A quick tour of the longevity culture. Here’s what I’ve learned about reverse aging

I stand in a draft room with hundreds of people at the Truman Brewery in London. We are all waving over our heads and walking our paths until the end of another day with SXSW.

I don’t lie – I was hoping this would happen at some point in the week. Such strange and eccentric moments separate boring meetings from truly enjoyable meetings. This particular moment is a mini flavour of “lives with a lifespan” – an event style that appears all over the world, run by people who believe that music, movement and connections will affect our health and well-being in the long run.

“Genetics are a very small determinant of health. Other factors are more important,” Tina Brown, a social entrepreneur and systems architect who co-founded Longevity Rave, told us a few minutes ago. “The joy of life is a truly powerful motivation.”

While the idea of ​​living a longer, healthier life is not new, the science of aging is better understood than ever, and methods that reduce the big gap between our longevity and our ability to maintain health (known as the health span) are more accessible. I have been long skeptical of the idea of ​​investing in trying to live a considerable amount of time and money for a longer period of time – but because I thought it wasn’t for people like me.

Back in 2017, I interviewed Billionaire tech entrepreneur Brian Johnson on his mission to level up everyone, including himself, by embedding chips in his brain so he can compete with AI. This conversation has been bothering me for many years. I’ve dabbled in biohacking myself (there’s a tip in my hand to perform basic smartphone-related tasks), but I advocate a careful approach.

Since then, Johnson’s name has become synonymous with taking extreme measures to reverse aging and extend life. The quest for longevity can often be linked to Silicon Valley billionaire biohacker boys like Johnson and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

So, in SXSW London, I wanted to see two women’s panels, not one, discussing reverse aging and expanding health spans. The panel never indulged in the sort of anti-aging rhetoric I grew up in. As Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan joked on one of the panels, women should avoid stress by being single as “makes ugly to marry a loser.”

The new science of aging

Ryan, what is My Age Again? I’m hosting a podcast. She interviews celebrities who have been tested to judge biological age as a jump-off point to discuss their relationship with aging.

Celebrity women live in a vanity pressure cooker where their appearance is always judged, perhaps more than any of us. It’s fair to say that the surge in famous women, from Kardashians to Meghan trainers, has been speaking out about all of the many steps they took to reverse aging.

Aside from the benefits of cosmetics, the benefits of health and quality of life often make the most persuasive claims for pursuing longevity. As more women are giving birth to babies later, active parents want to maintain their youthful energy, Ryan said. And for many of us, there is a huge gap between the years that make up our lifespan and the years we continue to stay healthy. But many believe that this gap belongs to us.

“A person’s biological age and age often do not match,” said Nicola Conlon, a molecular biologist and CEO of Nutide, a health-aging company who is a frequent guest on Ryan’s podcast. “Everyone associates age with numbers… that’s not the problem anymore.”

In the past, scientists thought our age was a fixed process where our genetics was almost entirely determined. That’s not like that anymore (as confirmed by multiple people Peer-reviewed research (Make sure aging is affected by multiple factors). “Aging is a malleable process, as we find,” Brown said. Science is evolving rapidly, and more Xprize HealthSpanproviding $101 million to anyone who can come up with a solution that knocks 10 to 20 years from someone’s age.

We already know that aging is influenced by a variety of factors, in addition to genetics, mainly the way we live our lives. Therefore, it is important that we understand our bodies and try to treat them well. This is pretty universal advice.

“If you stop following general guidelines and follow the data instead, you can live a healthier life,” said Deepti Agarwal, a physician specializing in healthy aging, in a panel on assessing health coverage across lifespans.

Known as Precision Medicine, this approach advocates a customized approach rather than a single size approach to health. It removes a lot of speculation from the drug, but it’s not without its criticism.

Lifespan, but only for the selected few?

Transferring responsibility for aging to individuals can reduce support for public health measures, Timothy Caulfield, professor and research director at the University of Alberta’s Institute of Health Law, said he could speak in the Atlantic, not SXSW. How to Death Podcast (Recommended if you want to know more about deep diving).

He said it emphasizes that if you have the time, money and resources to take care of yourself, you can control your own longevity. But that’s not just the case for many people. This means that trying to prolong longevity can exacerbate existing inequality. He also added that he will send a message to people saying, “If you haven’t done it, you’ve failed.”

It also creates a space for the wellness industry to exploit people’s anxiety by selling products based on rough science-based claims that are not necessarily supported by robust evidence, Caulfield said.

“We’ve seen a lot of effort into this program,” said Cat Wiles, founder and CSO of Spark, a marketing agency that appeared on the panel alongside Ryan and Conlon. “We’re already beginning to see warning signs about inequality,” she said. While age spans may be increasing among wealthy elites, in poor areas the opposite is often true.

Private health companies are already offering IT tools to those who can afford to improve their health, and it’s worrying to think that premiums could be tied to your biological age, Wiles added.

However, Conlon hopes that longevity medicine is so affordable that doctors will become “unethical” to prevent them from slowing or reversing aging. For example, more extreme measures taken by billionaire biohackers (such as Johnson’s blood exchange) could remain inaccessible (and unpleasant) to most of us. The same may not apply to other solutions.

Conlon’s company, Nutid nad plus supplementpopular among celebrities and there is some evidence in favour of anti-aging use, but they are the subject of many ongoing research.

In Health Span Panel, Tamsin Lewis, the doctor who founded the wells of deagelating companies, said intravenous NAD is not the answer to slowing the rate of aging. However, finances will be slower. Instead, she and the other women on her panel insisted on prioritizing cheaper interventions.

What actually works?

It may not be something we want to hear when we are ready to throw money into the problem, but the best scientific evidence we must support healthy aging and longevity at the moment is the obvious solution. Nutrition, sunlight exposure, movement and muscle building should be prioritized.

“We wear this meat jacket and it’s a great foothold for our longevity,” Lewis said. “It protects your brain, bones, lower back, sleep and blood sugar levels.”

Other important factors include getting enough sleep, minimizing stress, maximizing resilience, and strengthening emotional and mental health.

“The lifespan movement was shaking with the sibling biohacking,” said Nikolina Glauc, co-founder and CEO of Glycanage, a company that uses biomarkers to detect diseases at a molecular level. The biggest thing that made a difference for her in her own quest to extend her life expectancy is psychotherapy, she added.

As Lewis concludes the session with Breathwork and Mini Raves, I feel like I’m on all my journeys in longevity culture. I feel skeptical of some of the expensive reverse aging options I have come across. They are also concerned about unequal access to reverse aging solutions and their social and public health implications.

At the same time, I feel supported by some of the ongoing research, particularly what Brown calls the “science of connection” that he explores through dance, music and the community.

“In the end, humans need to be with others,” she said. Of all the advice I received, it feels like it will last the easiest – and even if it doesn’t rewind the clock for me, it will keep me sane and happy, at least for my lifetime.