Curation for Longevity 🧬🛍 - 2022 Trends
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 DTC (Direct To Consumer) lifestyle category. 🚀
What's to come in 2022 for Longevity? 🧬🔮
It is going to be an even bigger year for longevity.
Ok, I am done, that's the forecast. Ha! To be an oracle and just make proclamations…
In a past life, when I had just moved to Paris I was a trend analyst doing qualitative research for companies like Louis Vuitton and Puig; doing presentations on the biggest branding and consumers trends of the seasons ahead.
Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. This is a hard sell in a data-driven world, and in particular for scientists. However, these trends are a macro look that takes into account societal factors, and consumers.
So I am giving it a go for longevity forecasting this year!
These are the Longevity Trends for 2022:
⚪️ Celebrity Culture x Longevity
⚪️ In-person Experiences
⚪️ Dogs (Pets)
⚪️ Epigenetic / Biological clocks
⚪️ In the mood for DAO
⚪️ Psychedelics x Longevity
⚪️ Female Fertility
Celebrity Culture x Longevity 🧬🤩
‘Tis was the first day of the year and we were already being sold on how-to look like celebrities in midlife.
Jeff Bezos looks a bit like a mix of Rico Suave and Austin Powers villain (the laugh does not help), but even I have to admit that his vitality and Latina girlfriend are probably giving middle-aged men ideas of how to live their best life. Tom Brady in his 40s is being touted as an athlete still on top of his game, he is for sure an evolution in human biology.
There is a big number of big celebrities and public figures reaching middle age who are looking amazing. It makes sense for them to capitalize on their enormous followings and the fact that the wealth of the western world is in the hands of people over 50.
Forget"senior conditioning" like the one being seen on the Sex & the City reboot "And just like that..." where 50-year-olds go deaf and call themselves seniors, 60- year-olds die after 1000 Peloton rides, and instead of being hip, you get hip surgeries. What a missed opportunity to change the perception of aging.
Celebrities will be endorsing and getting in the game of investing in companies. One very well-known longevity supplement company going into the beauty market has a celebrity investor so expect beauty +longevity+celebrity to be a thing.
Disney+ has Chris Hemsworth (38 y/o) exploring Longevity with director Darren Aronofsky in Limitless for National Geographic. We see in the trailer the most famous MD in longevity Dr. Peter Attia making an appearance.
This one is big in terms of distribution, reach, and on its inspirational, and aspirational content. Hemsworth has his shirt off for a big part of the trailer, if you read the comments on YouTube, I see a lot of more people getting curious about longevity.
I am myself manifesting Jennifer Lopez, and Oprah.
Correlated trend:
Tall claims. “How to reverse your bio-age in 8 weeks.” If we start touting biological age like a diet fad, we are all as in industry going to be in for a very painful road.
Somewhere between good actors doing some marketing and bad actors jumping on the bandwagon, the consumer will have a hard time figuring out who, and what is legit. Friendly reminder, this is why vetting and curation (what we are doing at MYKIGAI) have to be a thing.
Longevity lifestyle is a lifelong practice, eat well, sleep well, exercise, supplement, test, measure, challenge yourself, rinse, and repeat. Much like diets, you can lose weight, but if you don’t have the proper plan, tools, or habits, it can be worse after the diet.
In-person Experiences 🛖
We are in the midst of the new Omicron variant, which in some places it means restrictions and lockdowns, and the metaverse is apparently the place to be, but I am bullish on in-person experiences.
In terms of longevity, I am painting it in the brushstroke of places that are dedicated to wellness and increased health. A concept being developed by a friend, Longevity House, comes to mind. Another recent announcement of a massive 3,000-square-foot spa space that will encompass four private ice baths and a 50-person sauna that are part of a hot and cold circuit by Othership . This is the extension of their digital space dedicated to guided breathwork which to me makes 1000% absolute sense. No matter how exciting the online world is, we are biological beings. Digital 👉🏼 Physical.
Correlated trend:
At-home experiences
Health at home is a growing segment. For those who have it all there are products like Peloton, Eight Sleep. The category will continue to grow with start-ups like we are Florens, who are working on ways to make the home the place of comfort and health care.
Dogs (Pets) 🐶
I have the fortune and sometimes misfortune of currently residing in Canada. Fortune - universal healthcare. Not fortunate, my dog Mobile cannot be part of any of the amazing trials that are available for dog’s longevity.
Dogs are being touted as a more realistic model to run studies than mice. If you are curious about the logic behind this I highly recommend reading this paper here. (Rest assured that these trials will not hurt animals).
Loyal launched their sampling kit for a 1000 epigenetic dog study. And I know that those in the field of research and enthusiasts about longevity, in general, are excited about Dr Kaeberlain’s Rapamycin study. Consider that millennials are spending more on dogs than babies, and that people are willing to do more for their pets than for ourselves. I can also assure everyone that even those who are not into the 150 human life, would be 1000% for more dog years. Even Dr. David Sinclair’s brother is getting in the family business and is apparently already treating celerity dogs and launching a dog longevity company this year.
From Pet Cryonics to DAO’s for dog longevity, a lot will be happing in the pet longevity space.
Correlated trend:
Rapamycin. By far one of the most talked about and with most results from biohackers, this drug (original use was to prevent rejection in organ transplantation and to treat certain types of cancer), could end up being the viagra of longevity (unintended use of a drug with a different benefit). There are plenty of podcasts, and literature on it. For those who are more than curious there is PEARL Rapamycn trial you can try to be part of, fill out the form here.
Epigenetic clocks / Biological clocks 🧬🕰
Biological Clocks are controversial in the longevity field, but they are undisputedly, if not yet precise (as per the critics), necessary tool. This year people are going to be hearing a lot about them.
From brands like AgeRate launching, Dr. David Sinclair’s own test kit coming to the market, and books like Dr. Morgan Levine’s True Age being published. The general public and consumer will be hearing and learning more about them, and this is good.
Longevity as a field is abstract to the general public, between the science, and not understanding immediate impact to their lives now, it cannot be stressed enough to how important starting points are. Understanding biological age, or the difference between this and chronological age, and why we could use this as a better tool to manage our health outcomes in aging, are a way to get people involved in management as well as seeing the benefits of longevity science.
Epigenetics will be this year’s Telomeres.
In the mood for DAO 👥
2021 was the year that crypto (web3) 🤝longevity.
There was the Vitalik Buterin $ELON donation to Methuselah Foundation*, the PulseChain Airdrop for Sens Research Foundation, and the launch of everyone's favorite new way to fund research, VitaDAO.
Brian Armstrong from Coinbase went all in for longevity. From making a donation to the Dog Aging Project specifically because of the studies Dr. Matt Kaeberlein is doing with Rapamycin, to launching New Limit, yet another epigenetic reprogramming company.
Whether you are for web3 or not, it is here to stay. I personally don’t find it yet full of utility for consumers, or more importantly accessible. Egalitarian or not; to participate you either have time, know how to code/market/design/discord, or have money to burn. The future is not evenly distributed yet but I am sure that’s what was said about the internet many years ago.
The projects that get hype or are written about like ConstitutionDAO, polarize in how exciting or futile they seem, but imagine how much capital there is out there to burn when people can raise 40 million from 17 000 people in days to buy an item. We need to meme funding healthcare and education!
DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) can however solve real problems, and there are a few number whose mission is to truly helping change paradigms. Things like the funding scientific research, climate change, and healthcare. For longevity in particular they will play a crucial role as the industry is still underfunded and governments are still not putting more money or better classifications to do research and trials.
I can’t wait to see what VitaDAO, the Dog Longevity DAO, and projects like CitizenDAO have in store this year.
* Quick anecdote: I was in in an email communication with David Gobel and congratulated him on the announcement of the donation. He asked me where I had heard about this. I pointed him to the link and this is how (funnily) they resolved the mystery of the sudden donation, which at this point they were not sure where it had come from. How grand of Vitalik to not make a big and just casually send funds along.
Psychedelics x Longevity 🍄
Psychedelics are being talked about a lot in the realm of mental health, and though the amount of investment going into them has a bit of a feel of the cannabis wild wild west days of some years back, there is no denial of the research and apparent true benefits. Scientists at John Hopkins have found that psilocybin and LSD have meaningful anti-inflammatory properties and that psychedelics microbiological action has the potential to help combat Alzheimer’s brain-based symptoms.
Results in a study also showed that lifetime classic psychedelic use was associated with both lower odds of heart disease and lower odds of diabetes, which indicates that classic psychedelic use might be beneficial for cardiometabolic health.
With psilocybin being THE next big promise of all things good and in particular for brain health, the continued research and utility use is going to grow.
Well known longevity & biotech investor Christian Angermayer is big on psychedelics, I am counting on more cross-pollination from him.