consult with a physician before taking this step.
Dental care
About 70% of Americans are brushing incorrectly—which means one of them could be you. And nearly half of all adults aged 30 years and older have some form of gum disease—which may be linked to cancer, heart disease and mental health issues. Tech-y toothbrushes have upped their game over the past decade, with options that deep clean using tens of thousands of sonic vibrations per minute. (Burst is one option here.)
Labs and imaging
Early detection of potentially deadly health problems can be crucial to effectively combating them, of course. Advances in testing mean there are now options such as a multi-cancer early detection test that looks for a signal shared by more than 50 types of cancer (offered by health care tech company Grail) and a full-body MRI scan aimed at helping detect the presence of some 500 different health conditions (done by Prenuvo).
Note: It’s also important to focus on the health information that may be especially relevant to you, personally. Thanks to the ability to map the human genome as well as a better ability to identify ancestors’ ailments, it’s easier than ever to determine your most pertinent health risks. Armed with that information, you can set out to track the metrics that matter most in your life. Example: Say your family history reveals that the men tend to die from heart disease in their 70s. You might work with your provider to do regular targeted cardiac screenings such as a high-sensitivity CRP test (a blood test that reveals how much plaque you have throughout your vascular system) and a cardiac myeloperoxidase test (which reflects your risk for the rupture of unstable plaque).
Pushing back
Aging is a natural part of life (for now, at least), which means we have a tendency 
to accept whatever comes along with the process of getting older. But there are so many ways to “push back” against many bad outcomes that typically crop up in our 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond. Smart habits, supported by helpful technology, won’t guarantee you’ll live to 100 or beyond and stay in good health—but if you can do so and have a bigger impact on the world, isn’t it worth trying?
VFO Inner Circle Special Report
By John J. Bowen Jr.
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