Bryan Johnson and three others explain why VO2 max predicts how long you'll live. Each unit increase buys roughly 45 days of life expectancy. People in the bottom 25th percentile face five times the mortality risk of those in the top 2%.
Short bursts of high-intensity exercise dramatically improves VO2 max. VO2 max measures how efficiently your body uses oxygen during exercise. It turns out VO2 max is one of the strongest predictors of longevity.
Improve your VO2 max, which is correlated with all sorts of important metrics related to healthspan, performance, and lifespan.
For each unit that you improve it, that is associated with a 45-day extension of life expectancy.
Higher VO2 max is consistently associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Conversely, lower VO2 max is a powerful mortality predictor. In a large exercise treadmill cohort, adults in the lowest 25th percentile had about a 5 times higher risk of all-cause mortality compared with those in the top 2%.
So if your VO2 max is 60, walking 3 miles per hour is no problem for you. If your VO2 max is 20, that's gonna feel pretty difficult. The higher your VO2 max goes, the more it seems to preserve all cause mortality.
I aim for 75 minutes of high-intensity cardio each week. Yes, that's a lot, but remember, start where you can and build over time.
