Ken Trails

“Really successful people say no to almost everything” --- Warren Buffett

I'm 63, healthier than many 30 year olds. I have never taken a steroid, a stem cell, a peptide, a hormone, or a performance drug. I train about five minutes a day. My exercise program is simple: I walk most days, then sprint in varying doses. I run until I'm gasping, maximum effort. Can't sprint yet, or don't have an air bike? Drop and do push-ups to exhaustion. Stop jogging. Just walk and sprint.

Perfect isn’t possible. Better always is. That is true in investing too. You will never have the perfect entry, perfect information, or perfect timing. The edge is getting a little better at judgment, risk, and decision making every time.

Heart disease, diabetes, and cancer risks increase dramatically with age. Visceral fat also increases with age, and this is likely responsible for much of the age-related increase in risk. Keep visceral fat low and you can avoid many age-related diseases.

“Blessed is he who cums in the name of the Lord.”

So much time and money is spent trying to live longer, but what if one of the biggest levers is a hormone most people never think about? People are paying for plasma transfusions and taking all kinds of bizarre drugs. Meanwhile, insulin gets very little attention in the longevity conversation, even though the evidence linking it to lifespan is strong. This is one of the studies that changed how I think about aging. In 2017, Templeman and colleagues published a study in Cell Reports using mice with reduced insulin gene dosage. These mice had 25 to 34% lower circulating insulin. Their IGF-1 levels did not change. In old age, they had lower fasting glucose and better insulin sensitivity. And they lived longer, on two different diets. This was in mice, but it showed that lowering insulin itself can extend lifespan. The human evidence points the same direction. In the Leiden Longevity Study, the middle-aged offspring of long-lived nonagenarian siblings had lower non-fasted glucose than their partners, with similar insulin and IGF-1 levels. When researchers measured insulin sensitivity directly, the offspring were more insulin sensitive than controls, and the more insulin sensitive they were, the longer their parents had lived. Centenarians show this too. In 1996, Paolisso and colleagues found that healthy centenarians were more insulin sensitive than people over 75, and about as insulin sensitive as adults under 50. Their insulin action was preserved. Long-lived families are typified by insulin sensitivity. If someone wants to age with a healthier metabolism, it's clear that keeping insulin low and insulin sensitivity high deserves a central place in the plan.