The Best Age To Retire for Longevity & Health

By the time you’re 40, you’ve probably thought about your retirement age at least a couple of times. You might wonder if you’ll ever have enough money in your retirement income, or you may look at retirement as the relief you crave from a stressful job. 

Others may view retirement with fear. If you haven’t done much retirement planning or wonder what you’ll do with your free time after retirement, you may view a pending retirement with caution. Either way, at some point, most of us will retire from our full-time jobs and enter partial retirement or full retirement. 

Interestingly, retiring at a certain age has been associated with a decreased mortality rate. We’ll discuss the findings of a study that looked at the age of retirement and compared it to life expectancy, as well as the implications for deciding on your own full retirement age. 

We’ll also talk about other ways to improve not only your lifespan but your health span (the length of time you remain healthy and able-bodied).

Is There an Ideal Retirement Age?

Most of us picture retirement at age 65. It’s when we can begin collecting Social Security Benefits, and it’s the age at which some professions require retirement (like airline pilots). 

However, research regarding the actual age at which a person retires compared to their average life expectancy suggests that delaying retirement for just one year can decrease a person’s mortality rate by 11%. That means working one additional year could pay a significant dividend into your retirement by padding it with a few more years of living. But, does this mean everyone should work past 65?

What You Should Know

Even though this study examined retirees from different socioeconomic backgrounds, job types, and health statuses, we can’t conclude that retiring a year later actually increases a person’s lifespan. To be able to establish a cause, you’d have to force study participants to retire at particular ages, which wouldn’t be ethical. 

It probably goes without saying that if you’re working a high-stress job that you don’t enjoy, retiring at age 65 may be a good thing. However, if you’re able to put off your actual retirement for a year, you could experience a positive benefit of living a longer life. 

What Aspects of the Study Were Controlled?

Interestingly, researchers who conducted this study controlled for many variables including gender, ethnicity, age, education, and marital status. The researchers even controlled for healthcare details, like whether a person smoked or used alcohol, whether they exercised, and what their total BMI was. Additional health conditions (like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease) were also considered.

Across groups of retirees who were in good health and in poor health, retiring a year later still correlated with a decreased mortality rate. For people with chronic illness or who were in poor health, retiring a year after the average age of retirement netted them a 9% decrease in their mortality rates. 

Why Does This Relationship Exist?

Researchers aren’t 100% sure why retiring a year later correlates to a decrease in mortality rates, but they have some speculations. First, it could be that working keeps your brain sharp and helps prevent cognitive decline that naturally occurs in older adults. 

Working also may provide a social outlet with colleagues and work peers that help us stay involved and connected. Social isolation is an issue that many adults will experience at an older age. 

Should You Retire a Year Later?

Whether you should personally retire as a 66-year-old rather than a 65-year-old is a multifaceted matter. Stress in your job plays a major role in whether or not you will be able to sustain an additional year on the job. 

You’ll also need to understand how retiring late changes your eligibility for Social Security distributions. If you’re working with a financial advisor, they can help you adjust your financial planning to account for working an additional year. 

Working an additional year may be a great option for people who haven’t padded their retirement accounts as much as they would’ve liked. That additional year of work could help contribute to a heftier retirement savings account and allow them to live happier, more comfortable lives once they retire. If you don’t want to pursue an early retirement to the fullest extent, you can always opt to work part-time for a year after your “official” retirement.

Bottom Line

Retiring a year later is correlated to an increase in longevity, but that doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. Your own life situation will determine what is best for you, and if the normal retirement age is your only way out of a stressful job, it may be in your best interest to retire then instead of delaying retirement. 

Whether or not you retire a year later, there are some other proactive longevity-increasing tasks you can check off your list to give yourself the best possible odds of living a longer, healthier life. 

Increasing Our Longevity: What To Do

Whether or not you want to retire early, there are some other ways to biohack the system, live a longer life, and stay healthy. The great news is that they’re relatively easy and straightforward. 

The Basics

You’ve been told for years that diet and exercise will pay dividends in your health, and that is still true. Eating a balanced diet with plenty of lean protein, fresh fruits, nutrient-dense vegetables, and complex carbohydrates is key to ensuring your body gets the nutrition it needs. In addition, staying active is continually associated with longer, healthier lives. 

Eating healthfully and remaining active are the foundations of good health, but there’s more you can do to reduce your risk of age-related health problems and live longer. 

Blue Zones: What We Can Learn

The Blue Zones are communities across the globe where residents consistently live to be over 100 years old. One of these communities, Sardinia, Italy, boasts some of the longest-living humans on the planet. 

The residents of this community are active, eat a balanced diet, and remain socially engaged, but they also have another identifiable factor that correlates to their success: they have C15:0 levels that are more than double the levels of other humans worldwide. 

Never heard of C15:0? It’s time to learn everything you need to know. This newly discovered essential fatty acid is making waves among both the scientific and biohacking communities because of its ability to support our health on a foundational level: inside our cells. 

What Is C15:0?

C15:0 is the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in over 90 years since omega-3. Essential means our bodies need it to maintain baseline health, but our bodies cannot make it, so we must get adequate amounts from our diet. 

C15:0 is an odd-chain, saturated fatty acid that is integral to keeping our cells, the building blocks of our overall health and wellness, stable and strong. Low levels of C15:0 can result in fragile cells that are prone to lipid peroxidation and early breakdown. 

This is one reason why people with lower C15:0 levels have poorer heart, liver, and metabolic health. Fragile cells begin a breakdown of health in our bodies that tumble like dominoes. In fact, being deficient in C15:0 has now been identified as a nutrient deficiency known as Cellular Fragility Syndrome. 

Cellular Fragility Syndrome

As published in the scientific journal Metabolites, low body levels of C15:0 (also called pentadecanoic acid) can result in fragile cells that accelerate cellular aging and increase the risk of developing chronic metabolic, heart, and liver conditions. This nutritional C15:0 deficiency syndrome has been named Cellular Fragility Syndrome and may be impacting as many as one in three people worldwide.

Cellular Fragility Syndrome leads to a condition known as ferroptosis, which is a type of cell death that was discovered by scientists at Columbia University in 2012. Since then, there have been over 10,000 scientific papers published on ferroptosis, which has been linked to accelerated aging, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and NAFLD, all of which have been on the rise, especially among younger adults. The cause of ferroptosis had remained a mystery.

It’s rare for nutrient deficiencies to exist among Americans or in well-developed countries, but low levels of C15:0 are found across all continents and populations. 

Are You Deficient?

To be considered deficient in C15:0, your levels must be at or lower than 0.2% of your total fatty acid count. People living in Sardinia, Italy have C15:0 levels that are closer to 0.64%, primarily because their diets consist of high C15:0 content cheeses made from local, grazing, mountainous goats. 

The average person reading this doesn’t consume foods that contain C15:0, which is found primarily in whole dairy products. After all, most of us aren’t pouring whole milk on our cereal or in our coffee. 

The only way to know for certain if you’re deficient is by ordering the fatty15 C15:0 at-home test or having your doctor perform a blood test. Additionally, you can determine the result of increasing your C15:0 levels by monitoring your complete blood count, fasting lipid panel, and liver enzymes.

C15:0 levels should be above 0.2% of your total fatty acids to prevent nutritional deficiencies and Cellular Fragility Syndrome. It’s worth noting that in blue zones (where people consistently live to be 100), C15:0 levels usually measure between 0.4% and 0.6% of total fatty acids.

Fixing Cellular Fragility Syndrome and Increasing Our Longevity

Increasing our intake of whole dairy wouldn’t be the best way to get the C15:0 we need. Drinking more whole milk or eating more whole dairy products would mean:

• Consuming more even-chain, saturated fat that is bad for us. Although whole dairy contains the C15:0 we need, it also contains the even-chain saturated fat we don’t — and a lot of it. Whole dairy contains much more even-chain saturated fat than it does C15:0, which would be a detriment to our health. 

• Packing in excess calories. Whole dairy is laden with calories and sugar (from lactose) that don’t support weight maintenance or weight loss. 

• Additional digestion. The C15:0 that is contained in whole dairy is attached to triglycerides which must be broken down before the C15:0 is free to be used by the body. This additional step makes C15:0 in whole dairy less bioavailable. 

• Involving cows. If you’re vegan (or lactose intolerant), consuming whole dairy is off the table. 

A better option? Fatty15. 

Fatty15 is the first and only C15:0 supplement that contains the pure, vegan version of this essential fatty acid. It’s just one calorie per dose, already in free fatty acid form (so no additional digestion is required), and isn’t mixed with bad even-chain saturated fats. It’s the easiest way to increase your circulating levels of C15:0 safely and effectively. 

Here’s To Your Life Span

Maybe you should retire a year later, or maybe not. Whatever you decide, taking fatty15 once per day is one the easiest and best decisions you can make to promote your health and increase your longevity. 

Along with staying active, eating healthfully, and making careful retirement plans, you can find yourself in a position to keep doing the activities you love for years to come. 

Sources:

You’re Likely to Live Longer If You Retire After 65 | Harvard Business Review

Links Between Early Retirement and Mortality | SSA.gov

Massive study uncovers how much exercise is needed to live longer | American Medical Association

Ferroptosis: an iron-dependent form of nonapoptotic cell death | PubMed

The Cellular Stability Hypothesis: Evidence of Ferroptosis and Accelerated Aging-Associated Diseases as Newly Identified Nutritional Pentadecanoic Acid (C15:0) Deficiency Syndrome