T he average life expectancy  of Canadians today is roughly eighty years. Turtles and tortoises can live far longer. Just last year, a tortoise named

Taking It Slow: What Turtles Can Teach Us about Living Longer

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2023-02-03 23:00:12

T he average life expectancy of Canadians today is roughly eighty years. Turtles and tortoises can live far longer. Just last year, a tortoise named Jonathan, who holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest ever chelonian, turned 190 years old.1 We asked Rita da Silva, a conservation demographer who conducted a study at the University of Southern Denmark on aging rates in turtles, what secrets these shelled seniors hold to living a long life.

We know that as humans get older, their bone density, mobility, and flexibility decrease, and the probability of dying increases. In the turtle populations I’ve studied—especially the ones that live in captivity—their mortality rate can actually decrease with age. Some researchers have even hypothesized that turtles and tortoises could live forever if they managed to avoid predators and disease.

There’s a theory that links anti-aging in certain species to their ability to continue growing their entire lives. That includes turtles, most fish, and plants. The same mechanism that allows them to grow also allows them to restore cells throughout their bodies. It has been hypothesized that for this reason, they can avoid aging and possibly even contracting age-related diseases. Humans, however, stop allocating energy to growing, and our cells become damaged over time, making us more susceptible to illnesses such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

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