Lifespan extension has never really been a goal of aging science, nor should it. S. Jay Olshansky More Quotes by S. Jay Olshansky More Quotes From S. Jay Olshansky We have grown accustomed to the wonders of clean water, indoor plumbing, laser surgery, genetic engineering, artificial joints, replacement body parts, and the much longer lives that accompany them. Yet we should remember that the vast majority of humans ever born died before the age of 10 from an infectious disease. S. Jay Olshansky engineeringagewater Find a way to get a full-body massage every day. S. Jay Olshansky massagebodyway A lot of people are living in a dream world - they want to deny that aging occurs or believe it doesnt have to occur. Theyll hold on to this belief until the moment they die. The reality will eventually hit them. S. Jay Olshansky dreambelievereality Exercise is roughly the only equivalent of a fountain of youth that exists today, and its free to everyone. S. Jay Olshansky youthexercisetoday Death is a zero sum game for which there is no cure. S. Jay Olshansky zero-sum-gamezerogames We know in the field of aging that some people tend to senesce, or grow older, more rapidly than others, and some more slowly. S. Jay Olshansky agingfieldspeople Ageing is very rare. We only see it in humans and laboratory animals and in zoo animals and in our pets. Basically, organisms that are protected from the external world. Once you create that protection, you live long enough to see ageing. S. Jay Olshansky animalzooslong Fixing obesity is going to require a change in our modern relationship with food. I'm hopeful that we begin to see a turnaround in this childhood obesity epidemic. S. Jay Olshansky childhoodchangefoodrelationship I'm not sure the least educated members of the population are missing out on the advances in medical technology as much as they are adopting harmful behavioral habits that shorten their life. S. Jay Olshansky medicaltechnologymissinglife The last thing you ever want to do is extend the period of frailty and disability and make people unhealthy for a longer time period. So lifespan extension in and of itself should not be the goal of medicine, nor should it be the goal of public health, nor should it be the goal of aging science. S. Jay Olshansky youhealthtimescience Once you avoid the things that accelerate aging like smoking, obesity, excessive alcohol consumption, and excessive sun exposure, you've done about as much as you can to influence your aging process. S. Jay Olshansky youalcoholsmokingsun While eliminating smallpox and curtailing cholera added decades of life to vast populations, cures for the chronic diseases of old age cannot have the same effect on life expectancy. A cure for cancer would be miraculous and welcome, but it would lead to only a three-year increase in life expectancy at birth. S. Jay Olshansky old-agewelcomeagelife If you can slow the biological process of aging, even a minor slowdown in the rate at which we age yields improvements in virtually every condition of frailty and disability and mortality that we see at later ages. S. Jay Olshansky youdisabilityagingage You can open up a centenarian's brain, and you'll see some areas that look like that of a 50-year-old or of a 110-year-old. You can have variation in the basic process of aging, called senescence, in different parts of the same body. S. Jay Olshansky lookyoubodybrain Physical immortality is seductive. The ancient Hindus sought it; the Greek physician Galen from the 2nd Century A.D. and the Arabic philosopher/physician Avicenna from the 11th Century A.D. believed in it. S. Jay Olshansky arabicphysicianphysicalimmortality Just because someone looks old doesn't mean he or she is. The skin of some people who spend a lot of time outdoors seems to age very rapidly. Someone can look 80 or 90 and only be 40 to 50. S. Jay Olshansky lookagetimepeople The reason we have cancer and heart disease is the same reason you can't get rid of the wear and tear on your tires on your car: as soon as you use them, you are wearing them away. You can't make eternal tires, and it's the same with the human body. S. Jay Olshansky youcarbodyheart What we know for sure from our work and from others' is that mice have a life span of 1,000 days, dogs have 5,000 days, and we humans have 29,000 days. Recognizing that the duration is limited, and aging is inevitable, focus the attention on enhancing the quality of the days you have. S. Jay Olshansky youqualityworklife A lifetime of low calories has come naturally to the longest-lived people in the world... in the Japanese archipelago of Okinawa. S. Jay Olshansky lowcaloriespeopleworld The real problem is that there's a tendency to associate ageing with loss and decline and things that aren't desirable. But experiencing all that there is to experience in life - whether that's at the age of ten or thirty or fifty or eighty - is what life is all about. S. Jay Olshansky experienceproblemagelife
