Wanted to share a few people who died not too long ago who were in the longevity, supplement, and health industry.
Durk Pearson. Aged 81. Cause of death: Not 100% sure but did read “He came down with a stomach infection that he couldn’t shake. It exploded into sepsis. By the time his friends medevacked him to the hospital in Reno it was too late.” October 26, 2024
Sandy Shaw. Aged 78. Cause of death: Unsure at this time. March 12, 2022
Andrew Saul. Aged 69. Cause of death: Heart failure. February 3, 2024
These two were among the first to popularize the concept of longevity through supplements.
They introduced me to L-tryptophan and L-tyrosine, not as life extension supplements, but for their other benefits. I still take them to this day.
“Pearson and his wife, Sandy Shaw, are the authors of Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach[7] (ISBN 0-446-51229-X, Warner Books, 1982), The Life Extension Companion[8] (Warner Books), The Life Extension Weight Loss Program, and Freedom of Informed Choice: FDA v. Nutrient Supplements, (Common Sense Press, 1993). The couple have written numerous articles on life extension, cognitive enhancement, anti-aging, weight loss.”
They were MIT students, so they weren’t dumb. But some of their advice proved to be problematic.
IMHO, if you’ve truly experienced lifespan extension, you need to make it to at least 85. 95 should be the average, as this is the average for wealthy individuals with the best of health care. 99 and higher, you’re doing something right.
If you die at the median age of around 77, you probably didn’t extend your life especially since if you make it to 65, the average life expectancy becomes 85.
If a method is good, it will lead to a good outcome. If you don’t care about outcomes, prioritize methods that feel right, vibe with you and sound fun.
Here is a source from the Brookings Institute from 9 years ago where a wealthy woman is expected to live to 90 yo.
For women who reached age 50 two decades later, in 1990, we found no improvement at all in the life expectancy of low earners. Among women in the top tenth of earners, however, life expectancy rose 6.4 years, from 84.1 to 90.5. In those two decades, the gap in life expectancy between women in the bottom tenth and the top tenth of earners increased from a little over 3½ years to more than 10 years.
From Gemini
Wealthy individuals generally experience a longer life expectancy compared to those with lower incomes. This disparity is evident across various studies and regions, with the wealthy often living several years longer. For example, in the US, the wealthiest individuals may live 10-15 years longer than the poorest.
So if the average life expectancy of a 65 yo is 85, 10-15 years on top of that would be 95-100. I went with 95. It’s a ballpark figure. You could pick 90 or 100.
Well, 85 is the age an average middle class 65 year old will live to, so 90-100 seems like a good number for the wealthy. Charlie Munger was 99 when he died. Warren Buffet is 95, but he’s alive.
David Rockefeller: Died at 101 years old. John D. Rockefeller: Died at 97 years old.
Most recent presidents who have died. Gerald Ford - 93 years Ronald Reagan - 93 years George H. W. Bush - 94 years Jimmy Carter - 100 years
But does a good outcome mean the method was good? Or alternatively, a bad outcome mean the method was bad?
There’s people out there who advocated eating healthy, exercising, taking their meds, controlling their risk factors, maybe they wrote a book about it. Should we dismiss the methods because the author died early?
Not buying a book because the author died at 77 doesn’t mean their method didn’t work, they could’ve just been unlucky and slipped on a banana peel.
That’s why you don’t judge the quality of a method based on its outcome rather than on its own merits. Because you can be unlucky.
Where this trips us up is when we’re trying to improve our decision making by learning from the past. If we mislabel decisions as good or bad based on the outcomes, then we have little chance of improving our decision making ability. We need to consider instead whether the decision itself was a good one, regardless of the outcomes.
Unless the method was too expensive, complicated or impractical, it is a good method if it lead to a good outcome.
If a method did not lead to a good outcome, it was at best a hobby.
There’s people out there who advocated eating healthy, exercising, taking their meds, controlling their risk factors, maybe they wrote a book about it. Should we dismiss the methods because the author died early?
Luckily we have clinical trials looking at their methods for larger populations.
Not buying a book because the author died at 77 doesn’t mean their method didn’t work, they could’ve just been unlucky and slipped on a banana peel.
True, but if we have no other data than their own early demise it can and should be dismissed.
Kind of reminds me of the CR forum admins who all happened to die early.
I agree. But I think it’s the same thing for “no other data than their late demise”, otherwise someone’s grandma who smoked and drank whiskey every day who lived to 99 comes into the picture.
1987