Dr. Karl Pillemer

If I enjoy these things so much, if I die at 69 rather than 78, who cares?

What America's elders know is you will not just die at 69.

Medical science is going to keep you alive.

in a state of incredibly burdensome chronic disease for one or two decades.

So your worry isn't dying, they say.

Don't worry about dying.

Worry about chronic illness.

And we know now from increasingly powerful research what you do in your 30s and 40s and 50s

can be more important than what you do in your 60s and 70s.

So these sort of heart-healthy, chronic disease prevention lifestyles in midlife are really critical.

So one of the main messages that they want to say is anytime you hear yourself saying, you know, I don't really care about this unhealthy habit.

You don't really need to live that long.

That's not your worry.

You know, your worry, you aren't going to live unhealthily and then drop dead, right?

You're going to be burdened with chronic disease.

And when you see it in lots and lots of older people and hear them talk about it, many of them are so regretful that they couldn't stop their spouse from smoking.

They couldn't get someone to become more healthy.

And it sort of ruined not just one year, but a decade or two of life because you will be kept alive forever.

in a state of very burdensome chronic disease.

So I've tried to argue over and over.