Lifespan vs Healthspan
Longevity & health promoting ideas
Thoughts and musings
from Craig McLean
owner of Putney Chiro
co-founder of Chiro.London
Chris Hemsworth (AKA Thor)
“Take this simple series of tests to predict how strong you will age…”
Greek god Tithonus
“Made the mistake of asking to live forever without asking for eternal youth”
Craig Mclean’s has been thinking loads about Longevity as 2025 starts. Not just because he is 53 years old but because as a chiropractor he feels like he has an important role in providing information that will help you not just increase your lifespan but your health-span.
Enter the Lifespan vs Health-span conversation.
This ‘health-span’ article outlines how the word is much more commonly used over the last few years as researchers look to define health span and find a way to measure what a healthier existence means.
Generally speaking as we age our physical, brain, emotional health and disease free state comprise a measure of how well we are ageing. This article hopefully gives you some useful information on the topic and real time things to do to help us stay healthy as we age.
This is a collection of ideas and actions you can take to not just prolong your life but to be as healthy as possible during this time. It should have something for everyone, be it as a young person who feels indestructible and probably isn’t thinking much about longevity, to the middle aged all the way to the older generation.
Why not start with some simple tests to predict how you will age. Chris Hemsworth’s (Thor) health coaching business has a great series of tests to predict how you will age, why not take those tests now and see how you did?
I’ve done these tests with my family and its a great laugh to see how we all get on. Especially the hang test.
While researching the topic I found myself listening to a pod by Dr Peter Attia on the subject and here are a few quotes that rang true from the podcast transcript.
“(It reminds me of the) Greek god Tithonus and how he wished for immortality.
He was of course granted his wish, but because he had forgot to ask for eternal youth, he became this indefinitely suffering human being who continued to age in perpetuity while his body declined….. anybody who thinks about it for long enough would realise that any desire to live longer has to be accompanied by a desire to preserve health-span. I believe that anybody who thinks they want to live to be 200, implicit within that, I hope, is the desire to function as someone who is much younger.”
“You could make a case that most of the benefits in lifespan, roughly I would say three-quarters of the benefits you can get towards a longer life, come solely from pursuing better health. I want to say that again because I think it is, for me at least, it's such a profound statement. If you never thought once about trying to live a longer life and focused relentlessly on how can I improve my strength, my endurance, my stamina, and again, all the nuance around these things, my balance, my coordination, my processing speed, my working memory, my emotional health, my happiness, my relationships, if you only focused on those things and never once thought about heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease specifically, I still believe you would capture three quarters of the way towards optimising your lifespan.”
5 components to ‘increase your health-span’ toolkit are
nutrition
exercise
sleep
pharma
emotional health
Bonus no 6. pollution, radical temp exposure, accident avoidance
From The Peter Attia Drive podcast: Longevity 101: a foundational guide to Peter's frameworks for longevity, and understanding CVD, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and more, 29 Jul 2024
As a chiropractor there are numerous links to how we can help you stay functioning at your best from keeping your brain and body well connected without interference (very useful for balance, co-ordination, strength and flexibility helping with functional age related tests and fall avoidance in later life) to helping vagal nerve function balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems encouraging optimal health, sleep and stress management.
Let’s crack on with an outline of what you can do to improve your health-span using the following categories, I’ve listed some of my personal favourite ‘hacks’ or links to information to help you in all the following areas below…
physical health/exercise,
posture,
nutritional health,
sleep,
health technology,
aggressive screening,
emotional health,
temperature exposure
accident avoidance.
Disclaimer in that I am writing on a topic that goes well beyond my scope of practice and the advice will be weighted towards the physical and slightly less information about the nutritional or emotional health, however I’m sure you’ll find the information super useful.
Thanks Craig Mclean
Chiropractor
"Maybe people seeing this or hearing about my story - just by them asking their GP - will create enough of a surge of interest that people that make the decisions will go 'you know what, we need to address this'. And in the long term this will save potentially millions of lives." Sir Chris Hoy
Physical
The most important thing listed in this article is exercise. It stands well above all in terms of benefit you will get at improving your health span. Its a simple concept, find something you like and repeat often. Ideally would be made up of cardio and strength components. Have a read of the BHF article on what they recommend or just get out of breath for at least 30 mins each day and do some weight bearing resistance or weight training.
You’re welcome to join me on my 365 day challenge of doing these kettlebell (or body weight if you don’t have access to weights) exercises.
1 set of x20 reps
Use a kettlebell weight that suits you. 4kg-20kg
Daily kettlebell
Swings 20
Lunge and twist 20
Side bend 20 (10 each side)
GTOH (ground to over head) 20 (10 each side)
Core (10 sits ups and 10 side to side twist)
Squats 20
Push ups quick fire 20
Plus if you have access to a bar
chin ups 4 set of as many reps as you can manage - goal to try and get to 10 in a row
There’s a wealth of information out there to help you exercise and get/keep the motivation to move each day. Have a look at the crew from Pliability for their movement screen which details where you may have some hidden problems.
Posture
There is no doubt that poor posture is something that makes you look older beyond your years. We are in an age where the habits we have (mainly screen time) promote poor posture more than any other time in previous history. Have a play with the below ideas to help improve your posture
set limits on your screen time
think of creative ways to decrease the negative effects of screen time on your posture (sit/stand desk, lie on your stomach with phone in hands with bent elbows and neck in extension to reverse some of the negative effects of phone screen time)
exercise in extension (dead lifts, kettle bell swings, superman on a swiss ball)
get your spine regularly adjusted to avoid the stiffness that inherently builds up with poor posture practice
Have a listen to a 3 hour podcast debrief of posture by Doc Huberman and his Huberman Lab podcast.
Nutritional health
“Eat less”
The simple formula of making sure energy in is less than or equal to energy out will help resolve much of the problems associated with the health of society today. Obesity and diabetes related illness and premature death are major health problems affecting our society
Blue Zones. I couldn’t very well write a piece on longevity without mentioning the Blue Zones of the world where certain areas have a larger proportion of people who love to 100. Have a read of some of the habits from these zones. I love the ‘we eat till be feel 80% full and stop, not wait till we feel 100% full.’
Inflammaging is great term I discovered outlining how promoting a state of inflammation prematurely ages us and decreases out health span. What is inflammaging, read this Nature magazine article?
Listen into my podcast about inflammation by myself and Simon Billings a chiropractic nutrition expert.
Sleep promotion
Sleep or the lack of it over the course of our life has a massive impact on our health span. I get it that sometimes you just don’t have a choice. Young parents among us have no control over how much uninterrupted sleep you get but the rest of us have no excuse.
How can I improve my Sleep Performance? I consulted with whoop the health tech device to give some ways to improve our sleep.
Here are concise tips to enhance your sleep:
Prioritize sleep time to ensure adequacy.
Darken your room with blackout curtains for optimal sleep quality.
Limit screen time 30 minutes before sleep to promote faster sleep onset.
Reduce caffeine intake, especially after lunch, and opt for warm milk or herbal tea.
Use your bed exclusively for sleep to train your body for quicker sleep initiation.
Avoid strenuous workouts before bedtime.
Refrain from alcohol at least 3 hours before sleeping to prevent disruptions in REM sleep.
Health tech devices
Whoop and the Aura ring are two great devices, but the apple watch and garmin type devices are also improving quickly. These devices along with the numerous simpler versions of pedometers about act as great motivators for exercise but also a great analysis tool for tracking optimal sleep and health promoting behaviours. The Aura ring and whoop track your HRV which is a direct feedback of the health of your nervous system.
Have a listen to Dr Conor and I discuss in depth the whoop that I’ve been mildly addicted to for around 5 years. I have found that chiropractic along with avoiding alcohol and sauna to be three things that improve my recovery/nervous system health.
Aggressive screening
Some of you may be aware of Sir Chris Hoy, who’s first symptom of stage 4 cancer (Prostate primary that spread to his bones) was shoulder pain. This prompted me to get to my GP and stop putting off the screening blood tests the NHS offers to all to check your prostate but also bone, lipid, renal, liver profiles plus a full blood screen. Simple and thankfully all normal but I dodn;t even need a GP appointment and was referred immediately.
Full body MRI screening is another avenue worth exploring.
Emotional health
I’ve already referenced the Blue Zones above in nutrition however half the benefits of life in the blue zones reference emotional health and community. Read more in this article.
Movement is naturally woven into each day
Have a sense of purpose
Prioritize stress relief
Eat mindfully
Eat a primarily plant-rich diet
Consume alcohol in moderation
Religious or spiritual belonging
Put loved ones first
Choose social circles that support healthy behaviors
Temperature exposure
There has been a huge increase in the popularity of temperature exposure both hot and cold in recent years. There is more information detailing the health benefits of such activities. I love the Finnish study outlining how your were less likely to die of cardiovascular disease if you sauna’d x3 week for 19 mins. This study followed nearly 3000 males over many years.
Finnish study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38410962/
Really nice blog piece about benefits of ice and heat from the Centr guys, Chris Hemsworth’s company.
Cold water immersion, the most in-depth review I’ve seen.
Accident avoidance
Accident or unintentional injuries leading to death in some countries is the 3rd leading cause of death and a high proportion of this especially in the older population is link to falls.
Towards the end of this podcast chat I had with Jake Cooke a chiropractor with a special interest in neurology, he outlines how a regular visit to a chiropractor will in theory make you live longer, just simply by helping you avoid falls later in life. Have a listen to the end of the chat as we finish discussing this idea.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm