AARP Identifies Markers For Being A "Super Ager": The Question Is: Would You Really Want To?

The latest (November) issue of the AARP Bulletin, has now amped up for its readers the terrific benefits of being a "Super ager":

This is an elder person who fairly well beats all the 'old age' assumptions to a pulp. In the intro, we read for example:

"A small percentage of overachievers in their 80s and 90s have the memory, thinking skills, and zest for life of people decades younger – and researchers are determined to find out how and why. What they’re finding is fascinating: a range of physical, mental and spiritual attributes that can add up to extraordinary longevity, resilience and happiness – aging as we all want it to be."

In a way it follows on from an earlier piece in February that made regular media headlines, e.g.

​​Want to live to be 100? Here’s what experts recommend

The AARP piece is loaded with terrific advice which might be of interest to anyone who aspires to also live to 100+, including six markers to live to 100 or more:  

(i) Stay active, each day. Build small exercises into every day activities from regular walking to just climbing up and down stairs to doing certain chores, e.g. vacuuming. 

(ii)  Cognitive reserve: Some brains have: "an added power that allows them to continue deep functioning despite the presence of disease or cognitive decline."  These are largely the brains of super agers.

(iii) Life achievement: "People with higher levels of education or career attainment tend to have greater cognitive reserve."  So even if you lack the genetic basis you can acquire the greater cognitive reserve with more education and career achievement.

(iv)  Prioritizing sleep: Super agers do not stay up all hours looking at screens or texting, they prioritize their sleep and get 7-9 hours each night.

(v) Lifestyle markers:  Healthy aging researchers have identified four common lifestyle habits: 

"A physically and intellectually active lifestyle.  

The willingness or ability to constantly challenge oneself.  

An active social life and a wide social network. 

Moderation in all indulgences but allowing for the occasional glass of wine, beer or savoring ice cream or dark chocolate."

 (vi) Super agers protect their vision and hearing: Both cataract surgery (for sight) and hearing aids (for hearing) "showed cognitive and memory losses from 20 to 48 percent lower" than for those who did not have such assistance.

Unmentioned is how much the medical treatments, tests etc. to preserve health advantage cost. For example, the cataract surgeries for both of us have totaled well over $25,000 which Medicare - along with our supplemental insurance -  has paid for. Meanwhile, Medicare is forecast to become insolvent in 3 years or less, given how Medicare Advantage is bleeding it dry, e.g.

Here is the Truth: Medicare Advantage Is Neither Medicare Nor an Advantage

We further learn that based on a 2022 estimate by the United Nations, there are 593,000 centenarians around the world now and "it's a fast-growing age group". The United Nations projects there will be 3.7 million centenarians alive by 2050. Complicates retirement? You better believe it.  Even if most of these high elder millions remain relatively healthy they will still have to deal with arthritis, mobility issues, and cancers that accompany old age.  They will need home care and assistance.  More critically many will need to find a way to pay for whatever support resources they need.  Get jobs and work for support? That's fantasy dreaming.

 This is relevant again as too many are being deluded into pop-eyed foolishness published in the form of bunkum in the mainstream media.  In this case how you too can live to be 100+  and have glorious life quality just like a 105 year old sprinter Ida Keeling on the cover of one Sunday's PARADE from a few years ago. 

 But let's be clear: This lady is the exception and not the rule, similar to one Orville Rogers (another centenarian) featured in a MONEY magazine issue from November, 2018, e.g.

Then noting he "retired at age 60" according to the piece, after decades in a high- paying desk job. . The authors of the piece then went on to admit retirement planners "are losing sleep" over the amount ($195k)  most 60- year olds currently have socked away.   This interjects the issue of how super elderly folks will live - if they lack a cushy pension, health care benefits and other support.    As the MONEY article registers the potential inflation:

"At just 2 percent inflation the gallon of milk that cost you $3.75 today will cost you $6.79 in 30 years."

That means  a 65 year old today will need to sock away at least $5 million in a nest egg to be able to live to at least 100 years - and that assumes only one nursing home stay (or nursing assistance at home)  of no more than 6 months.  And that is one time over the balance of her life, i.e. duration of 35 years.

How will the super elderly then maintain financial security and their implied independence until they finally shuffle this mortal coil?  These are pertinent questions given Social Security  will reduce benefits 25% by 2035 and Medicare faces insolvency by 2026 - meaning many seniors will face having to enter privatized plans. Neither of the articles in PARADE, or MONEY or an earlier one in TIME  (March, 2015)e.g.


Addresses any of these matters, choosing to nibble around the edges with impractical baloney, babble and false hope i.e. "corporations will have to change" - which is not a plan.  WHO is going to make them change? A 105 year old granny who likes to do sprints? Give me a break.

Even if these "super ager" elderly somehow managed to find a company that'd hire them to work until at least 90 or so, it's still doubtful they'd amass enough money for future self-support. Given increased health care costs-  the fastest rising aspect of the national budget  ( and no end in sight) -  most people would probably need to at least win a state lotto of ten million to be able to live to 120 without being in penury or familial dependence.  And at least $2 million to live to 100 without raiding dumpsters and eating pet food. But why don't those writers feeding you the super ager claptrap tell you any of that? Why would they? It kind of  adds a buzzkill aspect to their hype of being able to reach 100.  

TIME - in its own (2015) take- wrongly  assumes in its prologue that: "Everyone wants to live longer", but that desire comes with caveats galore for rational folks . For example, why would anyone today,  at say age 67 or 68,  want to live to even 100 when numerous "climate hells" are set to be unleashed especially as greenhouse warming hits numerous tipping points?  After all we've already beheld all -time temperature records broken this year, e.g.

The planet saw its hottest day on record this week. It’s a record that will be broken again and again 

The continuation of these heat records is projected to lead to drying up of all water reserves in the West and collapse of power grids amidst 6-month long heat waves.  Think of being trapped in a baking home - ambient temperature of 100-105F -and no a/c and possibly no water either?  Really want to live to 100 to enjoy that?

If you think the climate hiccups being experienced now - including the hottest year ever-   are a big deal, stay tuned for the first year of no seasons and ensuing heat waves lasting 90-120 days with mean temperatures 100-110F. Even before then, say by 2025-2030 we will likely see electrical blackouts over extended periods, water shutdowns (or breakdowns of decaying urban water delivery systems, since we haven't done shit to repair them) and even power grids collapsing from excess demand - with tens of millions trying to "stay cool",  keeping thermostats at 81F.

Not being said or published:  The super agers shown in the media pieces are all either independently wealthy or have external sources of income to support their lifestyles. Ida Keeling, for example, is blessed with a "real estate investor" youngest daughter who regularly infuses her bank account.  What about the oldsters who have no banker or real estate investor offspring?

We know geezers use up more expensive medical care than any other demographic, up to $500m / yr. of which $150 million is spent in the final month of  life.  Consider: In the 10 years since the last financial crisis that works out to a total of $1.5 billion spent in the final month of life.  No wonder the private version of Medicare - Medicare Advantage- features numerous plans that deny more services than they approve:

YES! Medicare Advantage Plans ARE "Insatiable Cash Monsters", Which Is Why I Avoid Them! (And You Should Too)

Welcome to the future!

Add to that the fact that aging in a rapidly warming environment is not like aging in the 1950s, 60s or even 70s. The prospect of collapsing systems across the board means soaring inflation and that many more resources will be needed by the advanced age citizen.  The climate warming environment itself translates into more frequent infections many triggered by antibiotic resistance, as well as worm-parasite infections, e.g. of human brains (mostly the poorest):

                                Brain of poor Haitian riddle with worm cysts

None of the gerontologists in the AARP Bulletin article seriously address that 'elephant' sitting in the room. Or the prospect that if you lack adequate financial support in old age you are likely to end up destitute, living in squalor and raiding dumpsters.

Fortunately,  many of us remain rationally grounded. And while "super aging" confers definite advantages - especially in crushing (or delaying) the specter of cognitive decline - it is not a panacea for living to 100 or even past it. Bottom line: Humans were never meant to live that long, and certainly not in a world already overpopulated with 8.2 billion - most of whom can't get decent living quarters or food.

See Also:

‘Aging is a disease’: Inside the drive to postpone death indefinitely

And:

Pursuing "Immortality" & Treating Aging As A "Disease": The Province of Cranks And Quacks 

And:

• Healthy Eating-Living Leads To Massive Medical Costs Later...