April's CR Diary

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April 28, 2007

Unusual Means To An Unusual End

Thanks to all for your comments... they've been very nice and supportive. I'm glad folks are enjoying the blog and finding helpful information, or at least entertaining stories.

I do feel like I have to make a clarification though. Several people have mentioned that I should distance myself from "nutcases" who think we're going to live forever. Before I take too much credit for being normal, I feel that I should ask a few questions about the perspectives of these comments, and clarify my own view. Also, may I ask that before readers post objections about how living much longer would be either not possible or not desirable, could you please read Aubrey de Grey's refutation of the common objections here. You have to scroll down the page to get to some of the frequently raised objections such as overpopulation, such technologies would only be available to the rich, etc.

First, no one I know thinks that true immortality is a possibility. There will always be accidents, especially as long as there is the New Jersey Turnpike. With as much as I have had to drive for work, I fear that I am already statistically dead. (Quick: Can everyone say a prayer for NJ Governor Jon Corzine, recovering in my own dear Cooper Hospital, where I helped the nurses organize back in 1999? He was in a horrible car accident on April 12, and he's not been doing so well. Say what you will about governors of New Jersey, and he's not nearly as cute as the last one, no one deserves to have their life cut short by a traffic accident.) So no one I hang out with believes in immortality.

However, there are some very reasonable people who believe that it is possible that technology will advance enough to defeat many of the mechanisms that cause aging. If we could repair the damage of aging, then we could dramatically extend life and health. I believe that would be a very good thing. Aubrey de Grey is one of the most articulate proponents of this view, and he's answered many of the common objections here. Ray Kurzweil also has some interesting things to say about radical life-extending technology.

Before I got involved in the CR Society, I wasn't aware that these perspectives existed. I was hopeful that CR could help me look forty at fifty-five, or at least help me not feel like total crap at 29, but I didn't even think about radical life-extending biomedicine. I'm a union organizer, not a biologist or an engineer, and I read pop nutrition books for fun, not popular science. It was through getting to know people like MR that I found out about possibilities that I was not aware of before.

To be perfectly clear, no one thinks that CR will extend life all that long... the most ambitious of predictions are 110 or 120, and most of us think those are wildly optimistic. We do know that CR reduces risk of disease, especially the big killers such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. That's all well and good, but there are quite a few who hope that by pursuing vigorous CR, we might live and be in good health at a time when more advanced medical technologies are available to extend healthy life further.

For those who dismiss this as childish fantasy, I ask on what basis they make that determination. Is it "common sense," or is it a reasoned belief based on research and evidence? Of course, no one knows what the future will bring. But I can attest that I was quite unaware of the real progress that has been made in recent years, and when I found out more, my perspective changed. Here is an entry I wrote about how my thinking evolved.

Very reasonable people can disagree about the prospects of such biomedicine, but I've spoken with David Sinclair and others who think that significant progress is on the horizon. Not being a scientist, I am not always in the best position to evaluate all the evidence, but working closely with the Mprize has given me access to information that I find very encouraging.

Still, I find that my own CR practice is heavily influenced by my real job and my social life... I don't yet pursue the most severe CR I could manage because I have competing priorities. But if I were quite convinced that real, radical life-extending biomedicine was likely to be available within fifty years or so, and I wanted to be able to take advantage of it, and I valued that prospect more than I value a second glass of Malbec or a dinner out in Center City Philly, I might take my CR much more seriously. And that would mean more attention to detail, more discipline, and if my experience in the past is any indicator, more consistency.

One thing I have found is that when you take calories very low, eating a very consistent amount meal to meal, day to day, makes a tremendous difference in quality of life. It's how MR avoids hunger at a pretty severe level of CR, and it works. He values living longer more than he values knocking back a second glass of wine or sharing a pistachio creme brulee, so he keeps his calories very consistent, and doesn't eat unmeasured meals. He's the only CR person aside from maybe Dean who I know who does that. So he's definitely the exception, not the rule. But I have complete respect for his CR practice, and as someone who lives with him every day and watches how he functions, I can vouch for the fact that it enhances, rather than detracting from, his quality of life. His moods are much more even than mine, he isn't particularly hungry, he is satisfied with his meals, and he has incredible energy and strength. He's one of the happiest people I know, and he's definitely the healthiest. His lifestyle would not appeal to all, but for him, it works out great. I mean, he gets to sleep with me every night, and you can't beat that! :) But seriously, his choices work for him, and he's quite capable of dealing with flak from people who think he's weird... he's much more immune to that sort of thing than I am.

So it would be hard for me to distance myself from serious CR practitioners or those who are optimistic about the prospects of life-extending biomedicine, since I live with one of those people. Nor would I want to distance myself. My research has led me to think that while nothing is certain, optimism is not irrational. And for those who have the discipline to pursue severe CR in the hopes of reaching a point where more technology is available, I say, "You go girl!" Or boy, since they're mostly boys.

In fact, one of my goals (which competes with several of my other goals, like winning a bet that would result in a free dinner at the best restaurant in Philly) is to become more strict in my CR so that I can slow my biological aging process further. I don't like being a moderate, it just happens to be the compromise I make with the other aspects of my extremely full life. Radically extended health and life is an unusual goal, and severe CR is an unusual lifestyle. But if you see the one as means to the other, it makes sense. You may not share the belief that such life-extension is possible or desirable (though people often have deathbed conversions, as it were) and even if you do, you may not think CR is a viable way to making it to that point. Aubrey de Grey, for instance, doesn't think CR will result in more than a couple of years of lifespan gain. Reasonable people can and do disagree. But for those who do believe in a and b, a more strict CR lifestyle is a perfectly reasonable choice.

One of my other goals is having a house that is always media-ready. This is not easy, considering that I work ALL THE TIME and have two cats and a man who cooks and I cook daily. I barely have time to do laundry, which is why it's great that I can now wear underwear that I've had since high school. Another benefit of CR: wearing the same clothes year after year! I have about two months worth of underwear because I've saved all the old stuff, carefully line drying it year after year, and I've also been in so many situations where I just bought more underwear when I was on the road organizing because I didn't have time to find a place to wash clothes. It's fairly common among organizers to have a ridiculous amount of underwear, actually. But I digress.

I have come to believe that my house must be media-ready at all times because even when I've sworn off media appearances (due to extreme, severe busy-ness at work, I've adopted a "Just Say No" policy to the media, unless it's a really gorgeous intelligent funny sexy journalist asking, which I'd have to admit is my weakness: I will do most anything for a skinny guy who acts interested in CR.) However, at just the point when I've sworn off media appearances until further notice (ie until I win both these campaigns, and their contracts, which will be sometime in fall) I find out that MR's boss and my dear friend, Aubrey de Grey, has invited a media crew over on Sunday to do an interview with him. We had planned to do this a month or so ago (when I got two days notice and FREAKED OUT which was not fun for anyone, especially MR) but we got snowed out due to that blizzard that hit the northeast. So it's rescheduled for this Sunday. MR and I tried to find someone to pay to clean the house, but none of the housekeeping services we phoned even returned our calls. So guess what I get to do in the extremely short period of time I get to do anything but work? You guessed it: clean the house. MR is helping out a ton: he did the weekly grocery shop (usually my job) and he's done the scrubbing of the stove and counters. But there's quite a bit he can't do since he's actually allergic to cats, so yours truly will be doing the vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing of the kitchen floor, etc. It's not in terrible shape -- I clean the bathroom on a kinda daily basis to keep up, a la Flylady. But with two fluffy cats and the cooking we do, it takes a lot of work to keep up, and I haven't had any time whatsoever to put into house cleaning as of late.

Hence my resolution: figure out a way to do enough every day that the house is always media-ready, so I don't have to panic when these media appearances get sprung on me at the last minute. I am a member of the Mprize Three Hundred, but lately I haven't had the time to do much volunteering, so I feel like pitching in with these appearances is part of my duty to the cause. But still, it's stressful, and at a time like this, it's incredibly stressful. My co-workers, who are used to organizing such things, offered to do a petition, quote flyer, rally, informational picket, or march on Aubrey to protest, but I assured them that a) Aubrey is so clueless about things like housekeeping... he is very busy trying to reverse the aging process and wouldn't know a dustbunny if it bit him... that he has no idea this would stress me out b) I can do it, MR is helping, and I'll use it as an excuse to drink a beer with Aubrey after the camera crews are gone. My lawyer best friend even pointed to the amendment in the Constitution about quartering soldiers and suggested that I may have a cause of action, but I decided not to pursue it.

They wanted to do the whole CR dinner party show, but I said no way, not now, maybe later. Even if I just re-run the Sanjay Gupta CNN tilapia dinner, it's still a major production to have cameras film me in the kitchen, and I need to be actually at work almost the entire day. I am done with doing that show until I am DONE with these two campaigns!

Posted by april at April 28, 2007 4:04 AM

Comments

Posted by: Amy at April 28, 2007 3:40 AM

Posted by: Jennifer at April 28, 2007 11:18 AM

Posted by: David Gobel at April 28, 2007 5:54 PM

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