The epidemic of youth
How to live 120 years and become happy
Elena Babicheva, Forbes
In the fall of 2017, 32-year-old entrepreneur Sergey Fage, who lives in Silicon Valley, reported that he spent $200,000 to study his health, takes about 60 dietary supplements daily, sleeps for 8.5 hours, does not drink, does not smoke, does not waste time courting women. The goal of the Phage is to live at least 120 years.
From the point of view of traditional medicine, Phage is an ordinary weirdo, from the point of view of experimental biology, he is an ordinary biohacker.
Who are biohackers
"In essence, biohacking is a derivative of the well–known healthy lifestyle, in modern terms – antiage therapy, modified and supplemented by the fantastic possibilities of science of the XXI century. Adherents of this direction make up individual programs for themselves and clearly follow them. The difference is only in mentality and approaches. Everyone has the same goal – maximum prolongation of life with its high quality," says Vadim Zorin, PhD, Head of the Department of Regenerative Medicine at the Institute of Human Stem Cells. – Do not think that it is so simple: once I began to take care of myself, take the right dietary supplements, introduce all sorts of biohacking techniques into my lifestyle. We need motivation, special consciousness, strategy and opportunities, finally. It is the opportunities that are most important in our rapidly changing time. In such people, consciousness determines being, but not the other way around. I like such people. They understand that longevity shines not for the strongest, but for the most adapted to rapidly changing environmental conditions. If the guys do not overdo it with biohacking, the probability of living to 100 years and beyond is extremely high. However, as medicine develops, this will become more and more real for the population as a whole."
The idea to hack the systems of the human body, like a computer system, came to scientists in the 1980s. In 1997, the American physicist Rob Carlson moved at the invitation of Nobel laureate Sidney Brenner to his Institute for Molecular Research. Carlson was needed by Brenner to apply the approaches of computer hackers in biology, and became a biohacker.
In 1998, John Craig Venter, geneticist, president of Celera Genomics, sequenced the human genome. Venter, using his laboratory (budget $300 million), identified 20,000-25,000 DNA genes and determined the sequence of 3 billion pairs of chemical bases that make up human DNA. For comparison, the HUGO (International Organization for the Study of the Human Genome) project, launched in 1990, solved the same problem for $3 billion. By 2003, the human genome had been almost completely decoded. This discovery gave birth to a generation of enthusiastic researchers, making the main issue of modern biology: how to control the body's systems and reprogram it for immortality?
In 2015, two business scientists Alexander Zhavoronkov, director of the analytical center Biogerontology Research Foundation, CEO of Insilico Medicine, and Dmitry Kaminsky, senior partner of the Hong Kong venture fund Deep Knowledge Ventures, made a bet for $ 1 million. The bet comes into force when both parties to the dispute turn 100 years old. $1 million in Insilico Medicine shares will go to the one who outlives his rival.
"I would like to make similar bets with Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, so that they live longer and create some more great things. However, they do not seem to me worthy rivals in the field of life extension. I would argue with Sergey Brin and Larry Page – they are actively engaged in the fight against aging (the Calico project)," Kaminsky said.
"This is a new approach to your health and a qualitatively new request: to invest in your health and see which biomarkers (body parameters reflecting its condition) and how exactly they change," says Sergey Musienko, CEO of Atlas Bioholding, which deals with longevity issues. – Instead of "I don't want to get sick," people say "I want to be healthy."
The prospects
Now the focus of the scientific community is on the natural geroprotector, the intestinal microbiota responsible for immunity and, accordingly, longevity. Her genetic analysis shows which bacteria live in what quantity in the intestine and how their composition can be corrected. The price of the issue is about 10,000 rubles, along with the results, recommendations are issued to improve the quality of the microbiota. The analysis should be repeated every three months. The next question is how to transplant the microbiota.
The next step is the complete digitization of medical data. "It's a real biohacker's dream to carry all his clinical parameters in his pocket, have access to them, and control their changes. In the next two years, we will have microbiota data, diet, and exercise schedule in our phones. Then you need to find a correlation between hundreds of parameters," predicts Sergey Musienko.
Background of the issue
2007
At Stanford University, biologist Tony Weiss-Koray began experiments on mice on transfusion of young blood plasma.
2010
For the first time, a mini-organ – the spleen - has been assembled from stem cells. Then the liver, kidney fragment and lungs were recreated. Now scientists are trying to grow these organs of normal size to transplant to a person.
2013
Biohacker Tom Cannon has implanted a chip in his arm that tracks various anthropometric indicators.
2014
Scientists from the University of Oregon have discovered anti-aging properties of rapamycin, which has been used as an antibiotic and an immunosuppressant.
2015
American researcher Liz Parrish gave herself an experimental injection of two types of genes. One blocks myostatin in the blood, which helps to strengthen muscle mass, the second regulates the length of the endings of telomeres, which are directly related to aging. Liz claims that in the first nine months of the experiment, she became 20 years younger.
Gerontologist Walter Longo (University of Southern California) has proved that periodic fasting allows not only to remove visceral fat on the abdomen, but also improves cognitive abilities, reduces inflammatory processes and increases life expectancy.
2016
In the USA, metformin has been tested as a remedy for old age.
2017
Biophysicist, former NASA employee Josiah Zainer gives himself an injection of an enzyme solution to block a gene that suppresses the growth of muscle tissue.
Geneticist and biologist John Craig Venter has launched a new Human Longevity project. MRI and ultrasound sessions, blood tests and cognitive tests have been added to DNA sequencing. The collected data will make it possible to predict how to increase life expectancy.
2020
By this year, scientists predict, the first neuroprostheses will appear, which will eventually be able to replace all parts of the human body. Thus, the body will be able not to age and not get sick.
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