By Dr. Joseph Mercola | mercola.com
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- Supercentenarians are the rare individuals who have made it to the age of 110 and beyond. At any given time, there are only 50 to 80 supercentenarians in the entire world. In the U.S., an estimated 120,000 people make it to 100, but only 20 of them make it to 110
- What sets them apart is that, up until the ages of 105 to 108, they’ve maintained the health of someone in their 70s and 80s. They have no age-related diseases, and typically die from sudden onset immune failure
- In many respects, supercentenarians age normally, while the rest of us, age at an accelerated rate. The basis of the book, “The Switch: Ignite Your Metabolism With Intermittent Fasting, Protein Cycling, and Keto,” is essentially how to normalize your aging rate, thus allowing you to optimize your life span
- Cyclically activating and deactivating the mTOR pathway to intermittently trigger autophagy is a key element that will increase your longevity. Time-restricted eating and other fasting regimens accomplish this. Fasted exercise can further boost results
- NAD+ is one of the most important longevity molecules that we know of. NAD+ is a coenzyme needed by longevity-related enzymes called sirtuins. It’s also required for DNA repair, but levels plummet with age, necessitating ways to boost NAD+ levels. Strategies include time-restricted eating, fasted exercise and supplementation
If you're interested in healthy living, you won't want to miss this interview with anti-aging scientist James Clement, author of “The Switch: Ignite Your Metabolism With Intermittent Fasting, Protein Cycling, and Keto,” While a lawyer by trade, he has since transitioned into a full-time research position, running his own antiaging research laboratory.
From Lawyer to Full-Time Researcher
Clement wrote “The Switch” because he saw that many still don't understand the basics of health and longevity. The “switch” refers to the switch between activating and deactivating the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, which is the central topic of discussion here. His book also covers how to upregulate your mitochondrial function and other important pathways for health and longevity, such as NAD+.
“For [as long as] I can remember, I've always been interested in longevity,” Clement says. “I just didn't know that there was a field that dealt with [longevity] until Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw's book, ‘Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach,' came out in 1982.
I happened to be a third-year law student at the time, married to another law student. As soon as I read the book, which I did in like two days, I said, ‘I'm going to be a molecular biologist.' She jokingly said, ‘No. You aren't.' But I did start reading molecular biology. I became very passionate about keeping up with antiaging science.
I was lucky enough in 2009 to get on the board of the first direct-to-consumer genome company called Knome that George Church had co-founded. I had my own whole genome sequenced in 2009. George was the scientist who read me my interpretation of my genome.
We started talking about aging. I found out that he had this similar passion. We came up with a project called the Supercentenarian Research Study. That sort of launched my becoming a full-time scientist as opposed to a lawyer and entrepreneur that I've done previously …
We were a couple of years into the supercentenarian project. I was starting to open my own lab. I started a vivarium and eventually added 1,200 mice that I raised by myself with a couple of interns. At that time, I approached George and asked him, ‘Do you think it would be beneficial to my credibility, career and knowledge to enroll in a Ph.D. program?'
George kind of looked at me and said, ‘You're doing projects that grad students would give their right arm for. You're already reading 10 to 20 scientific papers a day. You're involved in writing up research papers. This is what a scientist is. This is what they do. You don't need to go work for someone else to learn these processes.' So, I stuck with what I was doing.”
What Sets Supercentenarians Apart?
Supercentenarians are the rare individuals who have made it to the age of 110 and beyond. According to Clement, there are only 50 to 80 supercentenarians in the entire world at any given point. In the U.S., an estimated 120,000 people make it to 100, but only 20 of them make it to 110.
As Clement began working with these supercentenarians, he realized that what set them apart was the fact that, up until the age of 105 to 108, they'd really had the health of someone in their 70s and 80s. They have no age-related diseases and typically die from sudden onset immune failure followed by pneumonia.
This suggests that improving your immune function is an essential criterion to make it past 100. Clement goes so far as to say that, in many respects, supercentenarians age normally, while the rest of us, age at an accelerated rate. The basis of his book is essentially how to normalize your aging, thus allowing you to optimize your life span.
It's worth noting that while your lifestyle plays a tremendous role, there's also a strong genetic influence. Siblings of supercentenarians have a 17 times greater chance of reaching 100 years old than the rest of us, for example, and many female supercentenarians have a mutation in the IGF-1 pathway.
This makes them short in stature, so 5 feet is about the size of the normal supercentenarian woman. In men, it tends to be a growth hormone mutation that similarly makes supercentenarian men somewhat shorter than the average man. Importantly, these mutations limit mTOR and turn on autophagy, which is what gives these people such a head-start on longevity. But there are ways for the rest of us to limit mTOR and increase autophagy as well.
