>> Dr. Terry Simpson: So I have this WHOOP device on my wrist. And you

know what? When I look at what it says, my whoop

says that I'm eight years older than I actually

am. So let me ask the question that I know some of

you are asking right now. Does that mean I'm going

to die sooner? Is my little whoop device

predicting my fate? You know, on every tombstone,

there's two numbers. The year you were born and

the year you died. But the most important part of

your life isn't either number. It's the dash

between. The dash represents your life, your

health, mobility, independence, your curiosity.

And when we talk about longevity, what we really

care about isn't stretching the second number as

much as making sure those two numbers are far

apart. And the dash in between, the strong, active

and meaningful, as long as possible. What we call

healthspan. A lot of you are thinking about

improving things in the new year. Better sleep,

more movement, less stress, fewer bad habits. And

if you're like many people, you might be thinking

about buying one of the many devices that promise

to monitor you, score you, rank you, and tell you

how you're doing, and maybe motivate you to game

the system and push along to a better you. So,

full disclosure, I'm a nerd. I have several of

these devices. I wear a whoop, which, by the way,

isn't actually a watch. It doesn't tell time, but

it does tell how hard I've been living. I also use

a Withings watch, which tells a very different

approach. And when one of these devices tells you

that your biologic age is older than your calendar

age, it's easy to panic. It feels like someone

just etched a new date on your tombstone. But

here's the truth. Your wearable is not carving

anything in granite. It's giving you feedback, not

fate. Today on 4Q, we're going to make sense of

the madness of biologic age, what these numbers

really mean and what they absolutely do not mean,

and how to use them to improve your life. Right

now, instead of worrying about the date on a

tombstone you haven't earned yet. M, I am, um,

your Chief Medical Explanationist, Dr. Terry

Simpson, and this is. This is Fork U. Fork

University, where we bust myths, make sense of the

madness of biologic age, and teach you a little

bit about food and medicine. Let's start with the

obvious. Biologic age is not a prophecy. It is not

a countdown clock, and it's definitely not the

date you're going to die. And it's also not like

telomeres that we talked about in a previous

episode. This is not time unraveling one

chromosome at a time. No DNA caps are shortening

in real time because of what your watch or WHOOP

says about you. Biologic age is a model, an

estimate built from physiologic signals like

resting heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep

duration and consistency, activity and recovery

patterns, and sometimes weight or blood pressure.

Different devices measure different things. Then

they average them into a number or a model. And

that number reflects how your body is functioning

recently, not where you're headed or how long you

live. Think of biologic age like a check engine

light, not like a crystal ball. Why does WHOOP say

that I'm older? And here's a little trick. So

WHOOP leans heavily on heart rate variability,

recovery timing, strain, sleep debt. So if you've

traveled, slept, uh, poorly, trained hard, been

stressed, or had alcohol, your biologic age goes

up. In my case, it doesn't mean that I aged eight

years or I don't look good for my age or look

really good for my age. It just means that my body

was under load when it was checked. Oh, here's a

little trick that I did for myself. If you don't

like what WHOOP says about your age, lie. Lie to

whoop. Tell your whoop you're younger than you

actually are and guess what happens. All of a

sudden your whoop biologic age is younger than

your real age. That tells you everything you need

to know. Whoop isn't measuring where you're going

to end up. I'm telling you how that this is a, uh,

relative to the age you are told you are. It's

feedback. It's not destiny. It's telling you how

you are doing relative to what age you tell WHOOP

you are. You may doing poorly, you may doing

better, but if you say you're 70 years old and you

have party hardy and you're 30 years old, guess

what? Who's going to say your biologic age might

be 80? If you say you're 20, it might say your

biologic age is 30. It's just giving you a number.

It's a model. And like the old person used to say,

all models are flawed and some are useful. Now why

do I prefer withings?

Let's talk about withings. And no, withings didn't

pay me to say this. And they're not sponsoring me.

No affiliate code, no kickback. But here's why. I

like their approach better. And I have the

withings ecosystem. I have their blood pressure

cuff, I have their Watch. Which is lovely, by the

way. You know, I've talked about this before, but

Withings doesn't try to scare you with a single

age number. They don't imply fate. They don't

whisper about your funeral. They focus on things

that actually improve your life today. The trends

in blood pressure, the weight and body

composition, your heart rhythm, sleep duration,

consistency over time. They simply ask, in my

opinion, better questions, like, are you sleeping

better? Is your blood pressure improving? Are your

habits trending in the right direction? It's

medicine. It's not numerology. Telomeres,

epigenetics, and wearables. Earlier in the

longevity series, we talked about telomeres. These

are these little egglets on chromosomes that

shorten slowly over decades. Unless you have

certain diseases, wearables do not measure the

length of the telomere. Now, some blood tests

measure epigenic clocks, which are more stable but

still imperfect. Wearables measure physiology and

behavior. And your diary gives them even more

information. They're snapshots. They're not

archives. They're weather reports. They're not

climate change. Now, here's the biggest mistake a

lot of people make. They treat biologic age like a

grade or a score or a moral judgment. They feel

virtuous when it's low, and they panic when it's

high. That's the wrong frame. The only question

that matters is, are you moving in the right

direction over time?

Now, uh, as the New Year comes in, let's talk

about some New Year's resolutions that actually

improve healthspan. Here's the things for New

Year's resolutions. I'd like you to think about

focusing on this year. Sleeping better and more

consistently, building and maintaining muscle,

moving daily, eating better Mediterranean style,

enjoying friends and community, and lowering

stress where you can. Those are things that

actually extend your health span, the quality of

the years you have. Here's my takeaway. My goal

for this year is to improve those things that will

help my health span. I want to sleep better. I

want to do all of those things. That's where

biologic numbers improve on their own. Your watch,

your wearable, is not your destiny. Your

chronologic age may or may not be fixed. I don't

know. It may be your time to be or die. I can't go

into that. But I can tell you that healthspan is

absolutely controlled by your life's battle. Uh,

and when you see that Woohp says you're eight

years older. That's not a sentence, that's

feedback. Use it as such. This episode was written

and directed by me, Dr. Terri Simpson. And while I

am a doctor, I am not your doctor. And this is

purely for educational information. If you're

going to start making changes and want to make

changes in your life, please see your board

certified physician. Maybe talk with a registered

dietitian and a certified personal trainer. And if

you're thinking about making more sense of madness

of longevity, know that we are considering having

a cruise the second week of August in the

Mediterranean to talk about longevity and have

some great speakers there and presentations and

wonderful shore excursions. You learn about

longevity from the real science of it, not from

the woo. If you like the series, please subscribe

to Fork you wherever you listen to your podcasts.

All things audio were done by my friends at

Simpler Media and the pod got himself Mr. Evo

Terra. Thank you everybody. Have a great week. And

don't worry about that age number. Age is just a

number. In my case, it's a big number. To evil.

You know, my biologic age keeps drifting down, but

my actual age keeps going up. I guess I'll take

that as a trade. It turns out the secret to

longevity isn't beating time. It's treating your

body well enough that time doesn't beat you up. Of

course, some people treat their body like a

temple. Uh, I probably treated mine more more like

a tent. Yeah, I hear you there. Mine is more like

the Temple of Doom. Happy Holidays, my friend.