How long did you plan on living when you put together your retirement plan? We put in age 90. That seemed like a good input at the time, even though most people don’t make it that far. Research shows that about 25% of American men and 33% of women aged 65 live to 90 years old, but a majority fall short.
Of course, as they say, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Regular reader & commenter Klaus W. recently sent me an article that suggests that the world’s fitness, nutrition, and medical knowledge has gotten us to the point where living longer – much, much longer – is about to become commonplace.
He shared a link to this interesting PRESENTATION that lays out all of the advances coming our way.
These include new longevity drugs like ‘Metaforin’ & ‘Thymosin Alpha 1’ that can slow aging, fight cancer, and improve immunity. How insights into 400 year-old sharks has prompted work on DNA ‘Repair Genes’ and a field called ‘Cellular Reprogramming’. Apparently Silicon Valley billionaires like Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos are pouring huge amounts of money into this research, with an audacious goal to “conquer death”.
I can’t claim to understand it all, but in addition to these technological breakthroughs, the presentation also emphasizes the simple steps we can all take now, such as daily exercise / walking, eating a Mediterranean diet, and taking 2,000 IU/day of highly-beneficial Vitamin D.
I’m not sure how I might restructure our retirement plans / portfolio if living to 100 suddenly became commonplace. I’m guessing the simplest thing to do would be to increase our exposure to equities (vs bonds) in order to take advantage of the longer investment window. Still, that comes with risk in the short-term. Since we have been running pretty far ahead of our plans in our first 10 years of retirement, I think we’ll just stand pat and see what life brings us.
How optimistic are you about new ‘super-longevity’ breakthroughs? Will we benefit from them in our lifetimes?
Image: Pixabay
MrFireStation 
According to the article, big longevity changes and even reversal could be coming along in the 2030 timeframe. Everyone’s job between now and then is to keep yourself healthy so you will be around to enjoy the benefits. The American Medical Association operates as a guild, which is focused on showing new doctors the right way to do things. In other words the AMA hinders progress in their field exactly as guilds hindered progress during the Dark Ages.
What is different this time is that technology billionaires move much faster, don’t except the status quo and have the money to fund the research. No more medical advances at AMA speed. I am betting with the billionaires on this one.
I designed my retirement to never outlive my funds and so far it is working.
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The old saying is that “change in an industry comes from outside the industry”. I’ve seen that happen many, many times. I hope that this is analogous to that. I hope that medical breakthroughs are helped by the outside help of the tech billionaires. It would be wonderful to see … and just in time for me as I turn 64 years old in 2030 – my last year of private insurance before Medicare. Yes, our retirement portfolio should outlast us – even if we get some tech-driven bonus years!
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Like Klaus, I will never outlive my funds and by design, unless they do something insane, neither will our children or grandchildren.
I also agree that the benefits from young doctors and scientists with help from the billionaire class will speed up the approval and acceptance of new drugs and therapies.
I recognize that RFK Jr. is a lightning rod and I don’t approve of his litigation methods, but a change of insight into how drugs are approved and how the FDA operates is long overdue.
Patrick Soon-Shiong and others who have directed new drug developments some of which were shunned by the Fauci never change crowd.
I think back to the scene in the Star Trek movie when they return to San Francisco in our era to find a whale. Bones was appalled at the barbaric treatment of surgery with knives and the use of chemotherapy and radiation.
My hope is that my kidneys hold out for another five years and that I can find a replacement as advancements in antirejection drugs also is increasing quickly. My cousin had a kidney transplant in 2021 at age 65 and despite a nasty infection that hit his brain and heart, he survived and is thriving. Our grandfather had no idea of kidney disease when he died in 1964, and he survived retrieving and identifying bodies for burial in northern France in 1918, one of which was his younger brother who lied about his age to fight for his king.
We are fortunate to live in the age we do. These are the good current days. Nostalgia is only for good memories
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I saw Patrick Soon-Shiong in a long several hour interview with Tucker Carlson. Very interesting approach with what he calls Bioshields to amp up and train the immune system to attack cancers and Covid-19. He was not allowed into the FDA’s Covid-19 trial and apparently did his own with South African AIDs patients with good results.
I would like to suggest homemade kefir for helping your kidney function. Homemade kefir is much stronger and has much more probiotic diversity than storebought. Very inexpensive and easy to make. Simply take out a couple tablespoons of grains from the previous day’s batch to start the next one and add a couple cups of milk and leave it on your kitchen counter. The probiotics consume toxins in your GI tract before they ever have a chance to reach your kidneys, reducing the load on your kidneys. Some of Donna’s customers have improved their numbers.
https://www.culturedfoodlife.com/store/product/donnas-kefir-grains/
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Interesting!
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Yes! – We live in a “golden age” in so many ways. It’s a shame that so few people realize how much healthier, wealthier, safer, and more productive the world is today compared with the “good old days”. I also agree that change in Washington DC leadership should benefit approval of new drugs & treatments. Or, at least I hope so. Sometimes I worry that we replace one set of clowns with another.
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I used to read Forbes before they were sold. They used to feature articles about the lag time between medical discovery and the standard of care changing. One I remember well was Dr. Barry Marshall’s research that discovered H pylori was the cause of ulcers around 1985. Prior to his research ulcers were blamed on excess stomach acid, alcohol consumption and spicy food. His treatment needed only a couple week course of antibiotics to cure ulcers instead of managing the condition. The tone of the Forbes article was a shaming article, because it took almost 20 years for the standard of care to become antibiotics.
Another article that really made an impression was a cover story on John Kapoor who started Therapeutics that manufactured and sold a prescription Fentanyl Nasal Spray. His company incentivized doctors to prescribe the maximum dose. One quote line I remember well was that Kapoor liked his attractive female sales with PHD’s, as in Poor Hungry and Dumb. This cover story was published while Obama was in office. Three years later, the Trump Administration prosecuted him and sent him to prison.
There is a lot of bad medicine that gets delivered under “The Standard of Care”. It is imperative to be an informed consumer of medical services and products.
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Yep. Caveat Emptor in all things, including medical care.
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