Can we extend lifespans by slowing aging?

Even if it were possible, it is a misguided approach to raising longevity

Ever since the bible held out Methuselah’s 969 years as the holy grail of longevity, mythmakers have stepped forward to claim the human lifespan can be dramatically extended if only we found the magic elixir.

There’s never been a shortage of biotechnology industry investors buying into this vision. The inventor, entrepreneur and “futurist” Ray Kurzweil, who in 2004 wrote Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, funded the SENS Research Foundation in Mountain View, Cal., to pursue longevity research. In 2013 he claimed that medical technology within 15 years would begin adding a year to life for each year that passes, a world where people would soon "outrun our own deaths."

Kurzweil gobbled over 100 dietary supplements daily — living proof of one wag’s observation that Americans have the most expensive urine in the world. Thanks to hypsters like Kurzweil, the $36 billion supplement industry (whose products, thanks to Sen. Orin Hatch, need not show the Food and Drug Administration proof before advertising alleged medical claims) grew faster than the rest of the economy every year between 2011 and 2020. Only Covid-19 paused growth in America’s love affair with hope in an unregulated bottle.

The more scientific researchers in the field have focused their attention on the process of cellular aging and how drug intervention might retard cell death. In 2009, three U.S. researchers won the Nobel Prize for discovering telomeres — a tiny slice of DNA at the end of each chromosome — that shorten whenver a cell divides and eventually leads to cell death. They also discovered that telomerase, an enzyme present in excess in cells that divide quickly, retards the process.

A number of start-up companies are researching various ways of preserving telomeres or increasing the amount of telomerase in cells. Some have even begun offering experimental gene therapy treatments — outside the U.S., of course — at a million dollars a crack.

Elite universities are heavily engaged in the search for potential life extenders. Australian biologist David Sinclair, a professor of genetics and co-director of the Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School, is one of the leaders in the field. In 2019, he became a minor media celebrity after publishing Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To.

He’s signed on as co-chair of EdenRoc Sciences, which invests in start-ups pursuing longevity solutions. More recently, Sinclair became co-chair of a $200 million special purpose acquisition company called Frontier Acquisition Corp., which is headed by the German biotech investor Christian Angermayer, founder of Apeiron Investment Group. “Put simply, I want to live forever! And in perfect health!,” Angermayer said. “It is my sincere belief that we will achieve the means to do this within the next 20-30 years.”

I caught Sinclair’s act today on the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin DealBook podcast. He touted his work on a pill that will be able to measure a person’s aging status (presumably by measuring the length of telomeres), which in turn will generate recommendations for changes in lifestyle and diet and the appropriate array of supplements to extend life. “I believe we will be able to slow down biological aging and eventually reverse it,” he said.

I found the audience questions more interesting than the presentation. Extended life is great, one 92-year-old said. “But how do you end the crappy time’” at the end of life, she asked. How are we going to generate sufficient retirement income to support endless life, another wondered. And what will be the environmental cost of having a world filled with ever-growing numbers of endlessly aging people?

Not to worry, Sinclair replied. “It won’t lead to more people” because the birth rate will fall commensurately. Apparently, only hair dye will save us from the graying of America.

The elephant in the room — the fact that the U.S. lifespan has been falling or stagnated for the past half decade — came up only tangentially. Sinclair lamented the pause in longevity increase and recognized that our lagging performance compared to most other industrial countries grew out of the economic and social despair rampant among the white working class and minority groups. Addressing those issues will be a huge boon to the economy, he asserted, generating $96 trillion in long-term savings through reduced health care costs and increased productivity as people in their 70s, 80s and even 90s took up second and third careers.

Only a person with multiple college degrees would think working until you’re into well into your 80s is everyone else’s idea of a good time.

Okay, enough snark. There clearly are benefits to telomere research. This 2004 study, for instance, found that premenapausal women experiencing “psychological stress— both perceived stress and chronicity of stress—is significantly associated with higher oxidative stress, lower telomerase activity, and shorter telomere length, which are known determinants of cell senescence and longevity. Women with the highest levels of perceived stress have telomeres shorter on average by the equivalent of at least one decade of additional aging compared to low stress women.” The authors included Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California at San Francisco, one of the Nobel prize winners.

It would be interesting to compare measurements of rich peoples’ telomeres with those of people living in impoverished neighborhoods where the chronic stress from housing insecurity, food insecurity and inadequate incomes leads to average life expectancies that are more like those found in the most backwards parts of eastern Europe. Even longevity in America’s wealthier communities lags behind people with similar incomes and education in other industrialized nations, testimony to the chronic economic and social stress that permeates daily life in America.

All over the globe, there are human beings who routinely live into their 90s. While the total is small, the number of centenarians here and worldwide is growing. We know plenty about how to achieve those milestones for more people: Less economic stress, less social conflict, adequate housing, better diets, age-appropriate exercise, ending social isolation, clean air and water.

Improving the lives of people living in communities that suffer from severe deficits in any or all of those categories is the surest and fastest way of increasing the U.S.’s lagging longevity. As we should have learned from the Covid-19 pandemic (but apparently haven’t), improved public health is the surest path to longer, healthier, happier lives.

But taking a pill to lengthen one’s telomeres? That’s a solution only a biotech investor could love.