The Three-Body Problem: Optimizing Longevity, Healthspan and Financial Resources

In the fall of 2023, I published “Wealth + Wellness = WHealth,” a blog post that explored the intersection of financial well-being and wellness, what I refer to as “WHealth.” This is the first of several follow-up pieces on how that post’s key themes play out in real life.

I’m a fan of The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Lui. This Hugo award-winning novel (yes, it was a four-book series before being made into a popular Netflix series) provides a useful framework for navigating the most complex and difficult challenges individuals face over the course of their lives – the wealth–health connection.

Unlike the book’s narrative, the three-body problem is not science fiction. It is a math and physics puzzle about the difficulties of predicting how three objects (like planets or stars) move among each other’s gravity. Unlike two bodies in motion (for which scientists can neatly calculate orbits, like the Earth around the sun), adding a third object makes everything chaotic and unpredictable. Small changes in position or speed can lead to wildly different outcomes over time, making it impossible to find a simple single formula for their motions.

The three-body problem is famous for its unpredictability. Scientists use supercomputers to simulate movements, but in most cases, the best they can do is approximate their behavior rather than solve it exactly. There’s no universal formula to determine how three objects or more will interact over time.

The same is true for what I call the Wealth–Health three-body problem. The three interconnected real-life variables are longevity (how long we will live), healthspan (how healthy and independent we remain during our lifetime) and financial well-being (what resources we will need to pay for the medical care that will sustain our desired lifestyle). And just like in physics, there is no single, one-size-fits-all solution to optimizing these three variables because they are all unknowns:

• We don’t know how long we will live.
• We don’t fully understand what cards we have been dealt in terms of our genetic predispositions or future potential health challenges (though medical advancements are improving our insights).
• We can’t predict our future medical needs or the long-term costs of treating and dealing with them.

Does that mean we’re powerless? Not at all. While we can’t solve for the interaction of these three variables, we can take proactive steps to influence them – to increase our chances of getting the outcomes we want. For example, we know that eating high-quality foods in appropriate amounts can improve our longevity and healthspan, as can consistent sleep and regular exercise – what Dr. Peter Attia, author of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, calls the “most potent longevity drug.” We can also complete regular physicals, lab work and screening to identify and prevent what Attia calls the Four Horsemen of chronic disease: atherosclerosis, cancer, neurodegeneration and metabolic disease.

There are also steps we can take to manage the costs of extending our lifespan and preserving our mobility and vitality in our senior years. One is holistic “WHealth planning” – making data-centered assumptions about your longevity and healthspan and then using cutting-edge financial tools to predict how various potential market outcomes could impact the financial resources you’ve accumulated based on those assumptions. Another is managing the risks of unforeseen medical events – using savings and risk transfer strategies (think health savings accounts, private health insurance, disability insurance, Medicare and long-term care insurance) to protect your finances from healthcare crises that, though statistically improbable, would be financially devastating if they were to come to pass.

I will talk more about WHealth planning and managing the unpredictable in the upcoming installments of this WHealth blog series. I hope this conversation will illustrate that the WHealth three-body problem, while impossible to control, is something you can prepare for.

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