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The Pandemic, Immunity and the Long Game to Longevity Living to a healthy old age is within reach but requires respect for scientific findings and adherence to good habits, according to a socially-distanced panel of Luckbox contributors BY E D M C K I N L EY
What can people do in the short term to boost their immune systems to resist COVID-19? Aubrey de Grey: People would
like to have some kind of quick fix or at least a quick partial fix. Unfortunately, what they can do right now with lifestyle, nutrition, supplements and so on is only going to have a very slight impact. Jenna Macciochi: Yes, there’s no scientific way to truly boost your immune system except in the long term. I get what people mean—it’s a case of semantics over science. People want to feel like
they’re invincible and they have an agency over their health, but your immune system is not an on-andoff switch. It’s more like a series of rheostats. Dan Buettner: Even if we can’t improve immunity right away, self-isolating can provide a number of opportunities. Most of us are at home right now. According to Gallup, about 30% of us don’t like our jobs or aren’t using our strengths at our jobs. So, we know from both the health and the happiness points of view that getting the right job—since we
To maintain the immune system and achieve good health, rely on proper diet and plenty of natural movement. —Dr. Jenna Macciochi
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spend most of our waking hours working—is constantly important. Taking this opportunity to reassess your job is not a bad idea. Elaine Gavalas: Meditate while you self-isolate. Use the time to learn meditation and know all the benefits it’ll bring you. One of them, over time, is immunity. So you’re achieving a lot just by that simple thing, and that would be my prescription. Michael Greger: After the pandemic, we can get back to longer-term improvements in health. The good news is we have tremendous power over our health destiny and longevity. The vast majority of premature deaths and most disability is preventable with a plant-based diet and other healthy lifestyle behaviors. Turning to a more general question, life expectancy at birth has increased in the United States from 49 at the beginning of the 20th century to 78 today. What caused the increase? Buettner: First and foremost, it
was getting infectious disease under control and then the emergence of antibiotics and vaccines. But also public health has gotten a lot better—water sanitation and sewage. Those are the big ones. Macciochi: I’d agree that the three big things are improving sanitation, vaccination and antibiotics. They’ve been the biggest step-function changes in our health in the last 100 years. That has eliminated the infections that would kill people in childhood and take people’s lives early. Greger: A lot of that increase is due to decreases in infant mortality. But life expectancy at age five is more interesting from a chronic disease standpoint because you made it past those difficult first years. Life expectancy from age five hasn’t increased nearly so much as from birth.
luckbox | may 2020
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