What if ageing could be treated like a disease? Could we be changing careers at seventy?
Don’t let the old man in
I recently listened to the audio book of David Sinclair’s “Lifespan”. An interesting subject and one that has interested me over the years for many reasons, including the fact that it is a really pertinent question in the process of financial planning. Traditionally, it is the starting point to assess how much money a person needs to provide for themselves in retirement – typically until they die.
In the “old days” a person would work from when they finished school, perhaps doing an apprenticeship or an undergraduate degree. They would work for the same company for most of their lives, and the company would provide a “Defined Benefit” pension. The amount of the pension would be calculated on how many years a person had been with the company, what their final salary was and typically what their expected life expectancy was. The employee would retire at somewhere around 55 years old, and anyone who made it to three score and ten was happy with that! The risk of longevity lay with the pension fund – the fund gained if a member died before and lost if a member lived longer than expected.
Things have changed for many reasons – people don’t stay with the same company, they want some control over their pension investments and they want to keep control over what is often their biggest savings pot. While interesting in itself, it isn’t what I want to talk about today – although you are welcome to drop a mail if you’d like me to go into more depth on that. What I am interested in for today’s note is how life expectancies keep rising. Even for countries with the lowest life expectancy, it is higher than the highest life expectancy a century ago. Here is an interesting interactive chart which shows how life expectancies rise as the GDP per capita of each country rises. (Press the play button below to see the animation).
Life expectancy is an average. Very few people will die at precisely the age indicated in the tables. Most will die much earlier or much later since the risk of death is not uniform over a lifetime. For example high infant mortality rates would affect the average. Interestingly, if a child lives to the age of ten, their life expectancy goes up quite rapidly.
So what drives the increase in life expectancy? Without going into great depth, it seems that as countries become more wealthy, better public health interventions – vaccinations, hygiene measures, better nutrition, housing and sanitation and scientific advancements all play a role.
Biologically, ageing results from the impact of the accumulation of a wide range of molecular and cellular damage over time. This leads to a gradual decline in physical and mental capacity, a growing risk of disease, and ultimately, death. These changes are usually consistent, and they are associated with a person’s age in years.
Dr Sinclair has a paradigm shifting thesis, which is that ageing is, in itself, a disease. And is a disease that could be cured! He argues that if we spent more resources on understanding ageing better we would save a fortune in healthcare costs associated with heart conditions, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. All of these age related diseases are not as result of aging, but rather, symptoms of ageing.
His lab at Harvard has been working on these ideas for the last twenty odd years, and show some very interesting research into how cells regenerate and fight off zombie cells that lead to cancer and other degenerative diseases. In practical terms, while we live longer, we will also live more vital lives in “old age” and be productive for significantly longer than ever before. Many of the people that he has studied are working in completely different fields and establishing new careers in their sixties, and remain productive into their eighties.
His work does not indicate that we will be immortal, or that we will never age. The theory is that if we allow our cells to repair and regenerate, we will naturally live longer healthier lives. The root cause of aging lies in an ancient genetic survival circuit. From single cell amoeba and throughout time, cells will stop reproducing to repair damage to the genome, allowing micro organisms to survive and evolve. As we bombard our survival circuit with genetic damage from bad diet, UV rays, smoking, pollution, etc, we overwhelm our genome resulting in grey hair, wrinkles, achy joints, dementia and ultimately death.
This is where it gets interesting – we can’t change our DNA but we have more control over our genes than we have previously thought. We can activate our vitality genes using small lifestyle changes such as intermittent fasting, avoiding too much animal protein, limiting sugar, avoiding x-rays, exercising at the right intensity and even cold therapy.
If we are able to live longer, with our vitality and mental capacity intact, we could be healthy and productive centenarians. The aged would not a be a burden on economies and state funding could be freed up from healthcare and be diverted into different research.
Globally we are facing an ageing population. As things stand, tax bases are shrinking. There are less people in the workforce and bar Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Automation, we will need to keep employing older people and won’t be able to commit to providing for them financially.
At some stage aging became a problem. A vast problem where more and more of the population were slower, sicker and unable to keep up. Age related diseases became more prominent and at first we were shocked by them, but then it became more normal, and almost expected. Cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s are more often than not considered age related diseases and a lot of money gets spent on researching and trying to overcome these diseases, even though they don’t affect every person. Age is not classified as a disease and very little money gets allocated to the science of aging. But is something that affects each and every one of us. Essentially we start ageing from the day we are born!!
I could go on and on, but that would be boring! If this is a subject that piques your interest, you might start by listening to David Sinclair’s podcast series which is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The series is titled Lifespan with Dr David Sinclair. He did the podcast series after he wrote the book, and it is easier to listen to as it is broken down into smaller chunks. Here is a link to the podcast on Apple:
The table below represents a rolling year view of the major asset class returns that we track. It offers a view of the asset classes we use to diversify your portfolio.
Don’t let the old man in
I recently listened to the audio book of David Sinclair’s “Lifespan”. An interesting subject and one that has interested me over the years for many reasons, including the fact that it is a really pertinent question in the process of financial planning. Traditionally, it is the starting point to assess how much money a person needs to provide for themselves in retirement – typically until they die.
In the “old days” a person would work from when they finished school, perhaps doing an apprenticeship or an undergraduate degree. They would work for the same company for most of their lives, and the company would provide a “Defined Benefit” pension. The amount of the pension would be calculated on how many years a person had been with the company, what their final salary was and typically what their expected life expectancy was. The employee would retire at somewhere around 55 years old, and anyone who made it to three score and ten was happy with that! The risk of longevity lay with the pension fund – the fund gained if a member died before and lost if a member lived longer than expected.
Things have changed for many reasons – people don’t stay with the same company, they want some control over their pension investments and they want to keep control over what is often their biggest savings pot. While interesting in itself, it isn’t what I want to talk about today – although you are welcome to drop a mail if you’d like me to go into more depth on that. What I am interested in for today’s note is how life expectancies keep rising. Even for countries with the lowest life expectancy, it is higher than the highest life expectancy a century ago. Here is an interesting interactive chart which shows how life expectancies rise as the GDP per capita of each country rises. (Press the play button below to see the animation).
Life expectancy is an average. Very few people will die at precisely the age indicated in the tables. Most will die much earlier or much later since the risk of death is not uniform over a lifetime. For example high infant mortality rates would affect the average. Interestingly, if a child lives to the age of ten, their life expectancy goes up quite rapidly.
So what drives the increase in life expectancy? Without going into great depth, it seems that as countries become more wealthy, better public health interventions – vaccinations, hygiene measures, better nutrition, housing and sanitation and scientific advancements all play a role.
Biologically, ageing results from the impact of the accumulation of a wide range of molecular and cellular damage over time. This leads to a gradual decline in physical and mental capacity, a growing risk of disease, and ultimately, death. These changes are usually consistent, and they are associated with a person’s age in years.
Dr Sinclair has a paradigm shifting thesis, which is that ageing is, in itself, a disease. And is a disease that could be cured! He argues that if we spent more resources on understanding ageing better we would save a fortune in healthcare costs associated with heart conditions, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. All of these age related diseases are not as result of aging, but rather, symptoms of ageing.
His lab at Harvard has been working on these ideas for the last twenty odd years, and show some very interesting research into how cells regenerate and fight off zombie cells that lead to cancer and other degenerative diseases. In practical terms, while we live longer, we will also live more vital lives in “old age” and be productive for significantly longer than ever before. Many of the people that he has studied are working in completely different fields and establishing new careers in their sixties, and remain productive into their eighties.
His work does not indicate that we will be immortal, or that we will never age. The theory is that if we allow our cells to repair and regenerate, we will naturally live longer healthier lives. The root cause of aging lies in an ancient genetic survival circuit. From single cell amoeba and throughout time, cells will stop reproducing to repair damage to the genome, allowing micro organisms to survive and evolve. As we bombard our survival circuit with genetic damage from bad diet, UV rays, smoking, pollution, etc, we overwhelm our genome resulting in grey hair, wrinkles, achy joints, dementia and ultimately death.
This is where it gets interesting – we can’t change our DNA but we have more control over our genes than we have previously thought. We can activate our vitality genes using small lifestyle changes such as intermittent fasting, avoiding too much animal protein, limiting sugar, avoiding x-rays, exercising at the right intensity and even cold therapy.
If we are able to live longer, with our vitality and mental capacity intact, we could be healthy and productive centenarians. The aged would not a be a burden on economies and state funding could be freed up from healthcare and be diverted into different research.
Globally we are facing an ageing population. As things stand, tax bases are shrinking. There are less people in the workforce and bar Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Automation, we will need to keep employing older people and won’t be able to commit to providing for them financially.
At some stage aging became a problem. A vast problem where more and more of the population were slower, sicker and unable to keep up. Age related diseases became more prominent and at first we were shocked by them, but then it became more normal, and almost expected. Cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s are more often than not considered age related diseases and a lot of money gets spent on researching and trying to overcome these diseases, even though they don’t affect every person. Age is not classified as a disease and very little money gets allocated to the science of aging. But is something that affects each and every one of us. Essentially we start ageing from the day we are born!!
I could go on and on, but that would be boring! If this is a subject that piques your interest, you might start by listening to David Sinclair’s podcast series which is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The series is titled Lifespan with Dr David Sinclair. He did the podcast series after he wrote the book, and it is easier to listen to as it is broken down into smaller chunks. Here is a link to the podcast on Apple:
Lifespan with Dr David Sinclair.
Asset Class Returns
The table below represents a rolling year view of the major asset class returns that we track. It offers a view of the asset classes we use to diversify your portfolio.