Forever young, forever sober

What do people who dream of gaining immortality do

Daria Shipacheva, Forbes, 06.09.2019

Biohacking is a trend that became popular in progressive circles in the mid– late 2010s. To put it simply, biohackers advocate using the achievements of modern medicine, microbiology and biotechnology to live longer and be productive even at an older age. Are they brilliant scientists or naive dreamers? And why should we live forever at all?

Among biohackers, a separate branch of transhumanists stands out: these people hope to "hack" human life altogether and live forever, perhaps with the help of cyborgization, artificial intelligence and neural interfaces. But how do these people live today, in 2019? What have they managed to achieve in the field of biohacking both within their own body and in the field of business projects dedicated to the prolongation of youth and life?

Where to look for biohackers

Most biohackers around the world hang out on the American resource Fight Aging!. This platform started as a blog about life extension, launched back in 2004, and by today has turned into a powerful community for those who struggle with aging. On Fight Aging! scientists who want to research various aging therapies and entrepreneurs who want to launch a startup in the field of longevity are gathering. Experts from the community conduct consultations explaining how best to develop such a business and how to attract investors. And ordinary biohackers visiting the site can become "patrons" and finance longevity research: from 2013 to 2018, they have already raised about $7 million for these purposes.

For example, one of the first and most important works carried out at the expense of the community was the study of mitochondrial gene therapy – it, according to scientists, can significantly slow down the aging process. The fact is that in human cells there are important structures – mitochondria, which are responsible for energy production. Mitochondria have their own DNA – and "breakdowns" in it are not restored as efficiently as defects in our ordinary, or nuclear, DNA. As a result, as scientists have noticed, the accumulation of mutations in mitochondrial DNA leads to oxidative stress in the body. This means that the cells of the body are oxidized and damaged. And this is one of the factors of aging of the body. With the help of crowdfunding on Fight Aging! enthusiasts have raised $7000 for research on mitochondrial gene therapy, which should reverse this process. Another $14,000 was provided by participants of another non–profit organization - LongeCity. As a result, it was possible to launch work in this area – the scientific organization SENS Research Foundation took up it. In 2016, she managed to achieve a certain breakthrough: scientists were able to replace a defective gene called ATP8 in a culture from living human cells and thus restore normal energy metabolism in cells. Now they are testing this technology on mice. If it proves effective in slowing down the aging process, sooner or later scientists will begin to explore a new therapy in humans.

For what other scientific research do biohackers collect resources (both financial and human)? These are, in particular, stem cell therapy – although its effectiveness in combating aging has not yet been proven; the fight against beta-amyloids – peptides, the accumulation of which in the brain contributes to the formation of amyloid plaques and the development of Alzheimer's disease; the study of senolytics – drugs that selectively destroy senescent cells in the body – old cells that have stopped dividing, but they did not die and provoke inflammatory processes in the body and the development of tumors.

Biohackers are also studying the effects on the body of drugs already existing and approved by the Ministry of Health of different countries – for example, metformin, which is used to treat people with type 2 diabetes. However, the results of such studies show that the effect of such pills is less than from regular exercise and a calorie-restricted diet, and most importantly, such interventions can only slow down the aging process a little, but not "hack" its mechanism and reverse it.

Fight Aging Community! helps fund the work of research organizations such as the Methuselah Foundation and the SENS Research Foundation. They also invested in several biotech companies - CellAge, Juvena Therapeutics, Lysoclear, Leucadia Therapeutics, Methuselah Fund, Oisin Biotechnologies, Repair Biotechnologies, Covalent Bioscience. These companies mainly develop senolytics and methods of regeneration of tissues damaged by aging, as well as research therapy for Alzheimer's disease and age-related macular degeneration that causes blindness.

Recently, a community like Fight Aging! was launched by a Russian-born entrepreneur Vitaly Ponomarev. He has already created the WayRay global technology project, which is estimated at $500 million, and now he has decided to do research on aging. Ponomarev does not plan to earn money on his new Centaura project – on the contrary, he is going to attract money from those who are interested in longevity issues and direct them to finance scientific works. At the moment, Ponomarev has already invested $ 16 million of his own funds in Centaura, a team of 40 people is working on research. The results of Centaura's first work within the community were presented at the American Society for Aging conference in April 2019, and the first data obtained as part of the scientific collaboration were published in May of this year.

And if I'm a beginner biohacker?

There are also resources where you will be taught how to prolong life correctly. For example, the online community SelfHacked. You can join the ranks of the community for free – and immediately get a lot of useful materials. In particular, tips on what tests you need to take to check your "biological clock", and which genes it makes sense to investigate. As well as a stress management guide and a list for going to the supermarket, excluding products containing lectins - they are contained in legumes and nightshades and, according to American biohacker Dave Esprey, contribute to the aging process.

By the way, about Dave Asprey: he is one of the world's top biohackers and has spent at least $ 1 million on "improving" his body – and now plans to live at least 180 years. This makes you think that life extension is not a pleasure for the poor or even for people from the middle class.

But if you still want to try, you can subscribe to the SelfHacked newsletter, go to biohacker meetups, for example, such as those organized by the Forever Healthy community, and hang out on forums such as the Future of Longevity Group and LongeCity. Perhaps the hobby of biohacking will result in something more, as happened with Russian scientists and entrepreneurs, for whom the fight against aging has become not just a hobby, but an image and meaning of life.

Transhumanists: on the way to eternal life

There are people who are genuinely not going to die, at least in the foreseeable future. Their goal is to live up to the time when science will find ways to live, if not forever, then for a very long time. And the choice to leave this life or not yet, will remain for the person himself. Among such transhumanists are Elena Milova, who is on the board of directors of the American Life Extension Advocacy Foundation (LEAF), and Anastasia Egorova, vice president of the Russian Open Longevity Foundation. Both of them are still far from old age: Milova has just turned 40, Egorova is only 33 years old. So why are they so interested in the struggle for life extension?

Elena Milova says that her story of the "war on aging" is personal. "In 2008, a disaster happened in the family – my mother got cancer. A desperate struggle began, which ended in defeat three years later. These three years were the most terrible period in my life, but at the same time it was they who put everything in its place, taught me to value life, to value health and independence, and also finally opened my eyes to the imperfection of the system." She explains that the problem of aging and age-dependent diseases, which include cancer, is theoretically solvable, it's just that states invest too little money in her research. This means that it is necessary to create non-profit organizations that will spread the idea of victory over old age in society and finance the work of scientists, which is what LEAF is doing.

Anastasia Egorova has a different story – "nothing personal, just business." "At some point I realized that there is nothing more significant in the world than studying the problem of aging. I may sometimes want to do some kind of hobby, but compared to the struggle for eternal life, everything seems somehow flat and meaningless, I don't even want to waste time on it.
In addition, the field of transhumanism opens up a huge scope for the activities of such an ambitious person as me. If you want, do science and research, if you want, arrange events and conferences, write articles, books, participate in the PR of ideas of "non–aging", etc." Transhumanists themselves are not particularly engaged in biohacking – they are still quite young, so all their efforts are basically reduced to a normal lifestyle. A varied diet with a low amount of "fast" carbohydrates and an abundance of vegetables, a minimum of alcohol, sufficient activity, regular checkups, vitamin level control (especially D and B12), hygiene and regular skin hydration – this is still enough to be healthy, look good and feel productive.
"I'm not really interested in the prospect of extending my life for a couple of years, and the current biohacking tools are only suitable for this. Therefore, I believe that my main contribution to the fight against age–related changes is my work," says Anastasia Egorova.

The Open Longevity Foundation, which she develops together with other transhumanists, is a kind of platform for attracting people interested in "non-aging". He raises money and conducts his own clinical studies of various therapies aimed at combating age-related changes. The foundation also holds the Open Longevity School, which is a kind of camp where transhumanists get acquainted, exchange news from the field of biogerontology and discuss the launch of new projects. "Almost after each of our schools, some startups appear in the field of anti-aging. I consider this a great achievement of Open Longevity," says Egorova. As for Elena Milova and LEAF, their activities are much more extensive. In 2015, the foundation founded a non-profit crowdfunding platform Lifespan.io , which helped scientists raise about a third of a million dollars to support seven scientific projects in the field of aging – from the study of biomarkers of aging to the search for new drugs.

The foundation also works as an educational portal, publishing news from the world of science and interviews with leading researchers of aging, reviews of scientific conferences. In order to reach the general public, the foundation decided to cooperate with the popular YouTube channel Kurzgesagt. As a result of their collaboration, two videos about age and aging were released, which collected almost 10 million views.
The LEAF Foundation even participates in the formation of international policy on aging and longevity. "In 2017, I had to urgently launch a project in LEAF to make changes to the WHO's 13th Work Program, because in the draft laid out for public consultation, the issues of aging and age-related diseases were practically absent. Can you imagine that? Age–related diseases account for up to 70% of mortality in developed countries, and the WHO decided that this problem can simply be ignored," complains Milova.

Now one of WHO's goals for the coming years is to extend the active and healthy life of people in the world. And this, according to Milova, is much more difficult than just increasing life expectancy.
Eternal life is the dream of transhumanists who are confident in its achievability. For example, Dmitry Kaminsky, a partner of the Hong Kong venture fund Deep Knowledge Ventures, who dreams of living forever, promised to give $ 1 million to anyone who will live to 123 years. And the head of Insilico Medicine, an American scientist of Russian origin Alex Zhavoronkov made a bet with Kaminsky for $ 1 million about who will live longer: the survivor will receive money. "Eternal life is a matter of faith,– says Zhavoronkov. – I still believe in the inevitability of death. But I really like this world, and I would like to stay here as long as possible and look at the development of events."

To live or not to live?

Despite the fact that transhumanists are trying to save the lives of us all, they often face criticism. One of the arguments of their opponents is that they practically do not live here and now – and invest time and effort in the pursuit of the mirage of immortality, which they may never achieve. Against their background, the guys who are just fighting for improving the quality of life and productivity with the help of modern technologies look much closer to life. Meet Evgenia Smorodnikova and Pavel Pravdin (both just over 35), the founders of the Welltory app, which tops the Russian App Store rating in the "Health and Fitness" category. As of today, Welltory has already been downloaded by about 1 million people.

"A few years ago, I had a professional burnout (I worked with the serial launch of startups) and my brain turned off. I was terrified because my brain is my main working tool! I could have assumed that the body could fail me, but I thought that the mind would always remain clear. During that psychological crisis, I realized that this is not the case and the brain needs to be protected. Now for me, Welltory is like an anti–aging cream, only for the brain."

"At the age of about 30, I noticed how much my work–life balance was suffering - and this began to affect my health. At first, I was hung up with all possible fitness gadgets, I began to play sports more actively. And when I realized that I didn't understand how to deal with all this data about my body, I came up with Welltory – as a single aggregator of all biomedical parameters and a personal lifestyle adviser, a kind of "uber for health".

The creators of Welltory are confident that today they know more than anyone else in the world about human physiology, how different biomarkers affect productivity, stress and recovery. With the help of their product, they hope to reform the healthcare sector, shifting it towards prevention and personalization, and change the lives of at least 100 million people for the better. According to Pavel Pravdin, he hopes that in a couple of years the company will be worth more than $ 100 million. As for the entrepreneurs themselves, they have already noticed that Welltory has made their lives better. Maybe they didn't become healthier – after all, launching a startup requires a lot of strength and nerves, but at least they began to work more productively and effectively avoid burnout.

Maybe this is the value of life – to live it to the maximum energetically and productively, not caring so much about how long it will last? This is partly confirmed by surveys conducted both in Russia and in the United States. Only a third of Russians want to live several times longer than they do now, up to infinity, and a little more than a third of Americans agree to live 120 years or more.

And this is another reason for the criticism of transhumanists: are they sure that eternal life is so necessary? And isn't it boring to live indefinitely?

"I want to live radically longer than now to try different lives. When you don't live more than 100 years, you can choose one career. When you have 1000 years, you can try a bunch of different professions. If you have an unlimited amount of time ahead of you, you can have time to be a mother of four children, a childfree, a faithful wife, and a loner with cats. I want to try it all until I get bored, and I don't agree that it's not me who decides when it's time to stop living. So far, I prefer the idea of continuing to live in my native body, but maybe it's just the force of habit. I am also considering the option that my consciousness can be copied to another medium, more durable. If it will lead to a radical prolongation of life faster, why not?
As for boredom, I think we will find a way to "reboot" the brain so that the impressions of life remain vivid. If such a problem occurs at all. While this is not very relevant, let's first radically prolong life, and then we will solve the problem of depression and boredom," says Anastasia Egorova.

Elena Milova is somewhat more cautious in her predictions: so far her main goal is to stay healthy as long as possible. But she also believes that scientists will defeat aging sooner or later. "However, you need to understand that an indefinitely long period of health is not the same as a complete inability to die from anything. We live in an era of global challenges, and our ability to survive even this century is still in question – due to climate change, environmental disturbances, a possible crisis in the food and agro-industry, inequality and the whole mass of unplanned consequences of our development in the XX century. Before talking about immortality, we will have to solve all these problems somehow. Will we be able to cope? The future will show. I am an optimist, so ask me about it in 100 years," Milova sums up.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru