Data exists to show that we are living longer now than in past years. Data from NIH shows that males in the United States live substantially longer now than in the early 1900s.

This paragraph is taken from the article at this link:

Perhaps the greatest human accomplishment of the past century was the remarkable increase in life expectancy. In a century the world changed markedly from having almost no countries with a life expectancy of more than 50 years to having many countries with a life expectancy of 80 years as life expectancy almost doubled in the long-lived part of the world. As an example, in the United States life expectancy at birth over the 110 years from 1900 to 2010 went from 47.3 to 78.7 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Center for Health Statistics [CDC/NCHS], 2012, 2013). At first, this increasing length of life resulted from declines in infectious disease and deaths concentrated among the young. After most deaths from infectious conditions were eliminated, cardiovascular conditions and cancer dominated the causes of death. These then became the targets of science and medicine in the second half of the last century.

Longevity is important not because I want to live an extremely long life, but because I want to have a higher quality life in the years I have left. Rather than having a slow decline in health, I would prefer to have better health for a longer time and then see more of a rapid decline when the end is near. As a result of this interest, I have ramped up my health efforts in many areas including watching what I eat, abstaining from the use of alcohol in almost all situations, and also spending more time being active as well as working on my mental health and mindset.

Resources I am using include materials from Peter Attia, Venki Ramakrishnan, and Michael Pollan. The links on each name will give you more insight into their focus.

Today is the 65th anniversary of my ride around the sun. I am not sure how many future orbits I will have, but I intend to have the best health possible on each of those trips.

What are you doing to improve and increase your longevity?

Much of my work with business leaders in Vistage focuses on executive health. If you lead others and lead a business, you too should be focusing on your own longevity. The purpose is not to live forever, but to be avaiaable when needed in order to help others as the firm grows and transitions.