Does diving actually make you younger?

[RobPNW]

Clearly, I'm not diving enough.

 

[RobPNW]

Only Keith Richards knows the secret to eternal life.

That's because he's pickled.

 

[Incunabula]

Jokes aside, this doesn't appear to have been very rigorous. It looks like more of a publicity stunt. Even ignoring the oversimplification of telomeric aging and stem cell counts (for which there are still many unanswered questions), both of these are known to change with sustained increases in activity level, such as the exercise band and swimming routines he undertook for the duration of his time there. Similarly there are multiple reasons why the quality of his sleep (which also changes stem cell counts and telomere length) may have been altered that have nothing to do with the ambient pressure, including the exercise and low stimulus environment. I'm going to need to see some controls that validate that any of his findings were actually due to the ambient pressure. At any rate, n=1 is not a great place to start if you want conclusive data. This is why case-studies are of limited usefulness.

While I'm not familiar with any conclusive studies demonstrating major deleterious effects of sustained environmental pressure changes (doesn't mean they don't exist), there has been quite a lot of evidence that rapid, or extreme changes in environmental pressure, like those likely to be experienced by divers, can and do cause minor, but cumulative damage, mostly in the form of barotraumas (but not exclusively). This is especially true in professional and technical divers dealing with very large changes in depth and is independent of major events like DCS.

Nobody likes to think that the things they enjoy are harmful to them, but diving is a long-term risk to health and that risk increases with the number of lifetime dives. Be safe/conservative, do your best to manage your risk, and know that like many vices, you may have to pay for it eventually.

 

[Germie]

I think it is like the 600 calories burning with every our diving. If that was true, I must be extremely thin like anorexia patients.

I have not heard that technical divers have a lot of barotraumas, but deep diving can cause necrosis in your bones. If technical divers have this, I don't know.

But I will not quit diving, I like it too much.

 

[Wibble]

Age related problems will catch up with us all in the end. Aside from the diving specific health issues — circulation, lungs, etc. — there’s the general strength and fitness requirements to be able to heave the heavy kit around, kit up on a rolling boat, and just be safe. Not a place for muscular/skeletal/joint issues. This is a bigger issue with technical diving as there’s so much more kit to carry — can you kit up, lift and walk with 100kg/220 pounds of kit?

Mental fitness is also a thing. 99% of diving is benign and then the 1% requires sharp reasoning and problem solving abilities, on pain of death. Diving is not a forgiving place for, errm, forgetfulness. The more challenging the dive, the more focus is required.

Don’t see many old technical divers, say over 70 years old, doing deeper and longer dives. Sure, there’s the odd one or two, but very few in comparison to 65 year olds.

Warm water recreational diving is a completely different matter though…


When my technical diving days are over I’ll go back to sailing. There’s lots of people In their nineties sailing. It keeps them younger you see! My mum and dad, both in their 90s are currently sailing around the East Coast of the UK in their sailing boat along with a bunch or other pensioner friends. My dad has often said that it’s the sailing that keeps him going.

Being active keeps you active.

 

[ofg-1]

can you kit up, lift and walk with 100kg/220 pounds of kit?

2 questions. What the hell are you trying to carry thats 220 pounds? More importantly, why the hell would you even try?

A full Mark V diving dress is only about 180, depending on shoes.

 

[Wibble]

2 questions. What the hell are you trying to carry thats 220 pounds? More importantly, why the hell would you even try?

A full Mark V diving dress is only about 180, depending on shoes.

An approximation:
Twinset + 2 or 3 stages + all other kit
Rebreather + 2 Ali80 stages + scooter + all other kit

all other kit includes large heater battery; umbilical torch + backup; heavy reel and self-inflating SMB; spare SMB + reel/spool; drysuit inflation cylinder + regulator

Not forgetting the drysuit + undersuit -- those aren't exactly lightweight.

So 100kg/220 pounds isn't far off for a decent dive down to MOD2 levels (70m/230ft) for 2+ hours.

 

[clownfishsydney]

In that case, with 3,818:15 hours (159 days) underwater over the past 35 years, I should be 15.9 years younger. So, on my birthday next week, I will tell people I am only about to turn 50.

 

[Germie]

I carry my technical stuff in parts. And never dove bigger than a twin12 steel. When I needed more, I bought a rebreather. I can/could do 17 minutes at 110m depth with a twin12 (you can calculate it, the reserveproblems are not in backgas, but in travelgas and decogas), and then decided after 4 times over 100m that I wanted a ccr.
Still need bailouts of course, but I don't carry them all at once. Never had the need too.

 

[ofg-1]

An approximation:
Twinset + 2 or 3 stages + all other kit
Rebreather + 2 Ali80 stages + scooter + all other kit

all other kit includes large heater battery; umbilical torch + backup; heavy reel and self-inflating SMB; spare SMB + reel/spool; drysuit inflation cylinder + regulator

Not forgetting the drysuit + undersuit -- those aren't exactly lightweight.

So 100kg/220 pounds isn't far off for a decent dive down to MOD2 levels (70m/230ft) for 2+ hours.

I understand the gear. I carry that when cave diving, plus tow scooter at times. What I dont get is strapping all that on, standing up, and walking with it. Even in my younger wreck diving days, the idea of walking around on a rolling boat wearing twins, 2 stages and carrying a scooter never entered my mind, neither did doing a 2 hour 230' dive, decompressing, then climbing up a ladder with it all on. If you are trying that, it will not make you feel younger, particularly your knees, hips back and shoulders as you try to schlep all this junk around.