Curation for Longevity 🧬🛍 6 - Biological Age, Hyping up Longevity, Age Maverick
Hello 👋 and welcome to Curation for Longevity by Laura Minquini. I am the founder of MYKIGAI - a new type of community to experience longevity.
In this newsletter, I look into what could help make longevity the next big DTC (Direct To Consumer) category. 🚀
The Unbearable Lightness of Knowing your Biological Age 🧬
I have been saying it for a while - we should all forget our Chronological age.
Part of changing public perception to think about longevity instead of aging will require a lot of people to subscribe to this idea, and putting more value to our two other ages, starting with our Biological Age.
What is Biological Age?
Also known as physiological or functional age, biological age differs from chronological age because it takes into consideration a number of factors other than just the day you were born.
It is the damage we accumulate to various cells and tissues in the body.
But the task at hand is gargantuan when you think most people do no understand the benefit of knowing it - and more importantly - might not be prepared to deal with the psychological impact of this knowledge. When it comes to our health - we do not necessarily want to be - in the know. A clear example of this is that men are still as avoidant as ever about regular checkups.
When it came my turn to take my first test, it took me a couple of weeks to get around to it. My excuse was timing it with the newsletter, then my schedule, then walking my dog…There was no professor asking me to hand in an assignment, but I had that feeling.
I knew my stress level was high and was concerned about how this would impact my results. Would it have an effect on my self-perception of my age, if I found out I was older in my biology? What would be the irony of a longevity advocate being biologically older?
You know that my result was not so young when I did not run to every social network to scream at the top of my lungs I am 30!!! I was doing better than average but not good enough. More on this after my second test.
Learning our biological age is one of the most empowering tools at our disposal to learn more about our health. As these diagnostics become more prevalent, and prices become more accessible hopefully this will become standard practice.
This is why our first official Longevity Drop is GlycanAge.
Longevity Drop (It Like it’s Hot) 🧬💧
The world has gone “Drop” crazy lately, well that is if you are into NFTs and into that tech bubble - so not the whole world, just degenerate speculators. I say this with affection.
The concept of Drops was pioneered in the fashion world, with the cult classic brand Supreme, which took the New York skater and underground culture global with limited editions products available at a certain date and in limited quantities. Interestingly enough - they borrowed this strategy from Japanese street culture. All good things seem to always come from Japan…This concept has been used since then to hype everything, most recently NFTs (Non-fungible tokens), so why not Longevity?
Drops are about incentives and scarcity.
At MYKIGAI we want to create incentives and hype for people to try something they are not familiar with (Longevity) as well as to create opportunities (savings) for those who are not in the top 1% to have access to some of these novel products.
And when it comes to brand building; co-branding and brand associations are also paramount. A lifestyle is to “appeal to a consumer by association”, not a stand-alone product.
How do MYKIGAI Drops work?
Our members get access to incredible short & sweet offers on amazing Longevity brands that we vetted and curated.
Take our current Longevity Drop #2 🧬💧with GlycanAge - an easy at-home diagnostic one can use to measure biological age and the impact lifestyle changes can make to it.
For this test to be efficient you should ideally take 2 tests. One to find out your current age, and a second one to measure the changes you made over a period of time.
Our Drop offers a unique opportunity to access these two test in one unbeatable deal.
Missed it? Our members benefit from surprise “Shock Drops” that allows them to jump one more time on the opportunity - but these drops are unannounced and in closed channels.
Not sure you know enough? We do meet the founders, innovators, and scientists to learn more about the science of longevity and their product. You can access the sessions live or in replays.
Still, want to learn more? If after looking at the brand’s website, learning about the science from the founder, still not sure, our members have access to 1-on-1 sessions with our in-house Geroscientist to have their longevity questions answered.
Not interested in this? It’s OK, we will have so many other evidence based products.
Eventually, our Drops will also be Tokens…but that’s in our future, this is the now.
Our Longevity Drop #2 with GlycanAge just ended - but as a loyal reader you can still access our introductory subscription and drop 👉🏼 here.
Savings index : Higher than $200 dollars. Link expires when our next newsletter drops. Touché!
Subjective Age - Maverick for me
The second age that matters is your Subjective Age.
Feeling younger than one’s chronological age is associated with various beneficial health outcomes.
How to change the terms of aging is a thankless task. It’s the never-ending hashing out of new terms that seem to satisfy no one. Personally, my three pet peeves and must retire terms are “senior”, “elderly”, and “products for the 50+”. I am convinced they are bad for your subjective age. (Self-perception of your age). You might as well be saying this:
Images and words matter. How we convey or portray meaning is everything, and the most successful branding always makes the right connection between these.
Take for example how the Hollywood marketing machine got lucky for the release of the second Top Gun movie. The studio is turning on the taps of nostalgia for a couple of generations of women who I am sure will want to reminisce the “take my breath away” fantasy. Not sure what the effect of decades of controversial Tom will have, but Maverick is a good way to convey 36 years of experience.
Cruise’s character nickname “Maverick” really fits him now that he is almost 60 years old for this role. And boy does he look good, I am sure there will be lots of articles talking about his age. This is the kind of look/image we want to use to illustrate longevity and shape how people view it.
You read it here first 👉🏼 2022 will be big with more well-known personalities & celebrities showing what #thelookoflongevity can look like.
Longevity 🧬🧠 Tip
Want to have a good Subjective Age? 👉🏼 Stay curious Always be like Martha Stewart- she is “dropping” an NFT. I had bet her friend and collaborator, Snoop Dog, a savvy investors and crypto player gave her some pointers. And of course he did.
Stay curious to stay young (at heart).
Meet the Team
“MYKIGAI’s framework and mission immediately resonated with me as it is the only longevity-focused company that democratizes access to rigorously vetted information and resources so that it is accessible to anyone and everyone. In doing so, individuals have the opportunity to transform the way they age .... TODAY.”
Giriah Harinath is a longevity researcher with extensive experience within the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, neuroscience and longevity therapeutics. He has a Masters of Business and Science with a concentration in Biotechnology and Genomics. Girish also serves as a consultant for various longevity-focused companies and is passionate about helping individuals transform the way they age, one moment at a time.
Most importantly, Girish is a community builder and an amazing science communicator.
