Longevity 101: Your Complete Functional Medicine Guide To Living Longer + Healthier

In the wellness world we love to throw around the term “longevity”, but what does it really mean? It’s no secret that we all want to live longer (if our obsession with Blue Zones wasn’t a clue), but we have to ask ourselves what we are really pursuing in our quest to extend our lifespans. As a functional medicine expert, I have long been obsessed with biohacking my way to better health and a longer life. Here’s everything I’ve learned about longevity and what you can do today to live the life you’ve always imagined for as long as possible.

What is longevity?

Longevity is often synonymous with chronological age, but the two are actually very distinct concepts. While chronological age refers to the number of years you have lived, longevity is about how many of those years are spent in optimal health. Ultimately, longevity is all about maintaining mental clarity and physical activity well into old age. It’s not just about adding years to your life - but that those years are lived to the fullest without the burden of chronic diseases and age-related decline. 

The truth is, we are facing an epidemic of accelerated aging in our society. While we might be living longer than before (although studies are saying (1) that the tide is turning and our lifespan is actually declining) we are also facing an onslaught of chronic diseases and health problems, which are signs that our biological health isn’t where it should be. 

Some signs of poor biological health include:

• Dull, dry skin, fine lines, and wrinkles
• Weight loss resistance
• Joint and muscle aches
• Digestive distress
• High blood sugar 
• Cardiovascular problems (high blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.)

The secret keys to longevity

Now that we understand that longevity is more about healthspan rather than our lifespan, we can know better what steps we need to take to maintain vibrant health for years to come. As a functional medicine expert, I spend my days studying the latest clinical research on health and longevity, and these are the top things that we should be doing now in order to achieve our longevity goals. 

1. Improve telomere length

Telomeres are little cap-like structures on the ends of your chromosomes that are responsible for healthy cell function. As time passes, telomeres become shorter, which leads to aging and chronic disease. In fact, science has discovered that telomere length is directly related to longevity, so a lot of regenerative medicine research is focused on the regeneration of telomeres to preserve and even restore length.

2. Boost autophagy

Your cells are considered the building blocks of life and are responsible for keeping every system of your body functioning properly, with damage leading to a variety of health problems. Each one of your cells has its own life cycle - aging and renewing itself to remain active. However, over time our cells can become damaged and weak. While this is a normal part of the overall aging process, certain lifestyle factors like a poor diet, toxins, and stress, can speed up this damage.

Therefore, we want to do everything we can do to counteract the cellular aging process. One way is through a process known as autophagy. Autophagy is your body’s cellular recycling process that works to break down damaged cells and recycle them out of your system. This also makes way for new, healthy cells to be produced by promoting healthy cellular metabolism.

3. Enhance metabolic wellness

When your metabolic health is out of whack it can lead to elevated inflammation levels and many downstream health problems including poor cardiovascular health, hormone imbalances, diabetes, poor brain function, low energy, brain fog, skin problems, and so much more. Basically, you can’t be in optimal health if you have metabolic dysfunction.

4. Increase sirtuins

These enzymes are the protectors of our DNA and are responsible for regulating the aging and death of our cells, their resistance to stress, and their renewal process. Studies have found (2) that activating certain sirtuins, particularly the Sirt3 pathway, is associated with a greater lifespan. 

5. Decrease senescence cells

Referred to in research as “zombie cells'', senescence cells are cells that don’t die off when they should and instead linger inside your body, resisting death and releasing pro-inflammatory proteins in the process. The latest research around longevity is focused on ways (3) to decrease these senescence cells.

Tips to enhance longevity

Ultimately, when you do these 5 things, you are also lowering inflammation. Here are some of my favorite things you can start doing today to improve telomere length, boost autophagy, enhance metabolic wellness, increase sirtuins, and decrease senescence cells.

1. Eat a well-balanced diet

Mediterranean, paleo, plant-based…whatever it is, the jury is still out on the “perfect” diet for increasing longevity. Instead of getting caught up in semantics, let’s look at what they all have in common: an abundance of whole foods with an emphasis on clean sources of healthy fats, protein, and a wide variety of vegetables like wild-caught seafood, turmeric, and other superfoods that are anti-inflammatory in nature.

2. Increase Nrf-2 pathways

Nrf-2 is a protein that helps turn on genes responsible for antioxidant and detox pathways, leading to lower inflammation. Many dietary sources of antioxidants have been found to activate Nrf-2 including:

• EGCG from green tea
• Quercetin from apples
• Curcumin from turmeric
• Resveratrol from grapes
• Rosmarinic acid from rosemary
• L-sulforaphane from broccoli
• Thiosulfonateallicin from garlic

3. Decrease NF-kB

The inflammatory nuclear factor kappa B, or NF-kB for short, binds to your DNA and triggers a number of different inflammatory cascades in the body when activated and has been linked to the development of many chronic inflammatory conditions. Some of my favorite NF-kB lowering foods include:

• Blueberries
• Cacao
• Ashwagandha 

4. Practice intermittent fasting

Not only does intermittent fasting help improve your metabolic wellness, it also increases autophagy, (4) decreases inflammation, (5) and more. There’s a reason why intermittent fasting is often referred to as “the physician within”. 

5. Increase glutathione

Studies have found that low levels of this antioxidant is directly linked to accelerated aging. You can either do this through regular supplementation or adding in foods shown (6) to support glutathione levels like asparagus, avocados, broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. 

6. Target your supplements

While certain supplements are case specific, these are some of the top supplements associated with enhanced longevity.

• Methylated B vitamins: Decreases pro-inflammatory homocysteine levels
• Spermidine: Helps boost autophagy
• Uralithin A: Helps boost autophagy
• NAD+: Enhances cellular health 

7. Therapeutic plasma exchange

This revolutionary therapy is a treatment that exchanges the plasma in your blood with a substitute - typically albumin or saline - in order to remove toxins and heal certain health problems including autoimmune neurological conditions. (7) It can also improve certain biomarkers of aging.

To learn more about this revolutionary therapy, check out my conversation with Dr. Paul Savage on The Art Of Being Well podcast.

8. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing 100% pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber, allowing your body to take in a significantly higher concentration of oxygen than normal atmospheric conditions. Studies have found (8) that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can significantly improve aging biomarkers including increased telomere length and enhanced senescent cell removal.

The best longevity labs

There are a lot of labs that you can run to assess your overall health and longevity, but these are some of the base labs that I run in my telehealth functional medicine clinic most often to assess longevity.

1. Metabolic labs

Poor metabolic health and high blood sugar is directly linked to accelerated aging and telomere shortening. These two labs give us a baseline look at your blood sugar and metabolic health.

Hgb-A1C: Optimal Range: < 5.3%

Fasting insulin: Optimal Range: < 3 ulU/mL

2. Inflammation labs

As we’ve seen, inflammation is the driving force behind many of our chronic health problems. Therefore, I typically run the following labs to assess just how high your inflammation levels are.

Homocysteine: Optimal Range: < 7 Umol/L

CRP: Optimal Range: < 0.5 mg/L

3. Nutrient deficiencies

Nutrient deficiencies are going to accelerate aging, especially among key nutrients like vitamin D. These labs will show you where you need to fill in the gaps in your diet, if supplements can help, and at what dosage.

4. Genetic testing

Genetic testing is a fantastic preventive measure. Not only can genetic tests help identify any degenerative diseases based on family history, they can also look for the presence of certain genetic variants that can influence factors associated with accelerated aging. Oftentimes, there is a lot that you can do to offset and support any genetic weaknesses before they become an issue in your health.

5. Preneuvo

If you want to take your longevity efforts to the next level, a Preneuvo scan can help you be more proactive about your health rather than reactive. This whole body MRI can catch things in stage 1 or very early on so you can take the appropriate steps toward healing as soon as possible.

To learn more about my favorite longevity labs and tips to enhance longevity, check out my episode on The Art Of Being Well podcast.

The takeaway

In the end, our goal should be to live as many years in great health as possible, not living to a specific age. But with that said, if we take a preventative approach and focus on taking care of our health, living longer will likely be a byproduct of our efforts. If you are interested in how we can help you be more proactive about your health rather than reactive, schedule a telehealth consultation today to learn more about how we can help with functional medicine.

As one of the first functional medicine telehealth clinics in the world, we provide webcam health consultations for people around the globe. 

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