The Longevity Equation No One Talks About: Inequality
The biggest driver of how long you live isn’t your habits. It’s your ZIP code.
Dr. Mark Hyman sells $500 worth of biomarker testing.
Dr. David Sinclair suggests taking hundreds of dollars a month in supplement stacks.
Dr. Huberman suggests grass-fed protein, which is usually 2x-3x more expensive than its conventional counterparts.
But with the median household income being at around $80,000 in the US, for many people, these hacks are out of reach.
In fact, you can predict lifespan with shocking accuracy just by looking at someone’s ZIP code.
In the U.S., that gap in life span can be 20+ years between wealthier and lower-income neighborhoods in the same city.
The real longevity levers are particularly rare in areas populated by people of low socioeconomic background, and they are:
The time, resources and energy to take care of yourself
The social support to do so well
These aren't just nice-to-haves — they’re fundamental biological variables.
Sure, we know that the body ages faster under chronic stress, and that we all, from the poor to the rich, experience high amounts of stress.
Yet while higher-income people can afford supplements and cold plunges to squeeze in between long work hours, and exotic meditation retreats on vacation, lower income people are stuck with their stress. Then layer in underpaid jobs, food deserts, medical distrust, and lack of time to exercise or rest, and all of a sudden you’re not just dealing with social inequality — you’re accelerating aging at the cellular level.
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Inequality Is a Longevity Issue
As an immigrant from Peru, raised in one of the most polluted cities in Latin America, I saw—and continue to see—how environment and opportunity shapes everything.
My aunt, who spent over 40 years cleaning houses with heavy chemicals is currently the ICU due to lung issues.
Recurring toxic chemical exposure = shorter (and less happy) health span.
My mom, who has been a nanny since moving to the USA for a better education for me, spends one hour each way daily driving to and from work.
Urban sprawl = more stress = shorter health span.
My friend’s sister can’t afford to prioritize fresh fruits and veggies as she has to feed herself and her kids on a single income of her uber rides.
Poor diet = poor biomarkers = shorter health span.
You can’t green juice your way through socioeconomic barriers. Longevity conversations that ignore these realities risk becoming not only out of touch, but actively harmful, because instead of turning the conversation to others, they make you hyper-focused on yourself or…your(cells).
Optimizing your health is already hard enough, so why should you care about that of others?
Inequality is making you less happy.
Happiness in a country is a function of the Gini index (a measure of income inequality in a country), low corruption, and high opportunities for human development.
Helping others makes you healthier.
People who engage in prosocial behaviors enjoy better health and live longer, such that researchers are pushing to make prosociality a public health priority.
Other people being sick is costing you a lot.
Unwell employees cost U.S. Employers over $500b in lost productivity. And according to research, most current modern-day sicknesses are quite preventable…if only people had access to the solutions.
Rethinking the Equation
I’m not against supplements, optimization, or self-experimentation. I nerd out on that stuff too. But we need to expand the longevity equation to include the systems we live in — not just the habits we personally control.
What if fair wages, nutrition education and accessibility, public transit, green spaces, were seen as longevity infrastructure?
What if we prioritized stress buffering and resilience-building just as much as VO2 max and HRV?
Longevity shouldn’t be a luxury product. It should be a public good.
It starts with acknowledging that our bodies don’t exist in a vacuum — they respond to the systems around us. And if we want a future where more people live longer, better lives, we need to stop pretending that personal discipline is the only variable that matters.
The truth is: inequality ages us all.
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Citations:
Chetty, R., et al. (2016). The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014. JAMA, 315(16), 1750–1766. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2513561
Woolf, S. H., et al. (2019). Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017. JAMA, 322(20), 1996–2016. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2756112
Marmot, M. (2005). Social determinants of health inequalities. The Lancet, 365(9464), 1099–1104. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(05)71146-6
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (n.d.). Life Expectancy: Could where you live influence how long you live? https://www.rwjf.org/en/insights/our-research/interactives/whereyouliveaffectshowlongyoulive.html
Blue Zones. (2020). ZIP Code Effect: Neighborhood Can Affect Life Expectancy by 30 Years. https://www.bluezones.com/2020/02/zip-code-effect-your-neighborhood-determines-your-lifespan/