What If We Eliminated Cancer & Heart Disease?

January 12, 2009

Interview with Leonard Hayflick, author of How and Why We Age 

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Mike Carruthers:
Cancer and heart disease are the two leading causes of death. Ever wonder how much longer we'd live if they were eliminated?

Leonard Hayflick:
For cardiovascular diseases, an increase of about 11 or 12 years - if cancer were cured tomorrow morning the increase would be about 3 years.

Leonard Hayflick, Professor of Anatomy at the University of California and author of the book How and Why We Age

The question of course is what would we die of after that, after those two miracles occurred, if you will? The answer is that we would die from causes that we would probably have to invent in terms of a new vocabulary because we would die from the inexorable increase in age changes. One of the most important distinctions that has to be made is that aging is not a disease, it's a process that makes the vulnerability to diseases greater.

Although important to a healthy life, diet and exercise cannot slow the aging process, says Leonard.

In any case, what that list of good things to do for yourself does do is delay, ameliorate or eliminate causes of death. I would not for a moment advocate that we don't take care of ourselves in respect to what we do know about exercise and nutrition - but with a clear understanding that the results of doing that will not impact the aging process.
 

Complete interview is not available.