The Importance Of Distinguishing Between Chronological Age And Physiological Age

About a month ago, we mentioned that Dan Levitin's new book, Successful Aging was about to be released. And now it is-- and #2 on the best seller list. This week he did an OpEd for the Wall Street Journal, A neuroscientist says these are the ideal ages for the optimal presidential ticket. "To a scientist or medical doctor," he told me today, "your chronological age is just a number that doesn’t reflect your health. There are 35 year olds with health problems that will vastly increase their risk of death before 40, and there are 80 year olds whose brains and bodies are perfectly fit. What’s important is not chronological age, but biological age, stress load, and overall mental and physical fitness. While it is true that 80 year olds are slower at tasks than most 35 year olds, speed isn’t everything, and not always a good indicator of overall health and potential for long and effective life."

Trump and Biden are clearly senile-- or at least rapidly approaching that state-- and unfit for the presidency. Bernie is older than either and fit as a fiddle and likely to be the best president since FDR. Mayo Pete and Tulsi are relatively young but the idea that either of them would make a decent president is patently absurd. Neither is likely to improve with age either. Bloomberg turned 78 last year and if you watched his debate performance Wednesday night, you could see he's even more unprepared for the presidency than Biden. None of that is a conclusion a scientist like Levitin would jump to but read between the lines of his OpEd and see if you can figure out who he's voting for on Super Tuesday.

One year shy of the constitutional age limit to be president of the U.S., at age 34, Finland’s Sanna Marin is the world’s youngest sitting prime minister. New Zealand’s Jacina Ardern is 39, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele is 38, and Ukraine’s Oleksiy Honcharuk is only 35.

On the world stage of both politics and activism, youth seems to be having a moment. Malala Yousafzai is a leading advocate for the education of women and girls at 22. A group of high school students is leading the charge for gun-law reform in the U.S. And the world’s most recognizable climate activist is 17-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden.

Presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard are both 38, and vying to be the next politicians in their 30s taking on leadership roles. At the other end of the spectrum, Elizabeth Warren is 70. Donald Trump is 73. Joe Biden is 77. Bernie Sanders is 78. These candidates bracket the age range of presidential hopefuls. As a neuroscientist, people have been asking me “how old is too old to be president?”

Aging researchers (those who study aging, not those who are necessarily themselves old!) distinguish between chronological age and physiological age. Chronological age is simply how long you’ve lived. Physiological age is a subtler concept that reflects the various life events, stressors and illnesses you may have had.

We all know of older adults who hardly seem to show the effects of aging (like Jane Fonda, 82, Jane Goodall, 85, or George Shultz, 99), and others whose bodies seem to give out in their 50s or 60s (like John Ritter and Nell Carter, both of whom died of heart failure at 54). Chronological age can be misleading.

Take President Kennedy, who suffered from Addison’s disease, and served from age 43 to 46. Kennedy was in pain nearly every day of his presidency, and during the first six months alone, Kennedy suffered stomach, colon and prostate problems, spastic colitis, high fevers, dehydration, abscesses, sleeplessness and high cholesterol (above 300).

During his short term he took testosterone, high doses of antibiotics, hydrocortisone, antispasmotics, barbiturates, amphetamines, antihistamines, procaine for back pain and an anti-psychotic (although only for a few days). It would be reasonable to assume that he missed a large number of work days, and that he lacked the “vigah” that his image projected.

Woodrow Wilson had a stroke in 1919 at the relatively young age of 63, and he remained incapacitated for the final years of his presidency. The presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was famously plagued by missed days due to illness. While in office, Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack (at age 62), developed Crohn’s disease and suffered a stroke. So, clearly, chronological age is not the whole story.

Today, we tend to embrace a societal narrative that the human brain grows and learns from birth up to a certain point (60? 65? 70?) and then begins a steep and precipitous decline. Old age, in this telling, is a time of inevitable loss of function, decay and illnesses.

But this narrative has not kept pace with medical science. From a neural standpoint, there is no reason why an older adult would not be as effective as a younger adult. We are living longer and healthier than at any time in history, and most older adults will experience improvements in certain areas.

In particular, older adults are better at pattern matching-- at seeing common threads across what younger adults might view as unrelated or disparate events. This gives older adults a better ability to predict outcomes, and to solve problems, particularly those involving interpersonal conflicts-- this is because older adults, as a group, also experience increases in compassion, tolerance and empathy. Together, these might be called wisdom.

Research in organizational behavior on the science of problem solving and productivity shows that diversity yields a competitive edge. Work groups and teams that are composed of people from diverse backgrounds-- races, ethnicities, gender, skill sets, religions and, yes, age-- are better at a range of problem-solving tasks and tend to come up with more innovative solutions.

Younger adults learn more quickly and are more willing to take risks to achieve their goals (sometimes a good thing). They’re also faster thinkers and more comfortable with new technology. Older adults often exercise better judgment, have a more nuanced sense of risk and, through their experience and enhanced pattern matching, can see analogies from previous situations that may help to solve current problems. The combination is powerful.

Don't worry, Bernie has pledged to put a woman on his ticket

This strongly suggests that the ideal presidential ticket will include an older adult and a younger adult, and a cabinet comprising age, gender, and geographic and racial diversity. Of course, our own self-interest may want us to elect someone who “thinks like us” or “looks like us,” but the best governance comes from conflicting views. In the free market of ideas, we are all better off if every idea is given a chance to compete with others, so that the best ideas win out.

How old is too old to be president? It’s not a matter of chronology-- it’s a matter of biology. Thanks to medical advances and a focus on healthy lifestyle choices, many people in their 80s and 90s have the stamina, wisdom and compassion necessary to solve some of the biggest problems that face the world today. And the best solutions will come when their perspectives are combined with the curiosity, values, digital nativism and skills of the young.

UPDATE: Alan Grayson

Before he was elected to Congress, Grayson, who had written his master's thesis on gerontology, founded the Alliance for Aging Research, where served as an officer for 22 years. The organization was instrumental in increasing federal support for aging research by 500%, leading to breakthroughs in the treatment of blindness, weak bones, Alzheimer’s disease, and other afflictions of the elderly. Grayson's gave it the motto: "Living to 100-and Loving It." IN Congress, no one worked harder for the well-being of seniors than Grayson. This afternoon he told me that "One of the great shortcomings of modern politics is the absence of reliable information about to what extent political candidates (and CEO’s, and generals) may have identifiable psychological issues and deficits that would affect job performance, whether age-related or not. (And this is true even if you are not a sociopath who writes your own medical reports, like Demented Donald.) People joke about making candidates take an IQ test, but maybe that’s not the psychological test that you really want them to take. Within a month of being in Congress, I knew several Members (and one Vice President) who had such issues, but their constituents didn’t know, and neither I nor anyone else had any incentive to inform them. In Trump’s case, the painfully obvious diagnosis (narcissistic personality disorder-- not exactly what we need in a President) received far less attention than whatever it was that the Half-Twit tweeted five minutes ago. It’s a flaw in democracy itself. As FDR demonstrated, it’s your mind that matters in that job, not your legs."