By Eric Verdin, MD, President & CEO, Buck Institute
Still in my biking gear, I had just finished up a 20-mile ride when I got the word – I was going to be a grandfather. The cognitive dissonance wasn’t lost on me. I thought back to when my son Regis – the now deliriously happy father-to-be – was born. My dad, 60 at the time, looked like what I envisioned a grandpa was supposed to look and act like: a bit overweight, sedentary, and well, slow. That wasn’t me! The juxtaposition in my mind got me thinking about how starkly different my father’s 60s were than mine are now, and how I got here.
Nobody wants to get old, but as they say, it is a privilege not afforded everyone, my father included. My dad suffered his first heart attack at age 57, followed by a heart bypass, another heart attack, bladder cancer, and finally lung cancer, which took him away from us too early at age 77. What my father experienced in the later years of his life are unfortunately not the exception but the rule for many of us. During the last 150 years, humanity has gained many extra years; in fact, our life expectancy has doubled globally, from around 31 years in the mid-19th century to over 70 years today. However, this longer life is most often accompanied by a slew of diseases, the chronic diseases of aging: heart attacks, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, osteoporosis, macular degeneration, and type 2 diabetes. These diseases degrade the quality of our lives during our later years and are imposing an increasing financial burden on our already strained social security and healthcare systems worldwide.
I was determined not to share my father’s fate. I wish I could say that I have followed great habits my whole life, but well, I was young once too. I did smoke in my 20s and, having grown up in Belgium, have more than occasionally overindulged in chocolate, beer, and French fries! I’m sure we’ve all done some things we wish we hadn’t. The good news is, it is never too late to adopt a healthy lifestyle. You can influence both your lifespan – how long you live – and, more importantly, your healthspan, your healthy years of life. This distinction is critical. I give talks all over the world, and I love to ask my audiences for a show of hands to the question, "How many of you would like to live to be 120?" There are typically only a few hands that go up. Then I ask, "How many of you would like to live to be 120 if you could retain the same mental and physical abilities that you had in your 40s and 50s?" Suddenly, all the hands in the room shoot up.
The Science of Healthspan: Beyond Longevity
There may not be a sure-fire way of hitting 120, but there are concrete steps that scientific studies, carefully controlled and validated, show can increase healthspan by 10 to 15 years. In fact, most of us could expect to live to 90-95 in good health once "optimized." This is not a distant dream; it is an achievable reality grounded in robust scientific inquiry. I will be outlining some critical steps to reach this goal in this column in the months to come. Since I follow them, I can tell you from experience you won’t miss any of the bad habits because you will feel so much better. Need more inspiration? You don’t have to swear off that glass of wine you enjoy with friends or the occasional rich dessert. There’s an old joke about the man who lived a life totally focused on maximizing longevity to the exclusion of everything else. It was said that he wouldn’t live forever, but it would surely seem that way. That’s not what I’m aiming for here.
I am delighted to share the incredibly exciting field of research on aging with you. For now, I will leave you with two bits of good news. First, your longevity is primarily in your control. Research shows that genetics are far from destiny; in fact, only about 7% of our aging journey can be attributed to genetics. A full 93% of how we age is determined by lifestyle factors like diet, sleep, stress, physical activity, social engagement, and mental stimulation. This empowering statistic underscores the profound impact of our daily choices. Second, we live in a region that, by many measures, already embodies aspects of healthy living. Marin County, with its natural beauty, emphasis on outdoor activities, and a generally health-conscious populace, offers a conducive environment for healthy aging. This county is also home to the Buck Institute, the largest independent scientific research institute in the Bay Area and the first institute in the world to focus solely on the biology of aging.
A Personal Journey into Aging Research
My own scientific career began with a focus on metabolism and diabetes at Harvard Medical School. I spent many years studying mechanisms of epigenetic regulation – more about this in a future column! – first on the East Coast at the NIH and the Picower Institute in New York, and then here in the Bay Area at the Gladstone Institutes and UCSF. It was there that my work led to a fascination with aging and its underlying mechanisms. When I was offered the chance to lead the Buck Institute in 2016, I jumped at the opportunity.
When the Buck Institute opened its doors in 1999, research on aging had just undergone a dramatic transition. The discovery of unique biochemical pathways that controlled the aging process highlighted the possibility that aging could one day be modulated using drugs and other interventions. These predictions have been largely validated, and today, research on aging is one of the most exciting fields in all of the life sciences. The Buck Institute was clearly ahead of its time then, and this pioneering tradition continues unabated. Since our inception, the scientific understanding of aging has evolved dramatically, shifting from a fatalistic view where aging was seen as an inevitable slow decline to one where we now understand aging as a malleable process that can be altered, slowed, and perhaps even reversed.
The Geroscientific Revolution: Tackling Aging at its Root
At the Buck, we firmly believe that we can enjoy life – with sound mind and sound bodies – at 95 as we do at 45. We do not believe that growing old means growing sick. Aging is the number one risk factor for the chronic diseases of aging as described above. Up until now, we have treated these diseases as if they were independent occurrences, a process I have playfully called "whack-a-mole medicine": successfully treat someone’s cancer, only for them to suffer a heart attack, or get someone’s diabetes under control, only for them to face the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.
The so-called "geroscience hypothesis" – initially proposed by Buck scientists – suggests that by targeting the biological processes of aging itself, we might be able to delay the onset of many age-related diseases simultaneously. In simpler terms, if we focus on slowing down the biological clock of aging, we might prevent not just one, but a multitude of aging-related issues at once. This paradigm shift represents a monumental leap forward in how we approach health and disease in later life. It moves beyond managing individual symptoms to addressing the fundamental drivers of decline. It is no wonder I look forward to coming to work every day!
By the way, my grandson Niall turned one this past February and is now walking. I can hardly wait to get him a bike in a few years. We’ll see if he can keep up with me!
This is the first of CEO Eric Verdin’s monthly "Science For You" columns in Marin Magazine. You can read these columns first by subscribing to the magazine at https://marinmagazine.com/subscribe-to-marin-magazine/
