Lifespan by David Sinclair - a Precis

Lifespan: Why we age - and why we don’t have to. David Sinclair PhD

In Lifespan, Dr David Sinclair provides us with everyday tools that we can all use to stop what he now calls ‘the disease of ageing’...........you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to read and follow his advice, as I have for the last 15 years.

Stephen R Gundry, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Plant Paradox. Director of the Heart Institute. A world-renowned heart surgeon
Plus, there are nine more glowing testimonies in this fabulous book.

Introduction

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As a species, we live much longer than ever. But not much better. Not at all. Over the past century, we have gained additional years, but not always ‘life worth living’. We’re making the extra years a ‘medical experience’.

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But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if we could be YOUNGER longer, not years longer, decades longer? What if, in our 60s, we weren't fretting about leaving a legacy but starting one?

What if we didn’t have to worry about the clock ticking? And what if I told you that soon, even now, in fact –we won't?
Well, that’s what I'm telling you.

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I’ve applied many scientific findings and supplements to my daily life, as have many of my family members, friends, and colleagues. The results are very encouraging. (Look at photos of David at 55; he looks 35!)

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People say we might be able to chip away at the average, but we’re not likely to move the limit. They say extending the lifespan of mice or dogs is easy, but not humans; we already live too long.
THEY ARE WRONG!
We’re capable of both. Extending human lifespan and maintaining vitality in the process
Age 120 will soon become the norm. What’s the limit? I don’t think there is one; my colleagues agree.
Flight, for example, was impossible until it wasn’t!

Main body pages

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Four billion years ago, the world was very hostile, with volcanic activity everywhere and many warm water puddles. Organic molecules cover all surfaces, having come to Earth on meteorites and comets. When these molecules are immersed in warm water, a unique chemistry occurs.

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As the nucleic acid concentrates, it grows into polymers, RNA molecules that soon become DNA. This primitive material becomes covered in fatty acids and forms soap bubbles, the first cell membranes. The nucleic acids become what we now call genes.
Some of the protocells divide, marking the beginning of all life
They all fight to survive, and the best scum wins!

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As another billion years pass, a group of ‘great survivor’ cells appear. These cells can shut down when little food is available, repairing themselves instead of reproducing.

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We have inherited an advanced version of this survival circuit.

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The ‘great survivor’ cells continue evolving and multiplying. They are our Adam and Eve.

The fossil records in our genes prove that every living thing carries this ancient genetic survival circuit.

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In the 1960s, Denham Harman devoted his efforts to researching ‘free radicals’, as free radicals whizzed around the damaged DNA of cells. He experimented on himself and took high doses of Alpha Lipoic Acid. (David did his PhD on Alpha Lipoic Acid and takes it daily to quench these radicals). While he lived to the ripe old age of 97, his theory of free radicals has since been debunked, but he tells that to the millions of shoppers looking for ‘good sources of antioxidants’. The billion-dollar deception carries on. There is little evidence that the antioxidants stimulate the immune system or add years to humans.

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After 2000, many leading scientists realised there was no single cause but several ‘hallmarks ‘of ageing:

• Instability caused by DNA damage.
• Shortening of the caps covering the chromosomes, the telomeres.
• Failure of the epigenome to turn on and off the genes in the correct order.
• Loss of healthy protein, causing proteostasis.
• The inability of the cells to sense nutrients.
• Mitochondrial dysfunction.
• The build-up of ‘zombie’ cells, or near-dead cells, with the body not disposing of them. Then they turn nasty, as in causing cancer, arthritis, etc.
• Exhaustion of stem cells.
• Loss of communication between cells causing inflammation.

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Address the hallmarks; you forestall disease and push death back- simple!

Progress is being made with stem cells in bone marrow transplants for arthritis, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, adding years to lives.

Zombie cells can be killed off with Fisetin and Curcumin.

Telomere shortening can be addressed with cell stimulation, i.e. NMN.

Resveratrol can address instability by mimicking fasting.

Science is moving fast. Computers can analyse tens of thousands of potential compounds and drugs each day!

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The epigenome is the software for each cell. It tells the cell what genes to turn on and off to remain the cell it is. Without the epigenome working well, a skin cell, a liver cell, etc., loses its identity, becomes confused, and dies. That’s what happens with ageing.

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We have at least two dozen ‘longevity genes’ called sirtuins that make life longer and healthier, often called ‘vitality genes.

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These genes form a surveillance network in our bodies, communicating with other cells by releasing proteins and chemicals into our bloodstream. They tell the cells to hunker down when times are tough or reproduce when times are good.

After a few billion years of evolution, these sirtuins control our health, fitness, and survival. They evolved to require a molecule called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). As we age, the NAD levels drop, the sirtuins work less, and we age and develop diseases. (Hence, David takes 1g of NMN daily to boost each cell's NAD levels). Without NAD, we’d be dead in 30 seconds!

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There are 7 sirtuins. They prevent cell death, boost mitochondria, battle muscle loss, osteoporosis, and macular degeneration, and activate the sirtuins. They can also repair DNA, boost memory, increase exercise endurance, and help mice stay trim no matter what they eat! Other longevity genes do fantastic work, an important one being mTor, a gene that regulates protein when we can’t find food; it helps keep us going for longer.

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Robert Mortimer studied the single-cell organism yeast in the 1950s. Robert recognised that the yeast cell was not that much different from a human cell (It makes sense when you consider the evolution from the first ‘puddle’ cells).

In 1959, he discovered that mother and daughter yeast cells could have vastly different lifespans, setting the stage for our current view of lifespan limits.

We are separated from yeast cells by a billion years, yet we retain 70% of the same genes.

What makes yeast cells so unique to me is they’re born and live a complete life in 7 days, a perfect species to study ageing with! Like humans, they spend a significant amount of time doing two things, eating and reproducing, horny or hungry!

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Our DNA is constantly under attack. On average, each of our 46 chromosomes breaks every time a cell copies its DNA; more than two trillion breaks in our bodies daily!
That doesn’t count for added breaks caused by chemicals, x-rays, CT scans and natural radiation!

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That’s why, way back in primordium, we evolved sirtuin 1 to repair broken DNA actively.
In yeast, we have shown that DNA breaks cause the sirtuins to leave the silent mating genes and rush over to repair the DNA. However, often, especially when overwhelmed with repair work, they forget where they came from in the cell, go to the wrong station, and fail to do the job of turning off and on the genes correctly that keep the cell healthy, thus causing them to become sterile zombies.

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The basis for David's work (and his large team) and proven theory is that we age because sirtuin 1 genes can’t keep up with the repairs needed and ‘forget where they should go when returning to the mating genes.'

David and his team have made great strides in helping cells remain young and capable of handling the workload a young cell can.

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Reversal comes of age.
In 2017, Michael Bonkowski (a colleague) rang David and told him he had a problem: the old mouse he fed NMN to wouldn’t stop running on the treadmill!

The mouse was equivalent to a 65-year-old human. The mouse ran three thousand metres, a remarkable feat for a young mouse but amazing for an old mouse.
How?
We discovered that the NMN had increased the NAD levels in the cells, activating the sirt1 enzyme; the elderly mouse’s endothelial cells that line the blood vessels were pushing their way into areas of the muscles that weren’t getting much blood flow. New tiny blood vessels and capillaries were formed, supplying badly needed oxygen, removing lactic acid and toxic metabolic from muscles and reversing one of the most significant causes of frailty in mice and humans.

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Surviving cancer or heart disease doesn’t substantially increase one’s lifespan; it simply means you have decreased the chances of dying from cancer or heart disease!
As soon as a disease appears, we treat it, beat that one, and wait for the next to beat down repeatedly until failure!

If we could stop all heart disease and all cancer immediately, the average lifespan would increase by only 3.6 years!

This graph shows that the chance of getting a lethal disease increases by a thousandfold between 20 and 80, so preventing one disease makes little difference to the lifespan.

Health is a hurdle race; when you knock one over, you’ll likely start knocking down many more. What we need is to remove all the hurdles.
With medical interventions, we’ve pushed back the space between hurdles, extending lifespan but adding little to healthspan.

This book aims to push the wall of death to 120 and beyond by following David’s advice and taking what David takes. Follow us for updates on every aspect of moving that wall for a vibrant lifespan. It’s possible now, and the knowledge will get much better, much quicker than you can imagine (excuse the pun!).

Ageing is simply a disease, and you can start now to improve your health and lifespan.

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Can you imagine saying that cancer and heart disease are inevitable? I can because that’s what we said. The manual on ageing was wrong.
Our whole medical system is based on the inevitability that we age, contract disease and die. We never considered treating ageing, but recently, in the past 20 years, we have.

Now, there is a glorious fight that I think we’ll win within our lifetimes!

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No matter how you feel at this very moment, you have a deadly disease, and it’s going to catch up with you eventually unless you do something about it. The disease is called ageing, and we didn’t understand how it happens. This disease is treatable.

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Some medical therapies and life-extending technologies discussed in this book are already here, e.g., the various supplements, fasting exercise, etc. No matter who or how old you are, you can engage your longevity genes immediately!

Simply follow the ‘blue zone’ diets of Okinawa, Sardinia, and Italy, and cut out processed foods, sugar, etc. You’ve all heard of these amazing diets and the longevity they have created naturally. That’s a good start. We’ll get to the essential add-ons later.

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One of the most important pieces of advice I can give you is ’eat less often.’ Once a day is superb and the gold standard. Although calorie restriction via fasting has been known to extend life spans for hundreds of years, it’s only been in recent decades that we know why. Simply restrict food, and each cell hunkers down and repairs its DNA to ensure survival.

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There are numerous studies on human calorie restriction, and all point to significant health and lifespan increases.

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Amino acids are essential to our bodies; they serve as building blocks for the production of proteins. There are nine essential amino acids, and meat contains all nine. Easy energy, but at a significant cost!

Meat is murder on our bodies. Study after study has concluded that heavily animal-based diets are associated with high cardiovascular mortality, bowel cancer and other cancers. Processed meat is even worse, linked to numerous cancers, including pancreatic and prostate cancer. A little red meat now and then won’t kill you, but beware!

Plant-based protein is more challenging to obtain, but that also comes with an advantage; having less protein or even one less amino acid causes stress on cells, which then engages the survival circuit, which is not bad at all. Less protein also triggers autophagy (your body starts eating the zombie cells that cause so much damage, i.e., arthritis, cancer, etc.). Vegans and vegetarians suffer far less cancer and cardiovascular disease for that very reason.

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A vegetarian diet won’t necessarily increase lifespan; we need to add physical adversity to trigger even greater cell survival responses. In addition to eating well, lifting weights, exercising, and fasting, we need added supplements and metformin to increase cell performance greatly. Once you realise this information is accurate and well-researched, you’ll start thinking that healthy longevity is achievable, and your mindset will change. You’ll start looking after yourself and seeing a horizon further away.

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Exercise improves blood flow, right? But at a cellular level, it does much more. Researchers found that people who exercise more grow longer telomeres. Exercise for 30 minutes five times a week. It’s been shown that the length of telomeres will quickly become a decade younger!

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Exercise forces muscles to grow capillaries to carry more oxygen, raises NAD levels, and alerts all cells that they’re in trouble and must do something to survive: stop multiplying and start repairing DNA now!

It’s ancient and still the exact mechanism single-cell organisms have used for billions of years. The cells don’t know they’re attached to you and don’t care—they just want to survive!

Ideally, lift some weights and get puffed at least twice a week, even if only for 15 minutes.

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The cold front.
(We’ve digressed from ‘Lifespan’ and added a little Wim Hoff and Rhonda Patrick). However, David does hot and cold later in the book.

Cold turns on your longevity genes, simple. Cold shower for a minute after your warm one, or better still, get in a tub of single-digit cold water every day for 3 minutes (get a chest freezer, fill it half full and turn it to warm; you’ll get about 6 degrees, perfect!). Sit in your sauna first for 20 minutes (a 2-person infrared costs about 2K), then plunge for 3 minutes and watch the amazing transition in your health. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest this program, coupled with David’s supplement regime, has cured a woman with stage 4 cancer. We wouldn’t be surprised.

Now, back to David!

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Getting hot or cold triggers all sorts of reactions in the survival circuits. Blood flow to our skin increases and the heart rate slows or increases. These processes go back billions of years when the single cell desperately wanted to survive. Cold increased the lifespan of mice by 20% (it lowered their core temperature by 1 degree).

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Cold increases ‘brown fat,’ rich in mitochondria, a fat that diminishes as we age. There is a significant correlation between brown fat and longevity; the browner the fat, the longer the lifespan. Cold increases brown fat deposits. In adults, brown fat concentrates mainly in the upper back. Making brown fat gets harder as we age, but cold certainly helps.

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Heat is also promising. By raising yeast cells from 30 to 37 degrees, the cell increases its NAD level and lives 30% longer. Interestingly, the heat had an almost identical result to the calorie restriction. Numerous studies indicate healthy outcomes by using saunas for 20 minutes five times a week, including a 40% reduction in heart disease and attack in the average person. If you’re fit and active, you can expect even better percentages.

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Our DNA is being damaged billions of times a day, and worse still, much of the damage is self-inflicted: breathing the air, going for scans, airport scanners (get pat downs where you can!), PCBs in plastic, the list goes on and increases the pressure on the sirtuins to repair the broken DNA
No matter how old you are, it's not too late. No matter how much damage you’ve sustained, there are ways to improve your lifespan and health span, but we need some help!
A bitter pill to swallow.

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Man has dreamed of extending lifespan for thousands of years and has managed significant gains over the centuries, but without knowledge, there can be no progress.
My colleagues and I firmly believe we now have that knowledge.
The Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman expressed succinctly, “There is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death. It’s only a matter of time before biologists discover the complete answer to the problem. No chemical or physical laws say that life must end.”

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Pennies for prolonged vitality.
In 1922, a 14-year-old boy, Leonard Thompson, was dying of diabetes in a Toronto hospital; he was given a new drug developed from the French lilac flower; this drug would go on to become Metformin. News of his exceptional improvement spread quickly around the world. High blood sugar is killing 4 million people a year. The deaths are generally horrific: limb amputations, blindness, etc.

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About 15 years ago, the research found a curious phenomenon: people taking metformin were living notably healthier lives – independently, it appeared to its effect on diabetes.

In mice, it increased lifespan by 6%, even with low dosages. Mice also showed lower LDL cholesterol levels and improved physical performance. In 26 studies, rodents given metformin have shown protection from cancer.

Metformin mimics calorie restriction, inhibits cancer cell metabolism, increases mitochondrial activity and removes misfolded proteins that cause a handful of diseases.

A study of 41,000 metformin users aged between 68 and 81 concluded that metformin reduced the likelihood of dementia, cardiovascular disease, cancer, frailty, and depression and not by a small amount!

You would imagine the effects of taking metformin would take time to produce any noticeable effect on ageing, but that’s not true. DNA methylation age of blood cells is reversed within a week, and astoundingly, the process started only 10 hours after taking a gram of metformin.

TAME, targeting ageing with metformin, is gathering speed. The FDA is considering classifying ageing as a disease, thus making metformin available to everyone. It’s a simple, safe compound with few or no side effects that we should all be able to take.

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In 1999, we finally figured out a molecular cause of ageing in yeast cells: the movement of SIR2 genes away from mating-type genes to deal with DNA repairs. We found that more SIR2 genes could stabilise the rDNA and extend lifespan. But what magic molecule could increase the SIR2 genes from the 100 million chemicals known to us?

The first we found was Fisetin, the compound that gives strawberries their colour AND kills sentence cells (dangerous zombie cells)
NMN, resveratrol, and metformin were the other molecules that made the cells perform better as they aged.

Resveratrol was another standout compound. When fed to yeast cells, they grew slightly smaller and more slowly, reaching 34 (usually 24-25) divisions before they died, a 50% increase in age, equivalent to 50 years in human years!

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Plants have a similar survival system and produce chemicals to tell the cells to hunker down in hard times. So it makes sense that if we eat stressed plants more often, we get more compounds like Resveratrol (unfortunately, you’d have to drink many bottles of red wine to get a gram of Resveratrol!). So targeting red, blue, yellow or dark fruits and vegetables makes sense. That's why organic vegetables are better for you; they’re subject to more stress (bugs, no weather protection, etc.) as they grow.

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Boosting the NAD levels in cells proved crucial for longevity, and the precursor NMN (which converts into NAD in the cell) had the best response. The NAD levels shot up 25% in a couple of hours by giving animals a drink with NMN! We found we could make the mitochondria in old mice perform the same as in young mice after a week by giving daily doses of NMN!

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The molecule doesn’t only turn mice into ultramarathoners; we have tested their balance, strength, memory, coordination and speed. The difference between untreated and treated mice was simply astounding!

We know that NAD boosters effectively treat various ailments in mice and increase lifespan, even when taken later in life. There’s no doubt a similar effect is being had on humans. We also know how this happens by creating the right stress level to push longevity genes into action and suppress epigenetic changes to maintain a youthful program (in simple terms, keeping the software pure). By epigenetic, we mean the analogy program, i.e. like a Wi-Fi unit with its flashing lights, flashing precisely on time to keep the signal clear. The same happens in the cells; the sirtuins must turn on the correct genes in the exact sequences to maintain the cell type. By keeping the epigenetic changes low (the rogue notes from the orchestra!), the cells maintain their identity and stay skin cells, brain cells, etc., so don’t forget who they are and abandon the program, turn nasty, inflame and age rapidly!

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A clue that NMN can reverse ageing. One of my students came to me with a problem; his mother, who was taking NMN on his advice at the stage of post-menopause, suddenly got her periods back! Her doctors confirmed this and said there were no unusual circumstances.

Since then, I have heard of more cases. A trial in 2018 to test whether NMN could restore fertility in old horses was successful.

We proved that we could restore the fertility of mice after we killed off all their eggs with chemotherapy.

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Life with my father.
My mother died in 2014, and my father’s health wasn’t great. He was in his seventies and had type 2 diabetes, was losing his eyesight, losing his hearing, would tire quickly, repeat himself and was grumpy.

He started taking Metformin for his diabetes, and a noticeable improvement in his health showed a year later; I got him onto NMN, and he was sceptical. Six months later, he came to me and said, ‘I don’t want to get carried away, but something is happening’.

He felt less tired and sore, more mentally aware, and outpacing his friends. His liver enzymes normalised after 20 years of being abnormal, and when he returned to the States six months later, he smiled a lot!

These days, he’s running around like a teenager. He hiked for six days through wind and snow to climb the highest peak in Tasmania, rode three-wheelers through the outback, went water rafting in Montana, and took on a new career at university!

The turnaround in his energy, enjoyment of life and perspective on growing old has been remarkable.

Being the ultimate pessimist, he finally had to admit that it must be the NMN and Resveratrol!

Dad flew back to America to see me awarded the Australian equivalent of a knighthood. As I stood in the Australian embassy with Sandra and our children, looking across at Dad, I thought, this is what a longer, healthier life is all about.

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There are many paths to explore to refine the reversal of ageing, and we have had a great start with the compounds discovered. Over the next decade, with supercomputers and AI at our disposal, science will move even quicker, so take and do what David does and be around for the decade ahead while medicine moves entirely into preventative and focused compounds designed precisely for you.

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Once upon a time, we all thought ageing was like the seasons, and we’d eventually enter the golden years. We figured we might be able to attack some of the hallmarks of ageing and treat a few symptoms, but even that seemed like a huge endeavour.
But here’s the thing: it’s not really.
Once you recognise, there are universal regulators in ageing in everything from yeast to roundworms to humans, and those regulators can be changed with molecules like NMN metformin resveratrol and others, fasting, exercise, hot and cold therapy
……. It all becomes obvious - ageing will be remarkably easy to cure. Easier than cancer. Sounds crazy? Sure, but it’s now true.
It’s a long way from 1671, when Antonic Leeuwenhoek first saw a cell under a homemade microscope, and hundreds of years before doctors understood how washing their hands stopped the spread of disease!

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The molecules (compounds, supplements, etc.) we now have at our disposal have been shown to extend the lifespan of every organism they’ve been tested on, further evidence that we’re engaging in a powerful program to prolong life.

Short telomeres cause senescence as the surtuins can’t repair the end of the DNA strand. So, the cell closes to prevent cancer, and in young bodies, it is discarded to prevent all health problems. That's where the ‘program of exercise fasting supplements kicks in to keep the cell active longer and discard the senescent cells when done.

Senescent or Zombie cells often refuse to die, especially as we age.
In young people, the fat cells are white when seen through a microscope and then pale blue and dark blue in old age. Blue is zombie cells! Scary! This is a clear sign that ageing has a firm grip on us. They’ve stopped dividing and now send signals to surrounding cells via a protein called cytokine that causes these surrounding cells to inflame. Remember, most diseases are inflammation-related: heart disease, dementia, inflammatory bowel disease, the list is endless!

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We know that destroying zombie cells in mice can significantly increase health and lifespan by 30%+

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It’s a weird thing; we evolved senescent cells to prevent cancer!
They don’t divide, so they don’t erupt into tumours. This is where Darwin’s natural selection comes in. The system would work well if we lived to 40, but now we live longer, and evolution hasn’t caught up. The zombies are hanging around and causing many problems by influencing the cells around them!

If we reproduced (the essential role of every living thing), our job was done; the sabre-tooth tigers took care of the rest. The fact is we’re not special; we’re part of the ‘survive at all costs’ relationship we have with the first cells, which started billions of years ago. Only with our advanced brains have we determined we are special!

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If we put a few zombie cells under a mouse's skin, its body will soon be riddled with them, and the mouse will age rapidly.
Senilities kill zombie cells, and the first nonlytic we found had no detectable side effects.

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Zombie cells and their by-product, cancer cells, are very good at hiding within us. Ways to expose them to your immune system are rapidly coming so our immune system, which is perfectly capable of killing them, can do its job. It could be a simple vaccine you take at 40, and bingo, job done!

In 1996, Ian Willmott and his team successfully replaced the chromosomes of a sheep egg with those from an udder cell. The result was Dolly, the cloned sheep. The exciting part is that the sheep was born young, not old, proving that old cells retain genetic information for life. Barbara Streisand cloned her new dogs from Sammie, her 75-year-old dog (in human years), again proving that cells retain their identity.

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The cell's information is digital, and the cell reader that moves around the cell is analogy. The information gets ‘scratched’ as the cell ages, just like on a CD. We need a correcting device to ‘clean’ the disc.

I believe we may have found the biological correcting device.

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese researcher, won a Nobel prize for showing that complete cellular age reversal was possible.

The implications were profound, and they paved the way for growing blood cells, tissues, etc. and transplanting them into patients as we do today.

What he discovered was the reset switch! The biological correcting device.

Looking at the Wi-Fi gadget on the wall, you’ll notice wee lights turning on and off regularly to keep the signal clear. Imagine those lights being the surtuins in your cells. They turn on and off the program that decides precisely what cell type it is: skin, brain, whatever. When the DNA is damaged, sirtuin 1 leaves its mating program and heads across the cell to start repairing it, but when it’s overwhelmed with damage and spends too much time on repairs, it forgets where it must return to. Yamanaka discovered a way to send the sirtuin back to the correct place every time. A reprogramming that was and is always there but needs activating as we age.

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Cellular reprogramming is coming!

In the next 5-10 years, you’ll be able to get an AAV (adeno assoc. virus) injection, which will have a very mild immune response; this virus will carry a small number of genes. Shortly afterwards, you’ll be given a month of doxycycline switching on the reprogramming genes. Enabling the surtuins to go back to exactly where they should be and get the flashing lights (as in your Wi-Fi) working perfectly again. Reversing your age back to 50, then 45, then to 40, and back to 25. That's as far as we know it can go; you’ll have your memory and wisdom intact, your young body back!

This is not a pipe dream; it is going to happen. Just stay around long enough to follow the protocols in the book, which work very well at this stage of the journey and will keep you healthy and younger longer.

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The age of innovation.

Thanks to the plummeting prices of DNA sequencing, precision medicine is here. Treatment decisions will be based on what works exactly for you rather than the current blanket approach.

Case in point. Lawan (a colleague’s mother) had ‘lung’ cancer, but the drugs weren't working; her family had her DNA sequenced and the tumour re-evaluated. It turned out to be Leukaemia growing in her lung; the right drug was sitting on the shelf!

It’s simply taking too long for the tanker of medical progress to turn in the right direction. We know where that course is but the captains are slow calling the bridge!

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Knowing thyself.
In 1990, the human genome project to sequence our DNA genome cost billions of dollars. Now, it’s less than $100 and getting cheaper and faster, like 24 hours.
We’ll be able to see what foods we should eat, what specific cancer we have, what microbiomes to cultivate in our gut, whether are we celiac, etc. We are very much individuals and blanket diagnoses are nonsense.
Soon, we’ll all have our DNA sequenced and sit on our doctors’ computers, ready for AI to highlight the correct course of action for any ailment.

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The age of biosensors is here. Watches that give pulse, blood pressure, oxygen levels, glucose levels, etc., will soon connect directly with your doctor's computers, and AI will find anomalies and alert you and your doctor.

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Ready for the worst.

Pandemics are a real threat to humankind and are capable of inflicting terrible deaths on hundreds of millions of people; with the globe being more accessible than ever before, the problem is compounded.

Biomarkers, watches, etc., could be the greatest inventions to prevent pandemics. The Bill Gates Foundation for the Elimination of Polio and Other Deadly Diseases believes the next huge pandemic is less than five years away. We are better equipped, but we are a long way from where we need to be to stop one right now.

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The shape of things to come.

Once people accept that ageing is not inevitable, a funny thing happens: they start looking after themselves. I know I do! Diet exercise fasting supplements, such as Metformin, hot and cold, etc.

Even using the most conservative estimates based on our findings to date with animal and cell research, we can expect the average to rise to 113 by following the current programs, possibly 150 if one takes the top of the results scale.

The advances we've made are not going away; the future looks very bright.

A fellow scientist once told me not to be so enthusiastic about the numbers. When I asked why, he said the public aren't ready.
I disagree.

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The debate at scientific conferences these days is not whether these increases can happen but what we do when they do!
It’s reasonable to expect a person healthy today to be fit and healthy at 100 and living the life of a 50-year-old.

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Many scholars have predicted that global population growth will destroy us, and so far, they have all been wrong. The late Thomas Malthus said that food shortages would starve the world's poor when the population exceeded 1 billion. Today, the same number of people worldwide are starving—we’re approaching 8 billion people!

The following 80 pages are devoted to what David thinks will happen when people live to 120, 130, 150 and beyond. It’s a good read, an interesting quote-filled, fact-filled read, and a very positive spin on the benefits to a nation if we live longer, healthier lives. In the USA would save 3 trillion a year in health costs, and very experienced, highly qualified people would continue working to fill the gaps in doctor shortages, for instance.

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What I do.

Other than the basics of eating less and less often, mini fasts 16-18 hours a day, exercising at least twice a week, lifting weights at least twice a week, sauna and plunge every day if I can.

I’m not a doctor and offer no advice about what you should take or do, but I’ll share a little of what I take.

People have asked, ‘Is there a risk factor in taking those supplements’? It's possible but small, and I know exactly what will happen to me if I don’t!

I take:

• 1g of NMN each day
• 1g of Resveratrol
• 1g of Metformin
• A daily dose of vitamin K (MK 7) and D3
• He has since disclosed in various interviews (you can see many on YouTube) more supplements he takes
• 500mg TMG (trimethyl glycine)
• 200mg Fisetin
• 500mg Quercetin
• 100/400mg Calcium Ketoglutarate
• 100mg Spermidine
• 800mg Vitamin C *
• 1.5g Taurine*
• 1g Collagen*
• 100mg phosphatidylserine*
• 50mg Pepper
• 100mg magnesium citrate*
• 100mg magnesium *
• 500mg Lipoic acid (he did his PhD on this compound)

(The products marked with an * are products endorsed, independently tested, and highly rated by other recognised longevity researchers)
(At Imagine, we follow all the highly rated, not product-endorsed researchers).

I’m now 55 and look and feel 30. I have no grey hair, and my heart looks 30 (after a colleague examined it with a magnetic resonance machine). My younger brother Nick, who was greying and losing his hair, accused me of using him as a negative control (the thought had entered my mind!). He’s now on the program too!