Sloth = Health

Whaaaaat?

Can there really be anti-aging and longevity benefits to indolence, inactivity and torpor?

What about all that extraordinary, highly credible evidence to the contrary? I’ve written extensively about the powerful and salubrious effects of physical (and mental and creative) activity. Exercise is “the only anti-aging regimen that actually works,” concluded the ground-breaking MacArthur Foundation Study of Successful Aging. “There is not single thing that will increase vitality at any age other than exercise,” said the renown scientists who head the USDA Human Nutrition Center on Aging at Tufts.

So this new study from Duke University is a shocker.

Okay, the research subjects were fat-tailed dwarf lemurs. But before you dismiss the results, you might want to keep this in mind: Lemurs are more closely related to humans than mice. And we jump on mice studies ALL the time. Case in point: resveratrol.

So about those lemurs. Smaller species almost always live much shorter lives than larger ones. Humans can live to 120. Lab mice don’t live much beyond their 3rd birthday. Now consider Jonas, a hamster-sized lemur, who died a few months ago just short of his 30th birthday. Yes, 3-0.

How did he do it? How did he (and his fat-tailed lemur compadres) live so long? And…more importantly, live such extraordinarily healthy lives? (Jonas’ clan staved off cataracts, apparently a big thing in lemur circles, and enjoyed more than double the number of reproductive years.)

The answer, my friends, is torpor. These long-lived, uber-healthy lemurs spend half a year (in the wild) and three months (in captivity) hibernating. Hibernating dwarf lemurs can reduce their heart rate from 200 to 8 beats per minute. Metabolism slows, breathing slows, and the animals’ internal thermostat shuts down.

Duke researchers think that torpor boosts health and increases longevity by protecting cells against the buildup of oxidative damage that is a normal by-product of breathing and metabolism.

“If your body is not ‘working full time’ metabolically-speaking, you will age more slowly and live longer,” said study co-author Marina Blanco.

The couch is calling my name.