Freezing time in your best years, not your end years | Dr. Morgan Levine

Age expert Dr. Morgan Levine explains why living to 100 is the wrong goal.

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Dr. Morgan Levine suggests that we should aim for living better, not just longer. In her book, “True Age,” Levine introduces the idea of healthspan, which is about staying healthy and enjoying life, rather than merely adding years to it.

She explores the concept of “compression of morbidity,” a goal to squeeze most of our inevitable ailments into a short period before we die, mirroring the patterns seen in people who live to 100 or more. Levine also highlights a paradox: Women generally outlive men, but they also endure more age-related illnesses.

Ultimately, she argues that the benefits of longevity science should be accessible to everyone, with the goal of health disparities rather than increasing them.

0:00 The immortality obsession
0:30 The male-female survival paradox
1:34 Prolonging *healthy* life
2:07 Squeezing morbidity into fewer years
3:05 LIfe extension for all

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About Morgan Levine: Morgan Levine was previously a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the department of Pathology at Yale University where she ran the Laboratory for Aging in Living Systems. In 2022, she was recruited to join Altos Labs as a Founding Principal Investigator at the San Diego Institute of Science. She currently leads a research group at Altos Labs working at the intersection of bioinformatics, cellular biology, complex systems, and biostatistics with the overall goal of understanding the molecular trajectories aging cells, tissues, and organisms take through time.

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Read more of our stories on aging: Aging gratefully:
Will you be happier in old age? ► https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/happiness-old-age/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description
Blood test can calculate your true biological age ► https://bigthink.com/health/calculate-your-biological-age/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description
The brain undergoes a great “rewiring” after age 40 ► https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/great-brain-rewiring-after-age-40/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description

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