In the present day, you age about a year but get back about 4 months, so you effectively age only 8 months. In 5 years, however, he predicts we will get back the full 12 months and even more, effectively reversing the aging process.
In a recent Joe Rogan podcast, Ray Kurzweil, computer scientist, inventor, futurist, and author of recent titles like “The Singularity is Nearer,” talks about human beings achieving what he calls “longevity escape velocity” in the next 5 years. He then goes on to explain that in the present day, you age about a year but thanks to science, technology, and medicine, you get back about 4 months, so you effectively age only 8 months. In 5 years, however, he predicts we will get back the full 12 months and even more, effectively reversing the aging process. What’s interesting, is that in addition to Bill Gates calling him the best person he knows at predicting the future of AI, Ray Kurzweil has a number of predictions that have come true, a full list of which is available here.
Longevity escape velocity
Now Ray Kurzweil isn’t the only one talking about Longevity escape velocity. At a recent conference called Sifted Summer, German billionaire and investor in longevity and psychedelics, Christian Angermeyer, talked about how there are a number of drugs in the later stages of development that will completely change the way we age. He also talks about a time about 20 years in the future when we will achieve longevity escape velocity. He was quoted stating “There will be this one magic year, where we will lose one calendar year by aging but we win more than one year back. You want to be alive when this escape velocity happens.” He also points out that the number of people who reach the age of 100 is going up every year.
On that note, in a recent study, researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have figured out a way to reprogram T Cells in the body in order to slow down and even reverse aging. T cells are a type of white blood cell in the body that originates from stem cells in the bone marrow. T Cells are known to fight infections and are even believed to be effective against cancer. In this particular study, researchers used CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T cell therapy which has already been used in humans to fight cancer, to effectively get rid of damaged cells that cause aging in mice. The damaged cells that cause aging are called senescent cells, and when removed from mice cause the mice to be healthier with better metabolisms and better glucose tolerance. In other words, younger.
Underwater age reversal
About a year ago, Joseph Dituri, a professor at the University of South Florida, broke the record for time spent underwater by living in a 100-square-foot underwater research station for 93 days. While that may sound like a nightmare to some people, what no one expected was for Mr. Dituri to emerge from his underwater adobe 3 months later, 10 years younger! That’s right, according to medical professionals who examined him, his telomeres had grown by 20%. Telomeres are structures that exist at the end of our chromosomes and usually shorten with age, but Mr. Dituri’s grew longer. Additionally, the amount of stem cells naturally produced by his body increased tenfold while his cholesterol levels dropped by 72 points.
Interestingly enough, sports stars like Christiano Ronaldo and celebrities like the Kardashians are known for spending time in underwater tanks, presumably for the anti-aging benefits of the process. For Mr. Dituri, the 93 days underwater also decreased his inflammatory markers, or senescent cells that we discussed earlier, by a whopping 50%. He also claims the underwater environment increased his deep REM sleep to about 60% which is more than twice that of the average human. Now it wouldn’t be fair to say it was all sunshine and roses since there were some negative effects of the experience too, some of which include a tooth that cracked under the pressure and an overall shrinkage of about a quarter of an inch in his height. That being said, however, doctors who examined him agreed that he was biologically ten years younger.
The fountain of youth
People have been trying to cheat death since the beginning of time and with science and technology where it is today, it is definitely possible to live way longer than you otherwise would have. From Jeff Bezos to Peter Thiel, and Christian Angermeyer who we mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of support and a lot of money being poured into age-reversal technologies, especially by the rich and elite. In conclusion, while we may or may not reach longevity escape velocity in the next 5 years, a number of people are banking on the fact that we will eventually get there. This is evident from the drastic measures like arranging to be frozen until that happens. Here’s a list of people including Ray Kurzeil who have arranged for Cryonics in case they don’t make it till that magic year when we can actually turn back our biological clocks.
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