A lot of newcomers wonder what to work on longevity. The longevity field is young and complex, much like a solar system in its early days. Most attempts to map any aspect of it will look both like oversimplification and overengineering. But I've spent the past weeks talking with many people (scientists, investors and founders) and I've mapped, at a high level, what I (or anyone) could work on longevity: funding, talent, media, practical applications, therapeutics and infrastructure for the field. Far from being a complete guide, a post like this would’ve been super helpful a few weeks ago. So here it is for everyone else. I hope it helps.
I’m trying to add just supplements I need. NAD+ or its precursors would be nice in a few years (maybe when I’m 35). I’m curious though: why mushroom complex?
Yeah. I don-t do Zone Diet anymore. Today I just try to eat as varied as possible focusing on getting at least 2g of proteins for every 1kg of weight (I live in the Mediterranean so it-is pretty easy to do). I am trying to introduce intermittent fasting though.
used to be over 95kg (210 pounds) and totally out of shape. I didn't exercise, I didn't care about my health, and I was dealing with severe stress and anxiety. But things are different now. Almost 30 and I'm in the best shape of my life. But the journey has been long and it's not yet finished. If you have a similar story I really want to hear it.
I’ve found that the more context I give to it, the better it is to help me solving a problem. If I spend a bunch of minutes giving info about what I’m doing, why I’m doing it and what I personally know about the problem space, it will usually help me to either explore more or to arrive at the solution faster.
When I talk about coaching I meant that I told ChatGPT to answer only with questions. In a way, ChatGPT is good at having socratic conversations. Sometimes it gets out of character but it depends mostly on your answers or questions.
This. And AI assistants will mostly help people who are good at collaborating. Think of Jarvis and Tony working together to solve a problem. Now think of you and ChatGPT filling a Value Proposition Canvas or preparing the questions for a user interview. ChatGPT’s current limitation is that it doesn’t have enough context about the problem space. So to get good results I have to talk to it for a bunch of minutes to explain everything. But I’m sure they’ll fix this pretty soon so I could feed it additional context (a bunch of documents or the code of my project).
For me the unreliability is not a problem because I’m not using ChatGPT to search for information but rather to help me think and solve problems. ChatGPT can make incredibly good questions and can create relationships between concepts that it would take me hours to make on my own. So ChatGPT just become my private coach and a really smart actual assistant.
It's all about perspective. From where you are, 100 seems enough. For a 7 year old, 42 seems enough. But if could die tomorrow and you'd be offered the chance to live another day, you'd probably take it. And then the next day, and then the next. And days will become months and months will become years and so on and so forth.
I guess it has been portrayed the wrong way for a long time. All fringe ideas get thrown in the same basket. Singularity, anti-aging research, wormholes and interstellar travel, etc. But most research today is trying to solve aging, not death. It's trying to maintain people from getting in that state of frailty and maintain youth for as long as possible. I got interested in longevity a decade ago but only came back to the community this year and the field has evolved quite a lot. I started blogging again about it and I addressed this specific topic: https://www.stanete.com/coming-of-age/.
The point of drug discovery to slow down or stop aging is not to keep people in that frail state of life for as long as possible. Instead is to keep people in their 30s for as long as possible. Most research out there is trying to solve aging, not death.
If you were going to die tomorrow, and if you had the option to live another day, what would you choose? Then days become months and months become years and so on and so forth.
I felt this way many times. The desire to see everything that will come, to experience it all. Being nostalgic for the future also implies that we're optimistic about what's to come.
It doesn't seem that life extension is going to be unreachable for the majority of the people. Look at what happened with DNA sequencing. Anyone can get their DNA sequenced today (yeah, I know some people in very poor countries can't afford it because they don't even have food but hey, you had breakfast today). Comparing with the human genome project, the target price of most drugs that are in clinical trials today is ridiculously low. And it has to be that way because investors wouldn't be interested in those companies. As a biotech/longevity company, you need a reasonable plan on how to market and sell your research. "Immortality is only for the rich" is cyberpunk science fiction.
That's why what most research is trying to extend healthspan and lifespan. All drugs that are in clinical studies today are either trying to push the old part to later in life or just targeting what is making us old so we don't well, get old. The goal is to maintain that youth.
It doesn't seem to be happening that way. Current research doesn't seem to aim at indefinite life extension but at some decades more of healthy life. The current goal of most companies and foundations is to make 90 the new 50. So it seems that it will happen gradually.
In a few months I'm turning 30 so maybe the fact that I'm again interested in longevity and aging it's not a coincidence. In the past month I've read many books that go over the science of aging so you don't have to. And I made a summary of most of it.
Wooow, you killed me with the last words of your comment: “snow on the ground”. Sounds amazing. I’d like one day to be able to swim in the freezing water as well. How and why did you start?
I usually shower twice a day (morning and post workout) but the morning shower is only water cause I’m already clean. I plan to eventually ditch the hot water in the morning altogether.
Actually there is no need to do it every day as long as you stay under the cold for more than 11 minutes per week. For me, doing it every day seemed easier to ramp up. Once I get to 3-4 minutes under the cold water per shower I’ll think about doing it maybe 3 times per week.