Outlive

Today we call this cluster of problems “metabolic syndrome” (or MetSyn), and it is defined in terms of the following five criteria:

high blood pressure (>130/85)

high triglycerides (>150 mg/dL)

low HDL cholesterol (<40 mg/dL in men or <50 mg/dL in women)

central adiposity (waist circumference >40 inches in men or >35 in women)

elevated fasting glucose (>110 mg/dL)

If you meet three or more of these criteria, then you have the metabolic syndrome—along with as many as 120 million other Americans, according to a 2020 article in JAMA.

Metformin has been taken by millions of people for years. Over time, researchers noticed (and studies appeared to confirm) that patients on metformin appeared to have a lower incidence of cancer than the general population.

For the moment, though, let’s think about the fact that all of what we’ve talked about in this chapter, from mTOR and rapamycin to caloric restriction, points in one direction: that what we eat and how we metabolize it appear to play an outsize role in longevity.