The good news: You can live a lot longer; The bad news: The end is near

Well, don’t look at me. Michael Luo’s Oct. 16 New York Times article entitled The Doomsday Scenario The Latest Word if Not the Last captured my attention and right after that, the November 2005 issue of the National Geographic magazine landed on my desk with its cover story The Secrets of Living Longer. There you have it. If you believe in science, then you will likely breeze through your own centennial, perhaps even on jet skis, but unfortunately, if you also believe the many doomsayer religious announcements, it is of no use since the end is near. Talk about two destinies from opposite directions about to clash on a blind date!

Luo’s article took off from two recent parallel developments: one involving the occurrence of natural phenomena like tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes, and the other, the increasing announcements from various religious groups that these natural disasters are clear signs of the times that the end is near. I have said all I have to say about the idiocy and cruelty of linking physical phenomenon such as earthquakes with the morality of people who become victims of such disasters in a column called "A Wave of Confusion" after the tsunami. It seems like the more natural disasters we experience, the more fodder it is for some religious groups to warn us that everything will end soon. "Soon" is usually the word they use since date-setting has already caused all kinds of embarrassments to those who have set a date and who are still here, waiting for their ride on the cloud which would sport the sign "For Members Only." I did some research and there have been at least 63 dates or periods, from different religions, when everything was/is supposed to end (less than 10 of which are still future dates so it is up to you to wait for those before you make any judgment). Never mind that it is a 13-billion-year-old universe and a 3.8-billion-year-old planet and those apocalyptic beliefs arose from the minds of a relatively infantile 190,000-year-old species, Homo Sapiens. So while waiting for the end, which humans since 53 AD (at least) have been warning each other about, we have taken up nuclear armament as a hobby and this has proven to be quite convenient since if the end does not come soon, we have built up enough nukes to destroy our world to make sure it does.

Aside from consistently engaging in wars and doomsday scenarios, we humans have, with the same intensity, embarked on the quest to live forever or if you base it on current scientific studies, at least longer than our current averages. I wonder how the longest-living people on Earth will react if you tell them that the end is near. A "personal ending" is something that has been elusive to people living in the mountains of Sardinia, on the island of Okinawa and in Loma Linda, California – three places which have an unusually high percentage of people nearing or are over the age of 100 – and where a team of scientists covered by National Geographic has been dispatched to find out (and still finding out) what secrets of longevity they hold. What they all had in common were: none smoked, they put family first, they stay active every day, they keep themselves socially engaged and they eat fruits, vegetables and whole grains. In their unique cases, this is what the researchers have found so far: Okinawans eat small portions, keep life-long friends, and find purpose in life; the Adventists in Loma Linda eat nuts and beans, observe the Sabbath and have faith; and the Sardinians drink red wine in moderation, share the work with a spouse, and eat pecorino cheese (and other omega-3 foods). Underlying all these factors is obviously genetics. They all have good genes to start with.

I recently saw the youthful looking George Hamilton in cable’s Kumar’s at 42 and Sanjeev’s grandma, ever spunky, asked Hamilton if he kept a picture of his wrinkly old self hidden in his attic. She, of course, was referring to Dorian Gray, the story of a man who made a pact with the devil to be eternally youthful but grew old quickly and died upon seeing a portrait of himself. Fortunately, we have science trying to tell us that we need not make those unnecessary and messy pacts with the devil to live longer. But we have to listen carefully so that we understand what the scientists are trying to say. Living longer, healthy lives is what science seems to be uncovering for us, NOT wrinkle-free, eternal youth. Unless you are a fruitfly, a monkey or a worm – creatures that scientists have conducted anti-aging experiments on – scientists collectively and categorically say (in a position paper released last year and featured in the Scientific American) that science has not yet come up with a way to prevent or delay the aging process.

I personally want the measure of my life to be in terms of it being worthwhile rather than long. I want to be able to make memories and treasure them till the very end. This is what most people are afraid of in old age – that we forget what our life was all about. We commonly associate senility with old age but studies have shown that senility is not a necessary effect of the aging process. Add to that, the recent findings published last week in the journal Lancet Neurology that exercise prevents dementia in old age. The study involved 1,500 patients 65 and older whose exercise habits were continuously followed for nearly 35 years and then later checked for dementia or Alzheimer’s. Their bottomline: people who exercised even leisurely at least twice a week as they went through middle age, "had a 50 percent lower chance of developing dementia and a 60 percent lower chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease compared with more sedentary colleagues."

I think one of the reasons human life is sweet and pleasurable is that it is relatively short. It does not have the elasticity of bubble gum (yet). I met a priest named Fr. Leon, 88, by accident in the Jesuit Infirmary two months ago. He was struggling to walk along the veranda. We found ourselves engaged in a very short but extremely funny and rich conversation. I could never forget how he ended our conversation: "Goodbye, Maria Isabel. Remember, I am at your service." Then realizing that his trail was going to end in a few meters and I would lose sight of him, he repeated but revised his goodbye: " I am at your service, but maybe (pointing to the end of the trail), only up to there." It gave me a good lesson on how two meters can stretch to the eternity of a memory of a worthwhile encounter. I do not need a long life. I only need about two meters worth of eternity.

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