Future Human

Dr. David Sinclair is one of the world’s leading researchers on aging. A biologist at Harvard, he is pioneering research that’s showing dramatic reversals in the symptoms of aging among mice and more recently, humans. I approached him to participate in Future You as we prepared to pivot from brain-machine interfaces and neurotech into the “superhuman” possibilities for longevity and life extension. 

Loose notes from our call:

We’re at a turning point like the Wright Bros in 1907, when flying was considered something only for the rich and crazy. Age reversal and living to 150 is considered still something for the rich and crazy but we are at the moment, the moment is now, where extending mouse lives by 30 percent is easy.

There’s a race among scientists now in the field: Is it possible to make a medicine to treat aging as a disease?

If aging is treated as a disease, you are treating the myriad diseases that kill us, that flow downstream from aging.

Sinclair is in trial with his NAD-boosting molecule, his patients are “boosting” right now to extend their lives. He personally tried his own molecule and within four months reduced his biological age from 58 down to 31.

Two scenarios he thinks through (which are in his upcoming book): What if we are successful in extending human lifespans by 50 years, and what if we’re not?

We already spend 17 percent of our GDP on healthcare/treating diseases at the end of people’s lives. We’ve reached a ‘dead end” in treating diseased one at a time — like if you cure your cancer, your risk for everything else, stroke, heart disease, etc go up. The only way to make real progress is to slow down the likelihood of ALL of those diseases, which is to slow down aging.

There are relatively simple means to delay aging now, by boosting your body’s defenses to disease. THE FUTURE is in trying to nudge humanity toward this. You could eventually have a $5 trillion savings in healthcare to then go to the social safety net, saving species, boosting education spending, etc.

DRAWBACKS: You’d have less turnover of politicians, you’d have them into their eighties not relinquishing their roles, the retirement age couldnt be 65 anymore, but I have proposals like skillbaticals, where you have two or THREE careers over the course of your super long life.

HOW COULD I TRY THIS, for FUTURE YOU?

I can’t try the molecule since it’s in controlled research trials. But a diabetes drug that requires a prescription has a similar effect. That, combined with a protocol he will give me, can help delay my aging.

1. Measure my biological age with a blood test (blood sugar is a predictor of longevity), take an age meter test at Harvard that measures hearing, memory and breathing to take a physical/mental measurement of my body’s age that way, and finally test my DNA against a DNA clock. Three metrics to start to see how “old” I am and whether we can reverse it/make me younger.
2. Protocol. Includes a pill, intermittent fasting, exercise, and cryotherapy, which involves going from a sauna and then into a cold bath. All of these non-pill tasks involve the idea of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” so you are supposed to give your body some adversity like hunger, running, making it colder.

HIS THEORY

Aging is a loss of information between cells. As we age, our cells lose their identity and don’t read one another as well when they replicate. The DNA info in there is still in tact. So if we can polish the cells, like CDs that get scratched and then are polished to work better, then we are reversing aging.

“I didn’t expect this would be doable in my life time.” There’s a $50 mil trial now to replicate my findings in older people. If you want an idea of how close are we, we are JUST around the corner. We are not UNDERSTANDING aging after testing testing testing, and now we’re testing in humans.