Episode 1: Embracing Longevity-Six Pillars to Live Long and Well

Imagine reaching the end of a wild, fulfilling ride of a life, brimming with energy and stories worth recounting—Hunter S. Thompson would nod approvingly (see his great quote here. That's exactly what I, Dr. Bobby Dubois, aim to help you achieve through the insights shared in our latest episode. We're not just marking time on the calendar; we're packing each year with life, vitality, and purpose. I'll introduce you to the six essential pillars for longevity and robust health (get the free ebook here)—each one a crucial building block for adding life to your years. From a full exercise program (Episode 2-including aerobic, strength, balance/flexibility, high intensity intervals), mastering sleep cycles with 12 practical approaches you can easily incorporate (Episode 3), a nutrition approach that is straightforward and evidence based (Episode 4),  exposure to heat/cold (sauna, cold plunge-Episode 5 coming soon), mind-body harmony (Episode 6-coming soon-meditation, yoga, breath work), to nurturing social ties (Episode 7-coming soon), I've got evidence-based strategies that promise to invigorate your daily routine and set you on a path toward a more vibrant existence.

Join me as we embark on this transformative journey together, because enhancing your healthspan is a collective adventure. You'll discover why a life rich in experiences and relationships is within your grasp and how the decisions you make today can echo through decades of health and happiness. The wisdom shared here isn't just idle chatter; it's a call to action, a guide for living fully at every age. So, tune in, be inspired, and let's rewrite the story of aging—one that's less about the numbers and more about the moments that take our breath away. Join me, and let's turn the page to a new chapter where each day is lived with intention, joy, and a sense of limitless possibilities.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hi, I'm Dr Bobby DuBois and welcome to Live Long and Well, a podcast where we will talk about what you can do to live as long as possible and with as much energy and vigor that you wish. Together, we will explore what practical and evidence-supported steps you can take. Come join me on this very important journey and I hope that you feel empowered along the way. I'm a physician, ironman. Welcome back to our journey to live long and well. Today we're going to define what does it mean to live long and well and introduce the six pillars that will help us get there. Now I'm hoping by the end of this episode, you will have an understanding of the journey ahead and feel excited and empowered about how much we can actually do to make a real difference in our lives today and in the future. And the good news is that scientific studies done in people show that what we do can improve our health and our lives. Well, what does it mean to live long and well? There's two components, of course. Live long that's the first component. Live well that's the second component. So let's first address live long.

Speaker 1: 1:44

The average lifespan today in the United States is 76. For women it's a few years longer at 79. For men it's a few years shorter, at 73. Now what if we could live longer? And in fact some people do. 16% of men live to be 90 or older and 34% of women live to be 90 or older, and that came from a study of about 7,000 people. So there are people who live to 90, even though the average is 76.

Speaker 1: 2:19

Now there's a growing gap between the number of years of life and the number of years of healthy life, which means we're functional and we don't have a lot of serious chronic diseases. And that gap is a problem because that means the later years of our life are not quite so good or as functional as we might want them to be. So if we go from an average of 76 years lifespan to 90, we get an extra 14 years. Now that sounds great, but at what quality of life? Now here's the not so fun fact Our physical and mental functioning deteriorates, perhaps beginning as early as age 30 or so. Now we all see some older individuals who appear frail and have a difficult time getting around, and that limits a lot what they can do and how they can do it. So living an extra 14 years to age 90 might not be ideal if we are quite challenged with diseases and being physically incapable of doing what we wish to do. So can we change the game and have more years at higher functioning? So this is the live well part of things. Ideally, we would push out the number of years of life ahead of us and make those extra years extra functional, and that is the goal of the six pillars that we're about to embark upon.

Speaker 1: 4:01

Now there's an author, hunter S Thompson, on. Now there's an author, hunter S Thompson, who wrote this wonderful quote that I think sums it up perfectly of what type of a life I think we would live to live, both ourselves and everyone around us. And here's the quote Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming Wow, what a ride. So that's what live long and well could be, and that's what we will explore together. Now, as always, I will attempt to base our discussion on scientific evidence. Not evidence from a laboratory or evidence from mice or yeast in a petri dish, but evidence in people that shows whatever we talk about actually works. Now, when I stray from that I will try my best to point that out so we know the difference between a theory, an opinion and where we really have evidence. I will also attempt to make everything actionable and practical steps that you can take Now to live long and well.

Speaker 1: 5:29

We are going to talk about six pillars, but that doesn't mean we can ignore the obvious stuff to help us stay healthy so our blood pressure, our cholesterol levels, getting our screening tests like mammographies and things, colonoscopies and obviously if we have an underlying illness, we need to treat that and we don't want to smoke. So those are obvious, but we'll not spend too much time on those. What we will spend time on are the six pillars, and let me quickly run through what they are and then we're going to go through them in a little more detail. The first is exercise, the second is sleep, the third is nutrition, the fourth is mind-body harmony, the fifth is exposure to heat and cold and the sixth is social relationships. So let me give you a little more detail about each one of these and then in the next six episodes we will walk through each of them in detail and provide you with very practical steps that you can do, which should help us live long and well, based upon evidence that shows it works. All right.

Speaker 1: 6:44

So the first pillar is probably the most powerful, and that's exercise. And there's evidence, ample evidence, that exercise helps us reduce our risk of heart attacks, stroke, cognitive decline, cancer and overall mortality. Now, it's not going to make us immortal, and it's not perfect if we have a bad disease already, but it adds to the likelihood that we are going to live long and well. Now, to give you a preview of coming attractions, there's more to a good, complete and life-altering exercise program than just two to four hours of moderately vigorous activity like brisk, walking or pickleball. That is a start, but it isn't the whole story, and so we really need to delve in the three other elements besides aerobic activities, and those include strength, strength training, balance and flexibility and doing high intensity intervals. Each one of these helps us to live long and well, and so in the upcoming episode on this, we will explore this in detail, the science that supports it in the clinical studies, and to give you practical tips.

Speaker 1: 8:13

So the next pillar of the six is sleep. Now I like to refer to the sleep pillar as an unsung hero, meaning we all like to sleep, we all feel better when we sleep. But what's not known as well as it could or should be is that sleep is not just a feel-good phenomenon. It helps our brain to do better and it leads to potential reductions in the risk of cognitive decline. And the benchmark here is seven hours or more of sleep Not seven hours in bed, but seven hours of sleep. Now the really good news is, not only is it important, but we can do things about it, and I have found that these six things to do and six things not to do to sleep long and well really work and there's evidence to support them. So in that upcoming episode we'll walk through each of those 12 very practical tips, and you may want to skip ahead and listen to that podcast whenever you have a free moment.

Speaker 1: 9:28

Now the third area, third pillar, is nutrition. Now there's a lot of discussion and many believe that they have the right nutrition program. Whether it's people who are promoting the paleo diet, the plant-based diet, any of a number of diets, they think they have it solved and they have almost a religious zeal that their way is the right way. Now I see this differently. I don't believe any diet is strongly better than any other diet and, as the saying goes, all diets work until they don't. But there are a few nutritional elements that I believe are important to help us live long and well. The first is being the appropriate weight. So eating the right amount that supports our bodies and not too much, is critically important, because overweight and obesity, which are becoming epidemic in America, really have very negative consequences to our cardiovascular system, to our whole metabolic pathways, and lead to a lot of chronic comorbidities and impairments that we really want to avoid. So that's the first aspect of nutrition. The second is that protein intake is really.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Protein intake is really really important. We lose about one to two percent of our muscle mass each year, and this begins probably around the age of 30. So if you do the math over a decade or two or three or four, you realize that we are destined to lose a lot of muscle mass. And as we go back to what I mentioned earlier about older people sometimes looking frail, that's to a great extent because they've lost a lot of muscle, which makes them look and feel imbalanced and more likely to fall and less likely to be able to do what they wish to do. So as we maintain our muscle and attempt very carefully to do our strength training. Protein is very important to help in that regard, and we'll talk about that as well Now.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Supplements are another piece of the nutrition puzzle. Now, these are not as well studied as I would like them to be, but we'll talk about some of the major supplements and I'll walk you through what evidence we know and what evidence we don't know. But, frankly, as a routine thing to take on a daily basis, just about the only thing that's been shown to work is a single, simple, inexpensive, mult, inexpensive multivitamin. But we'll talk about omega-3s and we'll talk about creatine and we'll talk about magnesium and B12 and vitamin D. So that's the third pillar. So now we're on to the fourth pillar, which is mind-body harmony. Now we're on to the fourth pillar, which is mind-body harmony. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it could be yoga, it could be meditation, it could be various types of breath work.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Evidence has shown multiple times that these activities help us to live well. It helps with anxiety, helps us with sleep both longer sleep and higher quality sleep and less likelihood or severity of depression. We really don't know if the mind-body activities lengthen our life. We know pretty convincingly that it improves quality of life so we can live well, but it's not clear at this point whether it helps us to live long. Now, as the saying goes, the absence of evidence is not the same as the evidence of absence. What does that mean is not the same as the evidence of absence. What does that mean? Now? It's not like there's been a million studies showing that mind-body harmony doesn't extend life. Now, that would be definitive if we had that. What we have is that we haven't done the studies, people haven't done the long-term studies in a very rigorous way. So it may, these activities may lengthen our lives, but at this point we don't know.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Okay, on to the fifth pillar, and that is exposure to heat and cold, otherwise known as sauna, hot shower, cold plunge, cold shower Exposing our body. Yes, it is uncomfortable, but the important thing is there is evidence, at least for saunas, that people who do it regularly have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and a lower risk of cognitive decline, and this is a really, really good thing. Now we don't know as much about cold plunge, although cold plunge jumping in cold water or rolling around the ice has probably been around for thousands of years. Studies of exposure to cold really are pretty new. We do know that it increases dopamine levels and makes us feel happier. We also don't know whether it has any long-term effects and that we'll need to know over time.

Speaker 1: 15:09

Now the final of the six pillars and, frankly, one that I wasn't as in tune to until recently and with the recent studies that have come out. There's a Harvard study of aging that looked at people over many, many, many decades, and one part of the study was to ask the question well, some people live into their 70s and beyond. Some people are really functional in their 70s and beyond. I wonder why that is, and I wonder if there are any characteristics of those people in their 50s that might predict who's going to do well into their 70s and beyond. And what turned out to be the most important factor with social relations meaning having people in your life that you can be vulnerable, with, that you can share hardship with and you can share joy with. This doesn't seem like the obvious sort of healthcare pillar that many people talk about, but it turns out to have more of a benefit to people than many other things like smoking, even, or having your cholesterol under control. So we're going to spend a whole episode on the evidence that supports this and then some practical tips about what we might want to do.

Speaker 1: 16:37

These six pillars are not rocket science, but they can help us all to live long and well, or at least give us a greater likelihood of living long and well.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Now we could be hit by a car or have an illness just pop up that we have to suffer and deal with, but in the absence of one of these things, these pillars can help.

Speaker 1: 17:04

So I am hoping at this point I've motivated you a little bit, that there are some opportunities and that you'll want to listen more. But you have agency. There are things you can do to improve your longevity and what that future life will be like, and there are very practical approaches, things that are not hard to do, don't necessarily take a lot of time, and I hope that we all can have that experience described by Hunter S Thompson when he then ends his quote with Wow, what a ride. That's what I want for myself, for my family, for my loved ones and friends, and it's what I hope for you. Let's begin this journey together. For you, let's begin this journey together. Thanks so much for listening to Live Long and Well with Dr Bobby. If you want to continue this journey or want to receive my newsletter on practical and scientific ways to improve your health and longevity, please visit me at drbobbilivelongandwellcom. That's drbobbilivelongandwellcom.