These Habits Are Literally Killing You, Says New Morbid Longevity Test
- By Rebekah Harding
- October 30, 2023
30-Second Takeaway
Longevity calculators use questions about your lifestyle and health habits to predict how long you’ll live. A new longevity test by MDLifespan asks 38-questions, including how long you sit each day, how you handle stress, and if you take NAD+ to determine your lifespan.
Knowing when you’ll die is one of those questions that’s probably better left unanswered. But for those of us that are obsessed with longevity (or can’t fight off the morbid curiosity), lifespan calculators can give a rough estimate of what your current lifestyle will amount to.
In April, my first tango with a lifespan calculator told me I’d only last a measly 86 years (just above the United States average).
Since then, I’ve signed up for nearly daily group fitness classes, improved my VO2 max, tracked my macros, optimized my sleep schedule, and rarely drink. And I’ve had not one—but two—preventative health exams.
When I heard about a new, morbid longevity test, I was confident that my score had skyrocketed. Spoiler: that didn’t happen.
MDLifespan’s Morbid Longevity Test
Integrative medicine physician and longevity expert Paul Savage, M.D., created a 38-question longevity test through his company, MDLifespan, that gets into the nitty-gritty of what could be axing your lifespan. Compared to other lifespan calculators, this quiz is a bit more in-depth.
Beyond the usual prying into your health habits—like how often you exercise, how many calories you eat in a day, and how much sleep you get each night—MDLifespan’s longevity test asks questions like:
- Do you sit continuously for more than 3 hours a day? (I certainly do. In fact, I’m sitting right now taking this test.)
- How often do you intermittent fast? (I tend to fast from dinner to breakfast.)
- Do you have a social life? (Yup.)
- How does stress affect you? (Badly.)
- Do you supplement with NAD? (Nope. But now I’m starting to think I should.)
The test also asks detailed questions about family medical history, like instances of heart attack, stroke, cancer, and dementia. Cancer runs in my family, so I definitely got a few longevity points knocked off my score for that.
According to the MDLifespan longevity test, I can expect to live to just 65—a whole 21 years less than my old, pre-longevity protocol results.
BOOST YOUR LONGEVITY
How I Can Boost My Lifespan, According to the Longevity Test
While you’ll have to pay MDLifespan to access a full spread of customized suggestions, I have a few good guesses as to what axed my longevity score. Here’s what science says about some of the habits I should add to my protocol—and that you should probably add to yours if your score was lower than anticipated.
Sedentary lifestyle
Since the pandemic, American workers have increased the time they spend on their behind from four to seven hours a day due to flexible remote work and limited in-person activities (1).
While lounging on the couch might feel good in the moment, staying sedentary for hours can increase your risk of depression (2), diabetes (3), obesity (4), and heart disease (5)—all of which can put a dent in your healthspan.
Sitting at your desk might also cancel out your gym sessions. Finnish researchers found that “active couch potatoes”—people who exercise 30 or more minutes per day but sit for 10 or more hours—still have elevated cholesterol, body fat, and blood sugar (6).
Keeping your sitting time under three hours a day can add two years to your life, according to a 2012 study (7). Per a redo of the longevity test where I sat less than three hours a day, my lifespan would go up to 79 years if I can get off my bum.
If you can’t up your gym time, investing in a standing desk will still get you off your backside.
Stress management
More than a quarter of American adults say that they’re so stressed that they can’t function most days, according to the American Psychological Association.
Leaving stress unchecked can shear off almost three years from your life expectancy, according to research in BMJ Open journal (8). (That’s one reason I’m working on replacing my current stress management strategy—doom scrolling on social media—with therapy.)
In another retest, where the only response I altered was that I manage my stress well instead of letting myself spiral, my lifespan went from 65 to 74 years.
NAD+ supplements
NAD+ is a coenzyme that your body naturally makes to turn food into energy and regulate other cellular functions. As you age, your NAD+ levels naturally dip, which can lead to lifespan-reducing conditions like diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and cancer (9).
Emerging research shows that supplementing with NAD+ may stave off or reverse signs of aging and delay disease progression (9).
According to the longevity test, taking NAD+ would increase my life expectancy.
It should be. NAD+ may boost energy, increase lifespan, help with weight loss and improve brain function. Now available through Hone.
However, in an interview with the New York Post, Savage notes that his longevity test probably isn’t completely accurate—and it’s not supposed to be.
“The accuracy of My Longevity Score is difficult to determine, but that is not the purpose of the score,” he told the New York Post. Instead, he says that results should be used for “early detection, targeted prevention, and intervention.”
This makes me feel slightly better about the test saying I’ll only live to 65. Slightly.
References
1. Preparation H/Kelton (2019). The State of Sitting Survey.
2. Teychenne, et al (2015). The association between sedentary behavior and risk of anxiety: a systematic review.
3. Thorpe, et al (2014). Alternating bouts of sitting and standing attenuate postprandial glucose responses.
4. Biswas, et al (2015). Sedentary time and its association with risk for disease incidence, mortality, and hospitalization in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
5. Shiroma, et al (2010). Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health.
6. Farrahi, et al (2022). Joint Profiles of Sedentary Time and Physical Activity in Adults and Their Associations with Cardiometabolic Health.
7. Lee, et al (2012). Sedentary behaviour and life expectancy in the USA: a cause-deleted life table analysis
8. Härkänen, et al (2020). Estimating expected life-years and risk factor associations with mortality in Finland: cohort study.
9. Aman, et al (2018). Therapeutic potential of boosting NAD+ in aging and age-related diseases.
