Bonnie Erbe: Long life not so big a deal

After all, what have Thanksgiving and Christmas become, apart from mammoth excuses to gorge ourselves in the company of family and close friends? I, for one, don't mind our societal obsession with food. To be painfully frank, I indulge more than I should. But what I do find counterintuitive and omnipresent is our societal obsession with long life and longevity's relationship to food.

A recent headline in the New York Times: "Food for Holiday Thought: Eat Less, Live to 140?" Quite apart from the fact I have no desire to live anywhere near that long, the story goes on to recount the tale of a life-long dieter whose "quest" is to reach the age of 143 (explorer Ponce de Leon who searched unsuccessfully for the Fountain of Youth would blanche at the prospect).

The gentleman, Michael A. Sherman, runs a biotech company in California and has forsaken not just junk food, but even some nutritional elements of the average American diet (yes, even "average" people do consume some healthy food) for the likes of flaxseed, brewer's yeast and sprouts. He has parsed his daily caloric intake to less than 1,500 calories, not to lose weight for the sake of losing weight, but in the gossamer hope of extending his lifespan to unseemly proportions.

Yes, there is a subculture of (predominantly upscale) Americans who now follow an "extreme" eating regimen known as "C.R.," the acronym for Calorie Restriction. They diet not to lose weight like the rest of us poor fools, but in the belief that C.R. is the Fountain of Youth Ponce De Leon failed to uncover.

Well I'm here to say, living long "ain't all that." It's time to launch a new societal obsession and to change goals. Instead of turning life into a contest (i.e., whoever is the oldest person to turn out the lights, wins) we should strive to live reasonably long but healthy lifestyles. Gone should be the goal of living to age 100 and beyond. Instead we should aspire to live until 80 or 85 and die healthy and self-sufficient.

I am extremely physically active. I have no desire to go out in any other fashion. In fact I find the prospect of aging into a state of dependency overwhelmingly depressing. With all due respect to the disabled (many of whom live happy, productive lives) the prospect of living beyond the point at which I become physically unable to care for all my basic needs on my own (to wit, eating, dressing, walking, driving and even remaining modestly physically active) is a prospect with "de minimis" appeal.

Of course, "life happens." People come down with diseases. They are disabled in accidents. But that is something separate and apart from modern man turning longevity into a contest with Methuselah.

Besides, there are costs to consider. It's not just the burden we become to our children, friends and other family members. There are societal costs, too. Some studies show one reason health care costs have ballooned is, it costs a lot more to keep people alive during the last years of life than when they are younger.

A Rutgers University team led by researcher Stephen Crystal, Ph.D., analyzed 1992-1996 Medicare data for some 10,000 elderly Americans. The mean annual medical expenditures (in 1996 dollars) for that group was $37,581 during the last year of life versus $7,365 for other years. That's more than a five-fold increase in an effort to stay alive, no matter what the condition or quality of life.

Nobody wants to grow old AND feeble. Of course! But the fact is for the vast majority of our oldest citizens, dependency is an unwanted, unplanned part of the package. It's an aspect of longevity we need to pay more deference to and seek to avoid.

Bonnie Erbe, TV host, writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail bonnieerbe@CompuServe.com.