A new health report out today is, well, eye-opening.
In their second annual Healthy Aging Survey, U.S. News spoke to 63 experts — including medical doctors, clinical scientists, registered dietitians, fitness professionals, and aging and longevity experts — and pinpointed the biggest “blind spots” most people have about healthy aging.
They also picked which longevity tools they think are really worth it — and biohackers may not be too pleased with their verdict.
First and most importantly, the pros ranked the most effective habits for anti-aging, with consistent exercise, a good diet and high-quality sleep coming out on top.
Most people know they’re supposed to keep moving and eat healthy food — but there are some other factors in healthy aging that the experts said were “underappreciated.”
Blind spot #1: Social isolation
When asked to pick the biggest blind spots, 59% named social isolation.
“Isolation will undoubtedly lead to medical problems,” said Valter Longo, a professor at USC, Director of the USC Longevity Institute and member of the U.S. News Medical Review Board.
Loneliness has been determined by researchers to be a public health threat, with the risks well-documented for older adults especially.
“Social isolation erodes a sense of purpose and fulfillment, disturbs mental health, compounds stress, sabotages sleep and so on,” added Dr. David Katz, a board-certified specialist in internal medicine and preventive medicine/public health, who participated in the survey.
Prior research has found that socialization and strong connections play key roles in predicting a long and healthy life thanks to their stress-relieving benefits.
However, certain relationships — namely, people in life who regularly make things difficult or “create problems” — can add stress and speed up aging.
Blind spot #2: Circadian disruption
The second most underappreciated factor in aging was circadian disruption, getting 19% of the vote.
Poor sleep has also been linked to aging, with a sweet spot of 6.4 to 7.8 hours of rest per night contributing to getting better as you get older.
A disrupted circadian cycle, or constantly waking up throughout the night from insomnia, can actually increase chronological age by up to a year.
Blind spot #3: Chronic micro-stress
In third place was low-grade, unmanaged psychological stress, chose by 18% of the health experts surveyed.
Chronic stress significantly increasing the risk of dementia, weakening the immune system, causing digestive issues, increasing the chances of heart attack and stroke and more.
Longevity tools: Worth it?
Also in the survey, the experts were tasked with ranking biohacking tools for longevity. With a hefty lead, wearable health and sleep trackers like Apple Watch and Oura ring landed on top.
The other tools didn’t fare quite so well. In fact, 31% of participants picked “none of the above,” indicating that the other options “generate more health anxiety than tangible clinical benefit.”
The results certainly weren’t unanimous, though, with 26% giving the thumbs-up to intermittent fasting and 16% approving of either full-body imaging (like MRIs and DEXA scans) or wearing a continuous glucose monitor when not diabetic.
Wearing a CGM without diabetes has certainly become trendy — but experts The Post has spoken to aren’t convinced they’re worth it.
“For a non diabetic individual, a continuous glucose monitor may cause anxiety over normal glucose fluctuations,” endocrinologist Dr. Ayushi Dixit previously told the Post.
Dr. Sadie Elisseou, a general internist, said the proof just isn’t in the pudding.
“Like a lot of other wellness devices they give you tons of data, but we don’t have good evidence that wearing one actually improves long-term health outcomes in people without diabetes,” she said. “Just because we can measure something does not mean that we should and more data isn’t always better.”
