Peter Attia

There are some individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia where that pill that lowers their cholesterol will have an outsized benefit.

But by and large, this is why things that improve cardiorespiratory fitness or strength tend to have such an impact on mortality.

Yeah.

I think the argument here is just as strong.

Of course, the data are not quite as objective because healthspan is not as objective.

So what I might aspire to be able to do that would define good healthspan for me might not be the same as you, Nick, and it's not going to be the same as every person that is listening to us right now.

But what we do know, and I think we'll show at least one figure to that effect today,

is that VO2 max declines quite predictably with age at about 10% per decade, but the oxygen cost of doing things doesn't change.

So whether it be climbing stairs or lifting something up or chasing your kids around or playing a sport, those things don't change.

So if you have a declining capacity to deliver and utilize oxygen in the presence of constant demand, at some point those curves cross

And what that effectively means is you start losing the ability to do these things.

Again, we'll talk about this in much more detail when we get there.

But as I think a figure can represent better than what I'm saying necessarily, our objective is to be able to maintain optionality around being physical for as long as possible and

And that is tantamount to having as high a VO2 max as possible, in addition to being as strong as possible.

I talk about this cardiorespiratory fitness triangle, and I can't take credit for this at all.

It was one of my cycling coaches that came up with this.

So the idea was that you picture a triangle with a base and a peak.

And the base is what we think of as your capacity to do sustained submaximal effort over a long period of time.

So think of something you could do for hours.

And then the peak represents your maximum aerobic output.