Three Not-So-Bad Things on Aging and Longevity

A Weekly Newsletter

There’s no denying it: we are constantly bombarded with bad news. A pandemic, climate change, inflation, war, political discord—the list goes on.  Here at the Longevity Project, we understand that bad news can be enough to take years off your life, so we want to do our part (however small) to balance the scales. 

At the end of the day, though, we’re realists. Good news is hard to come by, no matter how hard you look. So we’ll aim a little lower and without further ado, we are pleased to share our first weekly newsletter: Three Not-So-Bad Things on Longevity and Aging. Feel free to share with others and send us items you want to see included. With some luck, you will see this newsletter (and some more not so bad news) every Wednesday.

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FEBRUARY 19, 2025

1. Rural Health Disparities.

In December, we travelled to Stillman College in Tuscaloosa for a town hall on rural health and to talk with experts about the many factors negatively impacting health in rural communities. At our town hall, experts described a deteriorating health care infrastructure: shortages of doctors (for instance, many counties in Alabama lack a single OB-GYN), long-travel time to medical facilities, and underinvestment in public health (many counties only have one ambulance). While we also heard about many inspirational projects like the Alabama Rural Health Association and Project Horseshoe Farm, the overall picture was rather bleak.

So we weren’t terribly surprised to see new research from the University of Southern California that projects that rural Americans will live significantly shorter lives than their urban and suburban counterparts (published in the Journal of Rural Health – you can find it here). The researchers found that a 60-year-old man living in a rural area is expected on average to live two fewer years than an urban man. For women, the rural-urban gap is less, about six months.

The findings reflect a worsening of the rural-urban divide. The disparities come from increasing rates of smoking, obesity, and chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and heart disease, and are aggravated by the disparities in health care access. At the root of the problem is less economic opportunity, higher rates of poverty, and growing gaps in educational attainment. It’s a problem (as many speakers at the town hall noted) without easy solutions - but one that is critical to the health of our nation.

2. If You Want To Live To 150, Leave That Rural Area and Move To  . . . Bridgeport, CT.

While our erstwhile researchers at USC were investigating the challenges of failing health in rural America, the busy beavers of BestPlaces, egged on by Medtronic, were trying to figure out the cities where the first American to live to 150 might be born. It’s an astonishingly premature question. Jeanne Marie Calumet, who set the record for longevity before she died in 1997, only made it to 122, and many researchers believe that the limits of human longevity are well below 150. Or look at it another way, while life expectancy has roughly doubled over the last 150 years, the progression of the world’s oldest person has been much slower. The first recorded centenarian was a Norwegian farmer named Eilif Philipsen who died in 1785 at the age of 102, so it took about 200 years to advance 20 years from Philipsen to Calumet. At that rate, the first sesquicentenarian (we made that word up, we hope it sticks) won’t be born until roughly the year 2300. So tune back in TNSB in about 2298 for our full analysis of the list.

Our skepticism aside, there are few things we love more than a list here at TNSB, no matter how premature. So, drum roll please - the city in the US most likely to welcome a 150 year is none other than Washington, D.C.. We’re a little suspicious of that choice, regardless of what the data says about education, income, social engagement and nutrition. Looking out the bay windows here at TNSB World Headquarters right in the heart of our Nation’s Capital, we don’t see anyone who looks like they would make it to 150 -- and given events in our hometown of late, would want to live to 150. But far be it for us to argue with a list, so check it out here.

You might guess that affluent, healthy, and well-educated cities like San Francisco, Raleigh, and Seattle might make the list, and they do, but we were rather surprised to see Bridgeport, CT land at #3. This made us briefly question the sanity of BestPlaces since Bridgeport has income and life expectancy well below state, regional, and national averages. But, as it turns out, the Bridgeport metropolitan area, which is what BestPlaces was ranking, includes Stamford, Norwalk, and the rest of very wealthy Fairfield County. See, you can always learn something from a good list.

3. It's Pretty Common To See “Seth Rogan” and “Fart Joke” In The Same Sentence.

It’s less common to see Seth Rogan and “stress granules” in the same thought, but that’s where we’re going today. Yesterday, we watched “Taking Care,” a moving, sometimes funny, sometimes raw story about Adele Miller, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 55. The film follows her painful, cognitive decline, and the growing, difficult caregiving challenges faced by Adele’s husband and her family, including her daughter, Lauren Miller Rogan, and her son-in-law, Seth. The story is a stand-in for the 6.7 million families that currently struggle with Alzheimer’s (a number that is expected to increase to almost 14 million by 2060), and the lack of caregiving and financial support that exists today. You can find out more about the film and how to watch it here.

In the film, Adele’s neurologist, Richard Isaacson, describes the healthy habits (sleep, nutrition, cognitive engagement, exercise) that we know might delay the onset of Alzheimer’s, and argues that even short delays of six months or a year might prove crucial as new treatments come on to the market. It’s a reminder that researchers are making strides in understanding the root causes of Alzheimer's, hopefully paving the way for new and improved treatments in the not-too-distant future. In fact, earlier this month, researchers at Arizona State University published a new model to provide a unitary explanation for the causes of Alzheimer's, opening up new paths to early detection and treatment. The model revolves around the notion that “stress granules” may disrupt activities around a cell’s nucleus, undermining cell survival and mechanics, as well as gene expression. The stressors at play here are mostly biological stressors such as exposure to toxins, traumatic brain injury, viruses, oxidative stress, and genetic mutations, as well as psychological stressors that might raise cortisol levels.

The model, we hope, will open up new avenues for research, based upon the latest cellular and molecular data on Alzheimer's, and, with some luck, will one day prove Isaacson right about the value of extending healthy life and delaying the onset of Alzheimer's, perhaps permanently.

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