Beginner's guide to longevity research

Rejuvenation research after the SENS Research Foundation model of repairing the known root causes of aging is a massive arbitrage opportunity. It remains the case that most people just don't get it, and are thus enormously undervaluing research and companies in this space. That is changing in senescent cell clearance, but six or seven other nascent areas of research and development are in exactly the same position senescent cell clearance was in back in 2010 - no attention, little funding, low valuation, huge potential for breakout gains in said valuation on producing a technology demonstration for rejuvenation in animal models.

It seems likely that the Longevity Fund will do well on the basis of having invested in Unity Biotechnology alone, even putting aside any other successes. The article linked here is a useful overview, with copious references, of the type of work presently taking place in the aging research community. It well illustrates that, aside from senescent cell clearance, nearly everything that counts as a major interest by funding and number of scientists involved is a form of tinkering with stress response biochemistry to modestly slow aging - not addressing root cause molecular damage by repairing it, but rather messing with metabolism to slow damage accumulation. Nowhere near as helpful.

Given what we know, where the data exists to compare outcomes between short-lived and long-lived species, the approach of altering metabolic processes to enhance beneficial stress response mechanisms is not going to move the needle all that far in humans. The results should be exercise-like and calorie-restriction-like in that they have worthwhile effects on long-term health, assuming that the cost of development and treatment is low, but they won't add much more to life expectancy than those two items are capable of achieving - which means perhaps the low end of five to ten years at best in our species, assuming life-long commitment to the intervention. Given that senescent cell clearance is a going concern, and other damage repair approaches such as cross-link breaking should follow in the years ahead, we can hope that the focus of the research community will shift as other approaches prove themselves much more cost-effective and successful.

Clearing senescent cells very clearly produces a degree of rejuvenation in mice, and can turn back progression of aging and specific age-related diseases via a sizable number of metrics.

Of those senolytic drug candidates, dasatinib plus quercetin if you're fine with short burst of chemotherapeutics, or FOXO4-DRI if you are fine with using peptides lacking human data. Both of which should be filed under the "risk that needs to be well understood" category. Or you could wait a few years for the first human trials to run through and more data and better drug candidates to arrive.

But these things are on the menu of possibilities, and are not expensive at all to carry out as exploratory tests.

It took me maybe a week or two of not eating breakfast until it felt normal - but now I could never go back. I feel much more in control. Before if I missed breakfast i'd be a mess and my stomach would be making all kinds of noises in meetings. Another plus I can eat massive lunches and dinners to make up for what I didn't eat at breakfast. I've still been able to gain weight this way!

1. Wake up

2. Make Breakfast

3. Go on with day

vs

1. Wake up

2. Go on with day.