Technology entrepreneur Brian Johnson talks about 16th century sailors. At the time, he says, circumnavigating the world was the pinnacle of human achievement. But those sailors, some of whom had hoped to stumble upon the mythical Fountain of Youth, set sail from port without actually knowing what awaited them. The same is true for Johnson, 47, who considers himself a modern-day explorer. Like those sailors, he seeks to push the boundaries of what humans can achieve. Not by circumnavigating the globe, but by avoiding death.
Johnson’s adventure includes taking 111 pills a day, eating her last (vegan) meal of the day at 11 a.m., remaining abstinent, exercising for an hour each day, and going to bed at 8:30 p.m. It will be done. But is it scientifically possible to slow aging in this way, or is his plan likely to be wrecked by reality?
It is extremely difficult to live to be 100 years old. In his recent book Jellyfish Age Backwards, Danish molecular biologist Niklas Bremborg estimates that surviving from age 93 to 100 is just as difficult as living from birth to age 93. And most people would consider 93 to be a decent innings. Professor Richard Faragher from the University of Brighton said: “The chances of getting sick or dying increase exponentially over time.” There is mounting evidence that a healthy lifestyle can add up to 14 years to your life. However, given that the average life expectancy in the UK is around 81 years, it is unlikely that this will take us to 100 years. And new research shows that growth in life expectancy is slowing.
Technology entrepreneur Brian Johnson takes 111 pills a day and goes to bed by 8:30 p.m. Photo: Magdalena Wosinska/Courtesy of BryanJohnson.com
But if we adopt a very healthy lifestyle, can we live very long? Not much. Professor Lynn Cox from the University of Oxford said that extreme longevity appears to have more of a genetic component than normal aging, and that diet and exercise may have only a limited effect. “Right now, I don’t think there’s a panacea that will extend human lifespan by 20 or 30 years,” she says.
Let’s exercise – it’s obviously good for us. One study of amateur cyclists aged 55 to 79 found that they were biologically younger for their age. Notably, their immune systems weren’t as depressed as their non-exercising peers. But that doesn’t mean you should exercise more. Another recent study of Finnish twins, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that people who exercised moderately were biologically younger than those who did not exercise and, surprisingly, those who exercised a lot. It turns out.
“You really want to be in the sweet spot when it comes to exercise,” Cox says. “It appears that super-fit athletes don’t necessarily live longer lives.”
It seems that thin people don’t live long. Overweight people live longer than underweight, normal, and obese people
When it comes to diet, studies have shown that reducing calories can double the lifespan of worms. On the other hand, calorie-restricted mice can live about 30 to 40 percent longer, especially if they undergo intermittent fasting. Results in rhesus macaques are conflicting, but calorie-restricted monkeys appear healthier and may live several years longer. Johnson, who is restricting her calories by 10%, hopes it will help her as well. However, the limitations of animal testing are significant (30-40% reduction in calories) and humans are not mice or worms.
Although some studies have shown health benefits to humans, it is difficult to verify whether participants actually maintained a restricted diet. Additionally, Cox said: “If you cut out 30% of your calories, it’s very difficult to avoid becoming malnourished. That can actually be harmful.” This is especially true if you are restricting your calories indefinitely. Studies have shown that older mice on calorie restriction have a higher risk of dying from infections.
Weight loss jabs such as Ozempic are also popular among longevity enthusiasts, but Johnson said he has never tried them. New research shows they reduce the risk of many age-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease and cancer, making researchers optimistic that they may extend lifespan. I am. However, their impact on life expectancy will not be known for several decades. It also comes with potentially life-threatening side effects, such as pancreatitis. It’s also worth noting that thinner people don’t seem to live the longest. Surprisingly, overweight people live longer than underweight, normal, and obese people.
Staying active in your later years is good for your health, but its effect on longevity cannot be proven. Photo: FG Trade/Getty Images
The mystery of the centenarian
Some people enjoy very long lives. In the world’s “blue zones” (regions identified as having people who live healthier and longer than others), including Sardinia in Italy, Okinawa in Japan, and Ikaria in Greece, lifestyle interventions, supplements, and cooking A book industry is being born. But a study by Saul Newman of University College London, currently under peer review, suggests that much of the data on centenarians is bogus.
“We tracked 80% of people around the world over the age of 110,” Newman says, but very few had birth certificates. “This is a pile of statistical garbage.”
Alarm bells had been ringing for some time. In 2010, a Japanese government study found that 230,000 of the country’s centenarians were missing and possibly dead. And Newman said data shows that about 72% of centenarians in Greece are dead or missing, but their relatives don’t file as many returns, presumably because they continue to receive their pensions. No, he said.
Mr Newman believes this may cause blue zones to emerge in poor, rural areas, where there are substandard record-keeping and pressures for pension fraud. In the UK, Tower Hamlets, a relatively poor borough of London, has the highest proportion of people aged 105 in the country, despite overall life expectancy being lower than average. And longevity is tied to wealth, and the countries with the highest life expectancies in the world are the richest.
“Okinawa’s elderly suicide rate is the fourth highest in the country. Their poverty rate is twice that of other governors. They are the last people in Japan to consume vegetables,” Newman said. “If you pretend that everything in Okinawa is great, you’re leaving those people behind. You’re exploiting them to sell cookbooks.”
“He’s right,” said Neil Barzilai, a longevity researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine who has studied Ashkenazi Jewish centenarians and their families in the United States. “That’s a real problem.” But in the U.S., he argues, records are fairly reliable. And his team is looking at a variety of documents to confirm centenarian status, including passports, voting records and the ages of family members.
His own results differ from those based on the Blue Zones. For example, Barzilai’s centenarians did not lead very healthy lifestyles. “Half of them were overweight or obese, half were smokers, half were not active, and very few were vegetarians,” he says. However, they were healthy and had only half the incidence of cardiovascular disease.
“They have genes that slow aging,” explains Barzilai, who is working to identify them. He has already found that about 60% carry a gene that reduces growth hormone levels later in life. All of this suggests that the secret to becoming a centenarian lies in genes, not lifestyle.
cellular aging
Not all species age like humans. For species such as ocean quahogs, rockfish, and Greenland sharks, mortality rates do not increase rapidly with age. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of aging is incomplete,” Faragher says.
The main factor in aging is a process called cellular senescence. As cells age, they enter this toxic state, damaging tissues and causing inflammation and disease. But Cox and his colleagues showed that aging can be slowed down by manipulating these cells to behave as if they were younger. In 2009, a highly promising study showed that the drug rapamycin could extend the lifespan of mice by up to 14%. Human clinical trials have shown that giving low doses of rapamycin-like drugs to older adults for eight weeks strengthened their immune systems and reduced infections by 50% over one year.
Other promising FDA-approved drugs that extend lifespans in animals and improve health and reduce mortality in humans include diabetes drugs such as metformin, canagliflozin, and dapagliflozin. However, Barzilai emphasizes that these drugs have only been proven effective in people over 50. If you are young, or combining some of these drugs, they can cause harm such as a decrease in muscle mass and testosterone. Similarly, rapamycin “at high doses can cause diabetes, ulcers, and impede wound healing,” Cox says.
Greenland sharks live in Lancaster Bay, Nunavut, Canada. This species can live for centuries. Photo: Paul Nicklen/National Geographic Creative/Getty Images
Johnson, who takes rapamycin and metformin, acknowledged this. “Metformin has so many effects on the body,” he says. “It might have some effect on your muscles, but it might also have a lot of positive effects.”
Another option is to address senescent cells by removing them. Compounds found in many fruits and vegetables, such as dasatinib, navitoclax, quercetin, and fisetin, can be expected to remove such cells and are now sold as supplements. Such drugs could also treat diabetic kidney disease and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in humans, which are caused in part by senescent cells.
Dr. Faragher also showed that resveratrol, found in grapes, can reverse cellular aging. However, once again, senescent cells also have positive functions such as healing wounds, so removing them can be risky. We don’t know if these drugs or supplements can actually help humans significantly extend lifespan. But many longevity enthusiasts, including Johnson, are already taking them. But Faragher doesn’t think these will lead to a “drug of immortality.” Rather, this type of drug may be “antibiotic-like” and is taken when sick or for a limited period of time before vaccination to strengthen the immune system.
Despite promising research, a lack of human clinical trials means there is still no proven way to live well beyond 100 years old
More experimental methods exist, but they can cause cancer. These include “epigenetic reprogramming” to rejuvenate cells and gene therapy aimed at lengthening telomeres, the protective caps on chromosomes that shorten with age. However, short telomeres shorten lifespan, while long telomeres increase the risk of cancer.
“There’s a lot of hesitation about telomerase because of the cancer risk, but some new research suggests it’s possible to minimize that risk,” Cox says.
So what happens to us? Unfortunately, it seems to be a waiting game. Despite some really promising research, the lack of human clinical trials means there is still no proven way to live well past 100. The researchers also cautioned against combining or combining drugs and interventions, as Johnson did. “Each one may buy a little extra time, but when you combine them all, they can make things worse, not better,” Cox says.
But Johnson is optimistic. “I have, without a doubt, the best biomarkers in the world,” he says, adding that scientists who “spend 75% of their time writing grant proposals” are especially likely to be just like everyone else. I am copying his protocol, adding that we need to learn to evaluate the open source data he provides.
Barzilai disagreed, stressing that self-experimentation by an individual does not constitute scientific research. “If Brian Johnson were to die, which I think is possible, because he’s doing a lot of crazy things together, it would reflect badly on us.”
