Ideally, When You Know Better You Do Better

A term that was new to me is “universal biological scaling.” It was coined in the 1950s and scientists observed an inverse relationship between the number of heart beats per minute an animal had with its longevity. A mouse might have 500 beats per minute, but only live a short time and an elephant has about thirty beats per minute and lives for decades.

These findings created the “One Billion Rule.” Researchers multiplied an animal’s average heart rate by its lifespan and they found a consistent pattern: mammals are biologically limited to roughly one billion heartbeats. Since humans are mammals we should get about a billion heartbeats. And if you exercise a lot, you will have more heartbeats and that will burn through your allotment that much quicker. 

Of course, further study showed that was a myth for humans. An eighty year old will have between 2.5B and 3B heartbeats. And we have learned that exercise is actually good for you. And we have learned that some things are bad for you. In the 1930s and for the next few decades, tobacco companies used images of doctors (real doctors could lose their licenses for supporting tobacco use) to suggest that cigarette smoking was not harmful and in some instances, it was beneficial. Of course, we know better now. 

But do we do better? It’s not that long ago that we held beliefs about limited heartbeats and the benefits of smoking. What will we look back on and ask, “what were we thinking?” Since the main topic is about health and not climate change, human rights, or facism,  I wonder if our future selves will wonder about ultra-processed foods, eating insects, or why we allowed forever chemicals. 

I like to think that we can learn from our mistakes and do better in the future, but sometimes I don’t know.