Lloyd Khan on "deep old age:" "Old people get weak more from lack of activity than from ticking of the clock"

Genetics is the major factor, but healthy living can still make huge differences at the margin.

He was also overweight and a heavy smoker earlier in life, though a genetic predisposition to heart trouble was a the real killer.

He was also fairly trim, weight is probably the biggest individual health factor you can control in longevity. Look past 100 and you see a lot of smokers and drinkers, you don’t see many obese people.

I think Khan’s biggest error is cause and effect, they don’t get weak because they get inactive, get inactive because their bodies give out.

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Exactly. Those “Some of us” would not work-out as a hobby in the first place, and would never say ‘I’m sorry I just worked out.’, and they would never refer to their Work as a work-out.

You see, we are in agreement.

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My grandpa is 93, tall and obese with type II diabetes. No smoking or drinking. I look just like him and I’m hoping I got most of his genes, except I had cancer and he hasn’t. I’m trying not to be obese, but I think I’m predisposed to having a gut. He’s deaf on one side from WWII and his eyes are bad. But he’s sharp and still kickin. We will see how it all works out. I will check back in here in 50 years if things are still good.

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Maybe those Struldbrug laws should apply to aging corporate persons?

Otherwise, as avarice is the necessary consequence of old age, those immortals would in time become proprietors of the whole nation, and engross the civil power, which, for want of abilities to manage, must end in the ruin of the public.

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I’m with the genetics camp. Both my grandmothers lived to their early 90’s, neither was “active” beyond normal daily activities. Both grandfathers did pretty well considering the smoking and potential workplace carcinogens, 79 & 82. I barely missed being invited to join the Howard Families!

That said, my 84 yo mom swims every day, and is very creatively and intellectually active in an unusual “independent living” community that she adores. These communities are the next frontier of retirement, intellectual stimulation not shuffleboard & Mahjong.

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F how long you live. I want to live like that. That guy is the same age as my late mother, but what a different world they inhabited. I remember seeing that Whole Earth Catalog for sale at the Pickwick bookstore, at the new “Mall” place. At my young age, I didn’t have five dollars, (a fortune back then) but I did enjoy leafing through it.

Well, bully for you then. I find exercise to be completely unrewarding and unenjoyable which makes it really fucking hard to get motivated to get fit (along with chronic fatigue for an additional difficulty multiplier).

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Yeah, joints are a real limiting feature. Exercise keeps muscles fit, keeps your cardiovascular system fit, Helps to prevent/control diabetes. But the cartilage in joints is more “use it until it’s all used up” than “use it or lose it.” Doesn’t mean that exercise isn’t good for you, but some exercise is going to burn through the useful life of your joints faster than other exercises.

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I’m not quite sure. People who do physical work already work.out. By the simplistic logic of “I met no-one who …” they should feel elevated after they are done. Well, they probably do, but not because it was oh just so fun.

Side mark: I do work out, but I have to force myself to do it. It’s mind-bogglingly boring, as was the physical work I did in my twenties, like felling trees, planting trees, moving trees from A to B and then from B to A a year later (don’t ask), demolishing brick walls, etc… Basically all the stuff when your parents purchase an old brick building and modernize it, down to putting in a new foundation under the still-standing house.

That people get a rush from sports is a source of both puzzlement and envy for me, because it wold make maintaining my body so much easier.

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The chamber functioned by transmitting biogenic energy on a chromoelectric wavelength, to send “uplifting and entertaining” messages to cellular nuclei.

So you’re saying that people who work out get an elevated mood, and people who work should get this same thing by emulating a work out, through work, at work, and so, work should cheer them up?

It’s rooms full of sweaty people I avoid, not sweat.

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The point is that if you meet buddha on the road, you should kill him for he is a false buddha. No one has the ‘answer’ to a long life because every life is different. I guess I’m trying to say that the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you, may not be right for some.

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I don’t disagree with you, but I think its atypical for somebody who does physical work for a living to consider that a fitness benefit work-out. There are probably some, but I think they are few and far between.

Sports brings a whole world of other factors into play - like winning and losing, and childhood heroes, etc etc. Motivations around participating in this kind of physical activity is distinct from fitness work-out, which are often done in support of sports play.

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Probably. But even if they don’t consider that working out, it’s physiologically the same: People excerpt themselves. And thus there is a large number of persons who do not need to work out in a gym or have to practice sports, because they already get their physical activity in their line of, well, work.

So the whole reasoning about how swell working out feels and how this keeps people fit is quite circular. Especially since people who do actually do this for fun are far more likely to socialize at the gym and with other fitness enthusiasts than those of use who just do it out of health or beauty reasons.

I don’t disagree with any of that. But the original proposition is that people who do actually do this for fun are simply not going to regret it. The only argument against that is somehow transposing the work-out person to the person who does physical labor and believing that they may certainly regret their exertion at the end of a day. But thats a complete leap from the original idea. I don’t disagree - its just not what we’re talking about.

He looks like he’s 27.

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