If you are a teenager when you read this, you might not be very excited by such a title. And yet the younger you are the most interested you should be in longevity. That's because you have more chances to improve it than older people. To me the most important aspect of longevity is not the quantity but the quality of the years we can all add to our lives, specially towards the end.
Yes, there are daily interesting discoveries in the human genome and we slowly acquire a better understanding of the aging process. But genetics is just a theory and as any theory it is a possible explanation that overtimes will be modified, improved upon or completely abandoned for a new theory that better explains how life works.
Our own lives however are no theory. They are the real thing. No rehearsal here. Plain old reality! So it seems a good idea to choose before birth parents who give you the best possible genes. And yet no one really knows how to do that! So the best thing you can do to increase your longevity is to take care of your lifestyle as early as possible.
It seems more and more that the price we pay in later years with chronic diseases and other loss of vitality is just the cumulative effect of all the errors we have done during our earlier years. Most of these errors are due to ignorance. Who knew fifty years ago the tragic health impact of smoking? Who knew a few centuries ago the importance of hygiene in the transmission of diseases like dysentery or pneumonia? Who knew at the beginning of the last century the disastrous effect of refined sugar on health and weight? And still today refined sugar is to be found under disguised names in about any food and drink product you buy in a box or a can.
The good news is that, if you read this, you have access to the Internet and therefore to most of the present human knowledge. So whatever your age you can keep learning about anything you want. Your own life in particular! And the consequences of your choices in terms of nutrition, exercise, emotion control and character building amongst other things.
To start with, why not have a look at the Methuselah Foundation's site? You will find in it lots of fascinating information on the state of the research on life extension.
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