In 2033, I’ll turn 50. How do I want to feel? Look? What do I want to be able to do?
By 50, much of the damage that portends age-related disease has already happened for most people, even if it's not quite visible. How can I avoid that damage?
Goals for 2033
- Look, feel, move, and do activities like I’m closer to 40. In other words, I have dramatically slowed my rate of aging.
- I know and monitor in near real-time my risk for general aging and each major disease. I know how to balance lifestyle and pharmaceuticals to keep this risk low, with close to real-time updates. As a result of this monitoring and intervention, my risk is very low.
- I take the first of various FDA-approved therapies to slow and reverse aging for various organs/systems. Eventually there will likely be therapies for muscle, bone, brain, heart, blood, liver, skin, etc.
- Most people around the world can will be able to do this within another 5-10 years because these technologies are safe, approved by regulatory agencies, accessible, and affordable.
What do we need to make this a reality?
- Data-driven real-time monitoring of aging and disease risk
- Data-driven, personalized real-time interventions to reduce this risk
- FDA approved therapies for cellular rejuvenation across various tissues
- Improved fundamental understanding of aging biology
What is the current situation?
- Fundamental understanding of aging biology is rapidly improving. There are probably 100,000s of researchers working on this around the world from various angles. Trends and demographics suggest this will be millions of researchers soon.
- Rapid AI progress + data growth are making data-driven monitoring and intervention in aging much more feasible. Aging science can ride these two exponential curves.
- It is still unclear how much lifestyle changes + known drugs/therapies can slow aging. That said, if I had to guess, known technologies could make average lifespan more like 100-110 if they were rigorously applied with personalized measurement and interventions. But, they will not “rejuvenate” our bodies, or at least not that much.
- FDA approval of rejuvenating therapies is a big question mark. Early clinical trials are started and on their way. The first approvals will really speed this up. We need fast progress here!
- New drugs are typically very expensive. For anti-aging drugs, there will be a strong incentive for governments to subsidize these drugs to reduce the cost burden of age-related disease. Hopefully this will help adoption and affordability.