Three Not-So-Bad Things on Aging and Longevity
A Weekly Newsletter
There’s no denying it: we are constantly bombarded with bad news. A pandemic, climate change, inflation, war, political discord—the list goes on. Here at the Longevity Project, we understand that bad news can be enough to take years off your life, so we want to do our part (however small) to balance the scales.
At the end of the day, though, we’re realists. Good news is hard to come by, no matter how hard you look. So we’ll aim a little lower and without further ado, we are pleased to share our first weekly newsletter: Three Not-So-Bad Things on Longevity and Aging. Feel free to share with others and send us items you want to see included. With some luck, you will see this newsletter (and some more not so bad news) every Wednesday.
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december 3, 2026
1. All in All, I'd Rather Be in Duluth.
We often underestimate the impact of place and environmental factors on our health, to our own peril. Extreme heat, for instance, has been associated with heart disease, pulmonary and respiratory illness, accelerated biological aging, and now epilepsy among older adults.
A new study has mapped epilepsy diagnoses among traditional Medicare enrollees 65+ and discovered a clear “epilepsy belt” across the South - especially Louisiana, Eastern Texas, and Central Oklahoma - with rates more than ten times higher than in parts of the Midwest and Northeast. The pattern mirrors the better-known “stroke belt,” which makes sense since stroke is a leading cause of epilepsy in older adults.
Among the root causes: sleep and heat. Counties where more adults slept fewer than seven hours a night had significantly higher epilepsy rates, and places experiencing more frequent 95°F-plus heat days showed the same. Both poor sleep and extreme heat can disrupt cardiovascular health, raise stroke risk, and worsen chronic conditions that contribute to epilepsy later in life.
In places like Tyler, Texas, which had almost 100 days of 95+ heat in 2023, this argues for greater investment in public cooling centers and early warning systems for immediate relief, while also making structural changes like increasing green spaces, using reflective building materials, and improving urban design to reduce the urban heat island effect.
Things Would Also Definitely Be Better in Nantucket (Shameless Self-Promotion #1).
Not because of the weather there, though temperatures rarely climb above 80 degrees, but because it is the heart of American poetry, at least a certain genre of poetry. And we imagine that people in Nantucket are healthier as a result.
That’s because research over the last few years has linked poetry with overall well-being by enhancing cognitive function, emotional expression, and social bonds. According to a 2022 study, reading or reciting poems stimulates the brain and improves memory and concentration through rhythm and rhyme.
You don’t have to be Emily Dickinson to get cognitive and health benefits. Simply listening, engaging, and thinking about poetry has been shown to have positive health attributes. And as good luck would have it, today’s new episode of the Century Lives podcast features Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States, and author of the new book Dog Show, which chronicles his life with dogs. So many fun poems, so many good stories to share. Listen here.
2. We're Not Sure What the Weather is Like in Cheongju.
But if it is like the rest of South Korea, it can get pretty hot and sticky in the summer. Which makes waiting for the bus pretty unpleasant – even dangerous in a super-aged society like Korea.
That’s one reason why Cheongju, a city of some 850,000 people in central Korea, is reinventing public transit for an aging population by replacing underused fixed-route buses with small on-demand “Call Buses.” The breakthrough wasn’t the vehicles; it was the Call Button - a simple device installed at bus shelters and senior centers. With one press, older riders reach a live dispatcher and get an immediate arrival time, removing the barriers created by smartphone-only systems.
The impact has been dramatic. Average waits dropped from more than an hour to about 10 minutes. Ridership rose over 50%, and seniors - many of whom had stopped using transit altogether - quickly became the system’s core users. The city has expanded the fleet as demand surged, suggesting that this experiment may be able to scale with increased ridership.
3. But We Will Avoid San Francisco, At Least For the Moment.
That’s because we fear that we would bump into Bryan Johnson, who is trying to work out some things in his life. This past weekend, Johnson entertained a live digital audience with a real-time display of the impact of five grams of magic mushrooms on healthy aging, or at least his healthy aging. This was the second of three such experiments with Johnson measuring his body before and after each session so that we all might know whether mushrooms could prevent aging.
During the event, Johnson was feted as a “one-man FDA” - perhaps a less notable accolade than a year ago, but still formidable praise, nonetheless. We’re impressed with the showmanship of it all – 800,000 people showed up for the livestream – but color us skeptical on the scientific value of a single person, anecdotal exercise. It’s too bad, because psilocybin — the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms” — is currently being studied for its potential therapeutic benefits, especially for mental and behavioral health conditions. The FDA (the real one) has even given psilocybin “breakthrough therapy” status for treatment-resistant depression, which fast-tracks research and review, though psilocybin, as of this writing, is not approved by the FDA for general medical use.
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