Healthspan vs. Lifespan

Having a long lifespan doesn’t matter if we don’t also have a long healthspan.

This is my main takeaway after reading the book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia and Bill Gifford.

In case the phrase “healthspan” is new to you, it basically means how active we can be while aging. We don’t just want to live a long time. We want to live a long time while feeling well and being active.

I read several books last year that dealt with health in various ways, and most of them encompassed all things nutrition. But Outlive takes a more comprehensive approach, although at times I found it heavy on the science. The authors attempt to touch on every aspect that affects our health while we age.

On a recent family vacation, I was interested to find that my son-in-law, an extremely fit 27-year-old, was also reading the book. What could he and I possibly have in common, I thought, other than love for my daughter and their children?

But my son-in-law considers diet and fitness one of his main interests outside of work, so I was pleased to make this connection with him. Together we read the book, and he focused on the exercise portion, while I was more interested in the chapters discussing sleep and emotional health.

All that science

The first half of the book extensively covers much of the intricate science that affects our health. Attia and Gifford go in-depth on hormones and chemical reactions in the body. I have to admit that I got rather confused during the discussions of “apoproteins” and “phospholipids,” “low-density” and “high-density lipoproteins,” and the like.

I do appreciate science, maybe even a little more than the average person does. But as my eyes glazed over while reading, I recognized that if living for a long time in a healthy, active way required me to memorize the science in this book, well, I was going to have to leave longevity to chance.

This is not to discourage you from reading this portion of the book. In fact, I did develop a baseline knowledge at the word recognition level of the main concepts. But I raced through the scientific first half of the book to get to the second part which contains practical advice for improving our long-term health.

The recommendations

Again, at first I found the advice section somewhat disappointing, such as the discussion of insulin monitoring. Dr. Attia recommends that people use a continuous glucose monitor, a device usually reserved for diabetics. Most doctors don’t recommend this, partly because of cost, and partly because our bodies are supposed to have glucose spikes and drops after consuming different sorts of food.

And quite frankly, I have lived long enough to know that my glucose level is going to spike when I pig out on cookie dough or ice cream. I also know that I feel better when I stay away from white bread and choose oatmeal mixed with flaxseed and nut butter instead. I don’t need to hyper focus on the chemical reactions in my body to recognize those facts.

Exercise

But the chapters dealing with exercise did intrigue me.

I’ve been an active person my whole life, even when I was 60 pounds overweight.

At age 48 I had an unexpected hysterectomy followed by a quick descent into menopause. This all occurred while raising three teenagers and building my career.

It was a tough time, and I ate poorly, slept poorly, and gained weight.

In the book, Attia and Gifford get specific about exercise. For instance, they like walking as exercise, but suggest that most of us need to speed up while we are walking. Also, we shouldn’t just lift weights, but we also should focus on certain muscle groups, and most of all, on balance and grip strength.

I have made a few changes to my exercise routine after reading the book. The nutrition section, though, wasn’t new knowledge for me because I had already been deep diving into food with all of its ramifications as part of maintaining my weight loss.

Sleep

The sleep section, too, seemed familiar. Get rid of all the lights in your bedroom. Keep the electronics out. Keep the bedroom cold.

And sleep is important. Really important. Bad sleep can lead to all sorts of bad outcomes, including dementia.

These takeaways are important, but for those of us who struggle with sleeping while going through times of stress, do we really need to hear them again?

But most importantly, mental health

For me, the redeeming part of the whole book came during the last few chapters, when Dr. Attia did a deep dive into emotional health and resolving trauma. These were, by far, my favorite chapters, and I wish he would have included more of this information earlier in the book.

In these chapters he gets personal about his own mental health struggles despite having a successful career and a solid family life. He espouses the benefits and necessity of therapy, and for the first time, I clearly saw how therapy might benefit everyone.

Most of all, Attia talks about what is the point of longevity if you don’t love your life? I think this point resonated the most with me. If I’m going to work on improving my grip strength and making myself go to bed at 9:30 every night, I need a really, really good reasons why.

Loving my life, having meaningful relationships with others, and giving back to the world in a way that fits my gifts, these are definitely reasons to motivate me to practice healthy habits that I might not otherwise consider fun.

Overall, I did pick up several good tips from the book, and I increased my knowledge about health and what we can control.

But most of all, I enjoyed the discussion of the meaning of life.

If you are interested in longevity and just overall feeling better, I highly recommend this book. But be prepared for segments of it to read like a college textbook.