Good morning. It’s Tuesday, August 20th.

In today’s email:

• Learn: The Hayflick Limit

• Try: 60 Min Challenge

• Laugh: Back to School

• In the News: We’re Done with the Pap Smear

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Stat of the Day

The age of Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise, the oldest known land animal in the world. It’s thought these tortoises and others can live to 200-300+ years. (source)

Learn

The Hayflick Limit

The average lifespan in 1770 in both the U.S. and Europe was around 35 years old. Today it’s more than double - most of us live well past the age of 70.

But that’s the average - not the maximum limit.

In the U.K. during the 1800’s a five-year old boy - who escaped the high infant mortality risk - could be expected to live until 75.

Going even further back - 14% of skeletons found in Australia from 1,500 years ago were of those that lived to at least 65, some past 75.

So while we’ve done a lot to eliminate death among infants (although not enough), there still seems to be a maximum limit to how long humans can live.

One theory as to why comes from Leonard Hayflick, a scientist at UC San Francisco who recently passed away. About 50 years ago he found that our cells can only divide 40-60 times.

After that the telomere - which is like the plastic tip of shoelace at the end of our DNA structures - gets so short that it can no longer be replicated.

He suggested that the maximum limit for human life is 125 years and that most humans - even in the right conditions - will live to about 92. He must have done something right - he was 96 when he died.

Cell Death

So what happens when cells can no longer divide? Most of the time they get consumed by our immune cells and disposed of from the body.

But sometimes they resist our immune function and continue to exist. These senescent (or “zombie”) cells release chemicals that cause inflammation and damage to the rest of the body.

These cells accumulate over time and, as our immune system becomes a little less efficient, can be a problem when we get older.

So if we can’t do anything about how many times a cell can divide - why are we even talking about changing our longevity?

Well because there’s a key to what Hayflick said “in the right conditions” one can live to 92 (or beyond). And it’s not just living past 90 - it’s living without chronic disease.

There’s a theory that removing these zombie cells can have a massive effect on our age. While the search for senolytics (drugs to target senescent cells) hasn’t proven anything yet, there are other therapies being developed.

One of the biggest ways science is trying to help us get rid of senescent cells is through CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) technology. Basically it modifies one of our most potent immune cells (Killer T cells) to recognize and attack zombie cells - it’s also being investigated for cancer treatment too.

But messing with our immune system is dangerous. Side effects thus far of such treatments include MORE inflammation, weight loss, and hyperthermia.

The good news?

We know how to boost our immune system naturally to take out these zombies. You might have heard us say this before - exercise, sleep, metabolic health, avoiding chemicals and toxins (including smoking), taking care of your gut, and not letting stress take over your life.

Because while it does seem that there might be a natural limit to longevity (at least today) - we can control what we do to approach that maximum limit AND keep us healthy until the end.

Try

60 Min Challenge

Exercise is proven as the best tool we’ve got to prevent and get rid of these senescent cells.

Find 1 hour - just 1 hour - EVERYDAY for the next week to move.

It can be a bootcamp, a run, bike ride, hitting the weights at the gym, even a long walk, whatever - just set aside an hour a day to pump up your body to fight off the zombies.

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Laugh

Back to School

Summer’s way too short for this…

thedumbdads

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H&L in the News

Cheese Lovers, Beware!: Controversy swirls around dairy: Should you cut back? Experts debate how much cheese, milk, and yogurt is truly healthy. Learn why less may be more and how it affects your long-term wellbeing.  (WSJ)

Revolutionizing Cervical Cancer Screening: Say goodbye to the dreaded Pap smear. Starting this fall, a simple swab can screen for cervical cancer, no speculum required. This new method promises to improve comfort and address disparities in women's health. (NYTimes)

Aging, Inevitable?: A Nobel Prize-winning biologist notes that evolutionary biology prioritizes gene transmission over longevity, explaining why larger animals generally live longer. Efforts are focusing on manipulating cellular processes to combat aging. (WIRED)

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We’re 40-something dads that felt our bodies and minds start to slow down and we’re not ready for that. We found too much information on every subject. So we started Thrive25 to transform what we’ve learned into something useful for the rest of us to spend just 5 min a day to optimize our health & longevity.

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To health!