My new in-progress novel, The Savior Virus, takes a deep dive into speculative anti-aging technologies. I’m interested in reversing my biological age in real life too, a topic I introduced in this post. I’ve been taking Niagen to increase my NAD+ levels, using saunas whenever possible induce heat-shock proteins, and shifting my exercise program toward HIIT and endurance training to increase the length of my telomeres.

While aging is not officially considered a disease by the medical establishment (because it affects everyone), a number of private medical research companies have taken on the mission of better understanding — and possibly ultimately reversing — human biological aging.

One of these companies is SENS, led by the eccentric intellectual Aubrey de Grey. SENS identifies eight research areas, as follows:

  • Extracellular Junk (especially beta amyloid)
  • Intracellular Junk (enzymatic therapy to assist macrophages)
  • Extracellular Crosslinks (glucosepane cleaving)
  • Cell Loss and Atrophy (growing organs for transplantation)
  • Death-Resistant Cells (target senescent cells)
  • Cancerous Cells (selectively disable use of telomerase)
  • Mitochondrial Mutations (add backup copies of mitochondrial genes to cells)
  • Delivery Systems (somatic and germ line gene therapy)

Another company, Life Biosciences, is led by David Sinclair. Sinclair is one of several researchers who has looked into the role of NAD+ in reversing many aspects of natural aging. Similarly, he list eight areas that his company focusses on:

  • Mitochondrial dysfunction
  • Altered communication and inflammation
  • Chromosomal instability
  • Cellular senescence
  • Loss of proteostasis
  • Epigenetic alterations
  • Stem cell exhaustion
  • Metabolism

There’s a great deal of overlap between the two companies. Sinclair’s company doesn’t directly address cancer, except as a subset of chromosomal instability. Aubrey de Grey’s research group doesn’t directly address the slowed metabolism of aging, though it could probably be included as a subset of mitochondrial mutations.

How To Live Longer Better?

Since I’m approaching the half century mark myself, with a still-very-long list of things I want to accomplish and experience, I’m personally interested in what I can do now to increase my healthspan and lifespan. And not just my own life, I want to see my family and friends live long and prosper, and I’d like to live in less sick world in general (especially here in the U.S., where health insurance and medical treatment is so expensive).

My father-in-law passed away earlier this year, and it was too soon. Until he got sick, he was in excellent health, clear-minded, physically strong, working as a poetry teacher and mentor, a loving grandfather, father, and family member. He lived to be seventy-five, but another ten or twenty years would have been a blessing for all of us.

So what can we do now to reverse biological age and slash the risk of (or possibly reverse) degenerative diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and dementia?

In 2019, I’ll be exploring this topic in depth. What can we do, in terms of diet, exercise, nutritional supplements, medications, and lifestyle modifications to slow and/or reverse natural aging? Or, at the very least, reduce accelerated aging from stress, poor nutrition, and environmental toxins?

Here’s my own consolidated anti-aging topic list. I hope to cover these in detail, in the first half of 2019:

  • Restore youthful metabolic/mitochondrial function
  • Increase telomerase and telomere length
  • Kill or rehabilitate senescent cells
  • Boost endogenous stem cell production
  • Reduce systemic inflammation
  • Support accurate DNA/RNA replication
  • Reduce advance glycation endproducts and cleave existing crosslinked proteins
  • Modulate immune system to effectively fight pathogens and early cancers

I’ll link to relevant clinical studies, discuss the current state of research, and share what I’m doing myself in terms of self-experimentation.

In the second half of 2019, I’ll update readers with any notable results of my n=1 personal experiments.

Other Stuff (Random News and Thoughts)
  • Thank you to my Patreon blog supporters! My campaign has only been up a month and I already have over a dozen patrons. Much appreciated, and I’m planning a number of Patreon-only posts in 2019. If you don’t want to miss anything, please consider joining at the $3 or $5 tier.
  • There are still 22 more days left to enter The Sky Woman book review contest, with over $700 in cash prizes. Some entries are coming in — thank you! But I still don’t have very many — all contestants have a very good chance of winning something.
  • I recently received some excellent news in regards to my writing career, which I will share as soon.
  • The November productivity test (in regards to daily word counts) didn’t go quite as I planned, but I did end up breaking out of my rut and essentially doubling my daily word count. I’ll post a full update.
  • I’ll be taking up a new combat sport in 2019, which I’ll be sure to post about here.
  • I find that since the U.S. midterms, my optimistic spirit is returning, along with increased energy and ambition. This coincides with some dramatic health improvements; my sleep and gastric health have never been better. Amazingly, I seem to have put on about ten pounds of muscle (for the first time in my life). Some of these anti-aging therapies might actually be doing something. More on that later.