I hope the attachment is along the lines of what you may be interested in.
Kind regards,
Ian -- ianclements@hotmail.com
--
Ian,
Wonderful to have your submission!
I'll pass this along to the editing team, and we'll
be in touch over the coming months.
Let me know if there's anything I can do for you.
Bruce Klein
Chairman, ImmInst.org
Graphs and Final Version of Article...
found in attached documents...
Male Aerobic Fitness and Longevity
Ian Clements
This paper develops a measurable predictor of male longevity, based on aerobic fitness, which I have been using for many years now. In the absence of anything similar, and accepting the many caveats that are associated with this approach, I thought it might be useful to share this work with others. It may stimulate a better model. But whether or not it does so, I firmly believe that the underlying basis of this idea is sound. There are all too few measurable markers to enable us to know how we’re doing in moving the age of death ever later. I think this is one, to add to such as insulin & homocysteine levels: that of a numerical analysis of aerobic fitness. I am developing a similar model for females.
Aerobic fitness, as indicated by the 12’ jog test developed by Dr Cooper , is a measure of cardio-vascular health. As such, it can be considered similar to looking before you cross the road – an advisable precautionary principle to ensure you are still around to make the most of whatever longevity factors are available now and in the otherwise non-existent future.
Cardio-vascular illnesses are the cause of over 50% of modern Western culture’s death rate. Aerobic fitness seems to be a prophylactic for this . So, increasing one’s aerobic fitness helps to ensure that one’s ‘normal’ lifespan is achieved. There is, as yet, no evidence that it otherwise prolongs life in the way that calorie restriction does.
However, if we make the following assumptions, then enhanced longevity may be achievable by this activity:
1. aerobic fitness enhances cardio-vascular health
2. enhanced cardio-vascular health pushes back the day when the cardio-vascular system fails (causing death)
3. that aerobic fitness is measured by how far a person can run in 12’
4. that the average life span is when the average person dies
5. that the aerobic fitness at this time is that of a person who is rated as poor
6. that this rating represents when the average male will have a 50% chance of dieing due to cardio-vascular failure and is hence due to poor aerobic fitness
7. that the more a person can keep their aerobic fitness above this level, the longer they can probably avoid cardio-vascular failure.
Abide with me as I develop my thesis, a step at a time, that if an individual enhances his or her aerobic fitness they will live longer and have a quantifiable indicator of how much longer.
Using my interpolated figures from such sources as Dr Cooper’s tables, assumptions such as a newborn can run zero kilometres, and supported by data for Austria and other USA studies, the argument is made using the following graphs:
First, the raw data for someone of poor aerobic fitness, age in years versus kilometres runnable:
Next, add in the zero point and a trend line polynomial:
A fourth power polynomial was used as it gave the best intuitive fit (5th & 6th powers give a better/higher correlation coefficient, R2, but unrealistic future predictions of infinite life; lower powers gave worse fit and coefficients). With an average life expectance of about 72, then at this age a man would be able to run/walk about 820 metres. This can be taken as indicating that a man who could only do that distance in that time has a 50% chance of cardio-vascular failure.
I am not too happy with the above formula, as the trend line dips too drastically and the fit with the points could be better for the last four. So just using those, the following graph is evolved:
You will note the much better fit of the trend line (perfect; correlation coefficient of 1.0) and, to my mind, a more realistic indicator of the amount of distance possible in 12’ by such a male – about 1.25km or just under 0.8 of a mile.
So what? Well, if the average male can delay the age at which he is reduced to being able to only do 1.25km, then, on average, they will live that much longer, on average.
I now make the leap from the average to the individual. For whom there will be many threats to his existence, of which cardio-vascular failure is but one – albeit the dominant one, making up over 50%. My contention is that by keeping your aerobic fitness such that you can continuously exceed 1.25km in 12’, you will ward of cardio-vascular problems. Additionally, as you will probably know, you will enhance your immune system, sense of general well-being, and ability to deal with physical problems. Plus you will have more life left to be around for the other developing longevity factors to be incorporated.
Continuing these assumptions, and noting that there is increasingly supportive evidence, I have developed this model further – to give an estimate of probable age of death by using the measure of how far you can run, jog or walk in 12 minutes. This is a great motivating factor to keep me jogging. This applies especially when I haven’t done any for a while but then, upon doing a test, I find the model indicates a much nearer end time than I like (to be honest, any end time is unwanted, but later is better than sooner). This is done in a simple a way, by initially plotting the figures for people with higher levels of aerobic fitness and seeing where the extrapolated (from the final four data points) trend line reaches the 1.25km level.
So the model predicts that such a superiorly fit male will be at the same point as Mr. Average at about 94 instead of 72 – a likely extra 22 years.
For actual computations, the generated trend formulae are used:
Distance = y = -2.6822E-06x3 - 1.7278E-15x2 + 4.8951E-03x + 1.9393
This gives the reference distance of a poorly fit person at age x.
A ‘Fitness Quotient’ can be generated, the ratio of the distance you can run to that generated by the above formula.
Of particular interest is to plot one’s aerobic fitness, as measured by how far one can run in 12’, over time – and then generate a trend line from this to predict likely ability in the years ahead. This gives a visualisation, allowing easy comparison with the base-line minimum (of 1.25km) – where your trend line meets this is what may be thought of as a warning sign. Overall, your trend line would be a reflection of your commitment to such an activity and can help motivate you to keep up your fitness.
End Notes
Attached Files
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Aerobic_Fitness_and_Longevity.doc 91.5KB
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