🧬🛍 23 - True Age, Let’s Talk Longevity, DeSci Berlin, Molecules

Hello👋 and welcome to Curation for Longevity by Laura Minquini. I am the founder of MYKIGAI - a discovery and recommendation platform for longevity.

In this newsletter, I look into what could help make longevity the next big consumer health & lifestyle category. 🚀

---

Announcements 📣

From the The Guardian feature article

I have written many times about how important it is to know our biological age for healthy longevity. 🧬

In honour of her new book True Age and her research on biological and chronological age, I am hosted a talk with Dr. Morgan Levine.

Not only is she an incredibly accomplished woman in longevity science, the Yale scientist and researcher joined as a founding Principal Investigator at Altos Labs, a $3bn startup funded by the likes of Jeff Bezos. She also understands the importance of communicating and translating the potential of longevity to average consumers.

The style editor in me also thinks there should be a Vogue editorial on her called “Where lifestyle meets science”…

🎧 Listen to recording  👉 https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1DXxyDYbnjyJM

---

🚨 New Podcast Alert

And by new podcast alert, I mean this is now an Apple Podcast!

Let’s Talk Longevity is a new podcast challenging the current narratives and consensus opinions in longevity. The field has a perception problem — it is usually framed negatively with its potential misunderstood. Huge questions have yet to be answered, like what does living a 150-year life really mean for society? In this podcast series, we explore the various objections to longevity so you can form your own answers.

For the inaugural episode, we hosted Dr. Aubrey de Grey & Dr. Charles Brenner to debate whether we are anywhere near Longevity Escape Velocity.

🎙 Listen on wherever you subscribe to podcasts HERE

---

The New Kids on The Block

Years ago at a kid’s birthday party, there was a clown act I volunteered to participate in.

Hours later, the party host pointed at someone, telling my aunt that she was worried the clown had left his assistant behind.

My aunt responded, “That’s my niece.”

I am taking these amazing hosting skills to Berlin for the first DeSci Berlin conference to hang out with the New Kids on the Block of longevity. The stock and crypto markets might be crashing, but the opportunity of decentralized science (DeSci) funding and research is just getting started.

Join us on May 23 & 24 or register to watch the livestreams 👉 Desci.Berlin

Paul Kohlhaas @paulkhls

If you're into the symbiosis of open science, web3, ip-nfts and decentralized biotech Contribute to Desci.berlin May 23/24th. Unconference & workshop format w/ the brightest minds in traditional bio, science & the web3 #desci avantgarde Right before @NFTBERLINteam

desci.berlinDeSci.Berlin - Decentralized Science Conference and WorkshopsDesci.Berlin is a two-day Decentralized Science conference aimed at advancing and proliferating the intersection between web3 technology and science.

---

Longevity Molecules 🧬🧰

Prepared by Girish Harinath

One of the most profound discoveries within the field of geroscience is that all organisms possess longevity genes that are lying dormant within cells — waiting for the right signals to be activated. Longevity molecules serve as these signals. Longevity molecules can be found in the foods that we eat and are produced by microbes around and within us. Of course, scientists are also designing and synthesizing novel longevity molecules within the lab.

Longevity molecules activate genes that serve as “master regulators”. In other words, these genes don’t just perform one function in the cell, they serve several different beneficial roles such as: repairing DNA, recycling cellular trash, regenerating organs, resolving chronic inflammation, and much, much more. Basically, anything that has to do with repairing damage, clearing trash, and building resilience. 

One might ask, “if we have the genes – the blueprint – for longevity within us, then why do we age?”. The simple answer is two-fold:

1. The basic act of living (i.e breathing, moving, digesting) creates damages that drive aging.

2. At some point during our lives, we stop activating the “master regulator” genes that resolve damage and slow down the aging process

So how can we intentionally include more longevity molecules in our lives to make sure our “master regulator” genes are restoring and rejuvenating the cells of our body throughout he aging process? Well, it turns out that humans have been intentionally doing so for thousands of years by incorporating a “little bit of discomfort” in their lives. This engages a process called “hormesis”, in which engaging with a little bit of stress activates longevity genes that drive a great deal of resilience.

We can engage with hormesis through ingesting longevity molecules within the foods that we eat, the ways we move our body, and various stressors we expose ourselves to like heat, cold, oxygen, and even problem-solving activities (what Dr. David Sinclair calls “adversity mimetics”). 

Of particular interest are the longevity molecules that are produced within plants called “phyto (plant) - chemicals”. Phytochemicals are generally produced as a protective response when plants detect stress in their environment. By ingesting these plants we “stress out” our own cells just enough to activate protective responses within our own body. These protective responses are critical for preventing the onset of age-related diseases like sarcopenia (muscle loss), Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.

There are a wide variety of phytochemicals that have been shown to have longevity-promoting benefits. Many of them are the molecules (i.e. polyphenols) that give plants their characteristic colour or taste. Notably, there is a rapidly growing industry of longevity supplement companies that are (presumably) extracting and selling these phytochemicals in more potent forms than can be found in the dietary sources they originate from. 

For this new addition to the Longevity Toolkit, I will be providing you with a series of protocols on the best ways to access and optimally engage with some of the most impactful and promising longevity molecules that are readily available to us. Incorporating these longevity molecules into your health routine will help you activate the longevity genes necessary to keep your cells healthy as you age.

If you would like me to continue this series of protocols on Longevity Molecules for the month of June, reach out to geroscientist@mykigai.com to let us know!