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There is an ever-growing interest in human aging and what we can do to live longer, healthier lives. Advertisements on TV and in newspapers and magazines about a wide variety of supplements and medicines tell us what we can do to increase our lifespans and healthspans as if there is some magic universal formula. But, what can we learn from nonhuman animals (animals) who live amazingly long, healthy lives and avoid what Steven Austad, a leading authority on growing old, calls the "depredations of aging?"1
Austad''s new book, Methuselah's Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us about Living Longer, Healthier Lives, clearly explains how other animals are able to live long, healthy lives, and I'm pleased he was able to answer a few questions about his remarkable and informative survey of diverse animals who are able to grow old in the wild.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Methuselah's Zoo?
I wanted others to share my appreciation of the diverse forms of exceptional longevity that nature has produced. Tortoise and tuatara longevity, for instance, is very different from bird or whale longevity. I love telling stories about animals, and long-lived animals make some of the best stories.
MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?
SA: Before I was a scientist, I trained animals for the movies. When I got into science, my original training was in evolution and ecology. I was a field biologist. It was during some field research on opossums in Venezuela that I almost accidentally became interested in aging and longevity—an interest that has stayed with me for more than 35 years.
My interest in aging took me into the laboratory, where we can study it in more detail. The book allowed me to pull the experiences and knowledge from all these areas together. So, for instance, I write about some famous movie animals in relation to how long they lived—or were reputed to live.
I also discuss the particular challenges to longevity in nature as contrasted with in the laboratory. In my chapter on the history of human longevity, I bring in some of what I experienced with the Miyanmin people in Papua New Guinea.
MB: Who is your intended audience?
SA: Anyone interested in nature, natural history, and/or aging and longevity, or who just likes a good animal story. This is not a book directed so much at other longevity researchers. Instead, it is my attempt to be something like the David Attenborough of longevity in nature—someone who awakens wonder about things in nature that are often overlooked.
MB: What are some of your major messages?
SA: Probably the main message of the book is that humans have something to learn about successful aging from other species. Aging, properly understood, is something that many species do more successfully than we do. Birds are a good example. For their size—and I make a big point about why size is important—they live three times longer than mammals. A hummingbird’s heart beats twice as many times as ours does over the course of its life. And to the very end of their lives they are still performing incredible physical feats, such as flying nonstop across the Caribbean.
If we pay attention to them we might be able to use what we learn to enhance and extend our own lives. Whales and elephants are other good examples. They have a great deal to teach us about cancer resistance and a clam that lives 500 years might teach us about preventing Alzheimer’s disease.
I also write about how we know—or think we know—how long a species can live. For species that live longer than we do, this isn’t straightforward, and you always have to be aware that age exaggeration is rife not just among the oldest humans but also among the humans who own the oldest animals. I have to admit that I was fooled for almost five years about the supposed age of a movie animal, Cheetah the Chimpanzee from the early Tarzan movies, even though I worked in the business.
MB: How does your book differ from others concerned with some of the same general topics?
SA: Most books—and there are only a couple—about the oldest animals are little more than picture books or species lists with perhaps brief descriptions of them. Mine is the only book that puts together the where, when, and how of exceptional animal longevity. That no doubt comes from my background as an evolutionary field biologist, who kicked around in the bush, so to speak, with species from spiders to primates, and always looking to find patterns.
Also, no other book focuses on what we might learn about extending human health from these exceptional animals. Ironically, all of the traditional laboratory species that the biomedical community uses are terrible failures at successful aging. But evolution is smarter than we are, so why not learn from it? We’ve done this with pharmacology, which is virtually entirely based on natural compounds or modifications of natural compounds, but we haven’t applied the same logic to understanding aging.
There also are no other books that critically evaluate what we know versus what we say we know about animal longevity. How confident should we be, for instance, that a clam can live 500 years or a shark nearly 400 years, or a whale into its 200s? I sort these things out.
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about aging they'll take a more positive attitude toward getting older and becoming senior citizens?
SA: Yes. It is easy to focus on the negative when it comes to getting older, but there are a lot of positives as well. Numerous surveys report that social and emotional well-being increase as we age as does life satisfaction. Later life used to be thought of as a time of increased wisdom, something by the way that is supported by a considerable amount of research.
In ancient Sparta, 2500 years ago, you had to be at least 60 years old to sit on the governing council. I like to remember the fitness guru, Jack LaLanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday by towing 70 rowboats a mile in the ocean just to show it could be done.
References
In conversation with the University of Alabama's Dr. Steven Austad, distinguished Professor; Department Chair, and holder of the Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research.
1) Along with figuring out how animals age, there is growing interest in how senior animals in a wide variety of species continue to make important contributions to their social groups and aren't marginalized as having outlived their usefulness. A prime example among many is the role of female elephant matriarchs who run the show in their respective herds. These female elders often serve as important repositories of knowledge, leading group members to important food sources and away from danger. From elephants to orcas, we see a combination of a long lifespan and groups consisting of multiple generations of individuals belonging to the female lineage, including post-reproductive females with extensive knowledge.
