Lately new people that I meet in San Francisco have been asking me how I got into the longevity field and/or what I did before this. The first time this happened, I looked at them quizzically, and it took me a beat to follow the question. I have always been in this field is the answer. Longevity has become a hot area recently, especially in San Francisco, and especially with COVID shining such a bright light on the vulnerabilities of getting older. So naturally people assume that I am a newcomer to the field like so many other people.
I was an existentially angsty kid that grew up with two first gen atheist parents. With no religious answers at the ready to placate me, at least for a little while, the why are we here and what happens when we die questions haunted me. As a five year old I remember a knot in the pit of my stomach as I contemplated what it means to exist or not exist and what being a human really meant. I posed this question to my father, who is a scientist, and he answered “don’t worry about that, we are going to cure aging”. As a hero worshipping daddy’s girl at the time, and even to some extent now, I really believed that this was possible. Of course, curing aging is quite the quest to fulfill in order to feel better about one’s existence.
Dutifully, I completed all of the educational requirements to take on such a quest- first studying cell and molecular biology at the University of Michigan. Then after college, I studied brain aging during the neuroscience PhD portion of my MD PhD program— because the brain is the only organ that I think will be very hard to replace. I went on to continue studying human brain aging in the Guarente Lab at MIT, one of the seminal labs in the longevity field. Now I have started a techpharma company, NeuroAge Therapeutics, to create new FDA-approved drugs to rejuvenate the brain and treat neurodegenerative disorders.
These days I am more worried about not being around for the party and missing out on all the cool things in the future than I am worried about dying. And while I think “longevity escape velocity”, or whatever it is that the cool kids are talking about in SF, is pretty unlikely, I do think living an extra 20-50 years is quite probable. And in any case, trying to extend lifespan is a pretty fun mission, so win or lose, I am definitely in for the ride. Studying aging is like wishing for more wishes and who doesn’t want that?
Turns out, actually a lot of people don’t want that, to my surprise. For many this is based on some misconceptions about what lifespan extension would mean, however. When people think about living longer a lot of them picture their grandparent’s or parent’s last few years of life, only drawn out for more time. That sounds awful I agree. Many people are in pain and are debilitated physically, unable to go up stairs or live on their own. Many people spend their last few months or years like my grandmother did, with dementia, unable to recognize their family members, being tube fed in a back bedroom or in a nursing home, being a burden on family members and having no independence or agency.
Fortunately, that reality is not the reality that scientists in the longevity field are talking about. It actually would be very difficult to enact that reality scientifically with current lifespan extension approaches. What we are instead talking about is slowing the rate of aging or reversing it— a 90 is the new 60 situation. Imagine a world in which you are 90 years old with a spring in your step and a razor sharp mind, still able to beat your grandkids in a game of chess or scrabble. Sounds a lot more pleasant doesn’t it? Not only that, but when you do finally kick the bucket, you do it with maximal healthspan and skip the suffering bit at the end. This reality is one that a lot more people are on board with.
How is this possible you ask? Well I aim to explain the science behind how this is possible, what we can do right now to live healthier longer, and what cool things are brewing in academic labs and new startups in this Substack. What animal life extension experiments have told us so far is that if you extend lifespan, by genetics, lifestyle interventions, or drugs, you also extend healthspan. Animals— be they mice, worms, flies, or fish— that live longer through scientific intervention— also get age-related diseases later, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and dementia. Aging and age-related diseases are very hard to uncouple from each other. Some may even argue— and this is hotly debated by aging biologists— that age-related diseases are the same thing as aging. With 50% of people having dementia by the time they are 95 years old, I tend to be in this camp. It’s pretty hard to argue that dementia isn’t in large part accelerated brain aging when half of all people have it if they live long enough.
This is good news. It means that we can do something positive for lifespan and it will also be good for healthspan. Next time I start explaining what we know, what we are working on, and what we can do now to live healthier longer. Subscribe to stay tuned! And follow my non-profit @LongevitySF for discussion and events.
Comments
No posts