Greatest Predictor of Longevity

More recently, science has begun testing what the ancient Tibetans understood

intuitively. In the 1980s, researchers with the Framingham Study, a 70-year longitudinal

research program focused on heart disease, attempted to find out if lung size really did

correlate to longevity. They gathered two decades of data from 5,200 subjects, crunched the

numbers, and discovered that the greatest indicator of life span wasn’t genetics, diet or the

amount of daily exercise, as many had suspected. It was lung capacity.

The smaller and less efficient lungs became, the quicker subjects got sick and died. The cause of deterioration didn’t matter. Smaller meant shorter. But larger lungs equaled longer lives.

Our ability to breathe full breaths was, according to the researchers, ‘literally a measure of

living capacity.

James Nestor from Breath - The New Science of a Lost Art