Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
Longevity was discussed a lot here. So, for the hackers and experts here:), how do you help your parents?
Was thinking to give them or suggest to take
Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN): 1g per day (available but only from small firms in Europe)
Resveratrol: 1g per day (available)
Metformin: 800 mg (need a prescription)
Omega3 fat oil
Do you have better ideas?
PS: Got it from David Sinclar. Doctors don't seem to care much about that topic. Actually, started to think about it since, noticed a bit of mental decline and started asking myself what might help against it and in general. Also, might take that stuff for myself as well.
103 comments
[ 24.6 ms ] story [ 1827 ms ] threadAlso on the natural foods side would like to add
1. Dates 2. Prunes
Lots of antioxidant rich foods based on your location - omega 3 is also a good choice as you mentioned.
I am sure you have read the article about the people who "forgot to die"
Social circle is in the same category, really hard to influence, especially from outside. So looking for magic pill..
Keep them engaged
I had my father manage the household expenses and few other tasks
I feel mortality rate is impacted by relevance. When you feel you are irrelevant, it won't matter much..you give up and move on.
[0] https://www.vox.com/2019/8/8/20758813/secrets-ultra-elderly-...
I wanna second tarun's comment. Being physically active and having social baseline helps a lot on their general well being.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6125071/
Related:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29429558
[1] https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs... [under the heading "What else do I need to know?"]
If there was a magic pill, that would be great, but don’t think there is any high quality evidence.
There is something involved in NMN, but taking it (or any of the precursors or metabolites) alone doesn't actually seem to reliably cause what they were looking for.
Most likely, it's something like the curcumin vs ground turmeric issue (curcumin doesn't work alone, it combines with another chemical found in turmeric to produce the active chemical, and none of the curcumin supplements work), or with glucoraphanin and myrosinase to produce sulforaphane (popularized by Dr Rhonda Patrick; sulforaphane is short lived, and you need to package them correctly to not self-react in a supplement while it's sitting there on a shelf, so the delivery mechanism is the hard part), or with the flavor of garlic, allicin, another short lived chemical produced by alliin and alliinase (which is why crushing garlic is important instead of slicing, and ground garlic and factory produced minced garlic will never have that magical flavor).
Also, as for Omega 3, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-CFQxaUY4 Dr Rhonda Patrick interviews Dr Bill Harris; the main take away from this isn't that it works (we all know that already), it's what the dose range is: we're all underdosing.
If you want that "one weird trick that doctors hate", OMAD alone is almost magical. I've been suggesting it to everyone I know just so they can do something easy and simple to get a few free years out of their fleshy meat body. Also, because of OMAD, I now spend less time prepping food, eating food, and other food-related tasks. Even if OMAD had no health effects (positive or negative), I'd keep doing it as it has freed up a surprisingly large amount of time.
It's also a lot easier to track macros and "eat like it's your job".
And I do indeed seem to be enjoying better overall health than a lot of people my age or even 10 years younger. They're all starting to complain about their knees and backs and they're on various medications and I have none of that yet.
Of course you can't read much into that by itself, and I'm not going to write my entire life's details here, but still it doesn't conflict with the theory either.
I'm also very thin. Thinner than most people probably want to be, especially males, at least Americans.
Athletes have been employing OMAD to increase their athletic performance, and have reliably been doing so, so I guess the answer to your other questions is yes, OMAD plays well with those goals.
For exercise I think it is more important to do weight training than cardio, to increase or retain bone strength as this diminishes with age.
No, seriously:
>> A unique social experiment that brings together elderly people in a retirement community with a group of 4-year-olds. Could this encounter between young and old help transform the lives of the elderly?
https://thetvdb.com/series/the-old-peoples-home-for-4-year-o...
https://thetvdb.com/series/old-peoples-home-for-4-year-olds
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/old-people-s-home-for-4-year-o...
Multiple studies in both the UK and Australia demonstrate increased mobility, memory, communication, happiness, etc in older people when mixed in with young children.
This doesn't reflect my experience, at least with my understanding of "many" and "old". My 90 yo grandma can't walk and is on oxygen most of the day and very much doesn't want to die.
I had a feeling it must be at least partly due to their increased role in child rearing among most families.
This is partly just traditional Chinese culture but probably also comes in part due to the awful working hours most Chinese people tend to face. It's very common to just dump your kids on your parents out there.
It does cause some issues, as the grandparents tend to have more ... traditional parenting approaches (corporal punishment fairly common) but for the elderly themselves it's definitely something they really look forward to in their later years.
probably because they haven't been exposed to a lifetime of processed foods like here in the west.
I think when I was in China I was basically in a perpetual state of food poisoning for several years.
Personally, I doubt these supplements make any difference. I also doubt that metformin makes a big difference (as well as being poorly tolerated in many people).
This is what comes to mind:
There is one universally beneficial thing and that is exercise. What exercise? Anything is better than nothing. But doing 150 minutes per week of Zone 2 is probably optimal. Also resistance training. Don't over do it.
Second thing: screening for things that kill you. Manage modifiable cardiovascular risk factors:
- check lipid profile including Lp(a) and ApoB, manage appropriately
- inflammation, although can be hard to improve, maybe dietary changes.
- hypertension
Also do all the screening for cancer: mammogram, faecal occult blood, pap smears.
Take a thorough family history, what did people die of and at what age. There can be clues from that about what needs attention. In the extreme case, there may be a strong family history of cancer indicating need for germline testing.
Other things: Pneumococcal vaccine, shingles vaccine, flu vaccine.
If the option exists, move closer to the equator (mortality is higher further from the equator, as is cancer incidence).
Other comments mention social activities, also very important.
That's anectodal and also quite subjective. The fact that he uses this as an argument for his studies (I've heard him saying exactly that in interviews) makes it very hard to take him seriously.
> depends if it is due of his lifestyle or not
Most likely genetics. I know plenty of people who look great for their ages whilst eating what Sinclair would probably consider a bad diet (mostly beef and processed meats, with some grains, vegetables and fruits interspersed) and taking no supplements. I'm talking about senior people who appear 10-15 years younger than their ages.
I'm not using these anecdotes to promote not taking supplements or eating that kind of diet. Some of these people are but they're not in the business of selling their lifestyle and are not scientists at all.
Also, looking good for one's age doesn't mean they're not going to die of a heart disease in 5 years time.
In both cases they belonged to risk groups for certain illnesses, but I was not aware of this. Now I wish there would have been some resource enumerating risks for older people and how to diagnose early the corresponding illnesses.
For example, my mother was 1. old, 2. woman, 3. taking for many years a medication against high blood pressure, 4. avoiding to eat much salt for fear of raising the blood pressure.
These 4 conditions create a high risk of hyponatremia and/or hypokalemia (too low content in the body of sodium and/or potassium, because they are eliminated too quickly from the body). Both affections are extremely dangerous.
To avoid any problems, it would have been enough if my mother would have made every few months a cheap blood analysis, to determine the sodium and potassium contents in the blood.
My mother actually made frequent enough analyses of the blood and all results had always been perfect. However, after she became seriously ill and eventually the cause was discovered, I have looked at the earlier blood analyses and while they had checked a myriad of other blood components, sodium and potassium had never been measured.
In the case of my father, he had smoked excessively a large part of his life until he has eventually succeeded to quit smoking. He was also overweight.
These 2 conditions together increase a lot the risk of renal cancer. Had we been aware of that, he should have attempted to check periodically for this.
As it was, the cancer was undetected for at least a couple of years, and it was detected only after it produced a bone tumor (the spread of renal cancerous cells to bones is a frequent occurrence), and even that was detected too late, because after a bone fracture, even if the symptoms had been as in a textbook example of bone cancer, some incompetent doctor diagnosed the symptoms as being caused by osteoporosis and arthritis and did not send him to the scintillation analysis that would have diagnosed the cancer immediately. I have also been too trustful and I did not seek a second opinion.
Due to the many cases of erroneous diagnoses, which happen much more frequently with older people, because the doctors tend to attribute any complaints to normal old age instead of sending them to multiple analyses to investigate for the real cause, it is good to seek second opinions whenever there is any doubt.
In conclusion, I believe that it is important to determine for each parent which are the main health risk factors and to test periodically for the most likely of the illnesses that might begin to affect them after a certain age.
I know it’s not a great counterpoint but how does he look so young for being in his 50s? He must be doing something that works.
My parents weren’t cheap. But they were responsible with their money both had pensions and retired when they were 55 and 57 respectively.
They have gone on two cross country 4-6 month road trips. They are now 78 and 80 and are still mostly healthy. They only stopped traveling because of Covid. They are slowly getting out of their bubble.
They both said that they have had a long enjoyable life and will have lived a life without regrets.
While I won’t be retiring at 55, my wife and I are planning a 2-3* year adventure where we will be traveling across the US in a method that’s comfortable for us - flying everywhere and staying in mid tier extended hotels.
We are starting this near the end of the year. We just sold our newer car to save money and we are selling our old car before we leave. We are renting out our house.
Am I worried about a long life? No. I’m more concerned with an enjoyable life with no regrets.
Yes, I see my doctor(s) regularly. We chose hotels partially because they all have gyms and most will have pools for working out
Do I eat overly healthy? Mostly no. I enjoy food. But we mostly keep our weight under control.
https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/reframing-your-reality-part-...
p.s. Moi? There's also the issue of quantity v quality. In short, keep them away from the TV, social media, etc. Aging has an emotional / psychological impact. Given the current state of high profile happenings (e.g., pandemic, war, mass shootings, climate change) it's easy to get worn down and the willingness to persist goes with it.
Can your parents get up off the floor with ease? Do they shuffle their feet? Age appropriate exercise will help them not break bones / fall, etc. Bob and Brad on youtube have some things to look at.
Do your parents have inflammation? That is, do they have joint pain? Are their faces or hands puffy? Try a gluten free diet if reducing foods with omega6s does not help. A gluten free diet can only be achieved by avoiding all foods that are not certified gluten free. Even foods that should not have gluten such as oats likely have gluten cross contamination.
For any diet change, try to limit the change and pursue it for a minimum of 2 weeks to see the impact.
In short, aging gracefully is more about keeping an eye on deficits and managing them before they become big problems.
She has a moderate heart\vessels condition so she intakes some pills prescribed.
D3 is the only addition to this I thing.
Don’t bother too much with the medicines and pills. What really matters: daily social interactions (with friends and family members, not random people or nurses/doctors) and a regular schedule of “purposeful” activities to look forward to every week. Bingo every Tuesday, fish dinners on Friday, etc.
Also, get them to a healthy body fat % (as measured by dexa) which is like 15% or less imo, and have them doing regular cardio.
Encourage them to shorten their feeding window. Perhaps as small as 4-6 hours but even 8 hours would be a big step up from a (typical) 12 hour feeding window.
If you wanted to be more ambitious, any kind of resistance training would be fantastic but not at the expense of the walking.
...
I notice you employing a familiar heuristic: "things doctors don't want to talk about" but I encourage you to embrace an even deeper heuristic:
If there were some natural substance, or plant extract, or pressing from (food) or (some combination of purple berries) that made people live longer, we would all know about. It would be carved into stone tablets and embedded in every religious tradition. It would not be a secret.
People have been watching and cataloging their food inputs for millennia - the pressed extracts of winegrape seeds would not have eluded their notice ...
If there were something that let you live to 200, sure. But trying to answer a question like whether the Mediterranean diet extends life on average by 10% is very, very hard. Even if we had great records of what everyone ate, you'd still have to deal with the fact that people consuming that diet tend to live in the same geographical area and share a lot of other behaviors that could very well affect longevity.