Longevity from the Lab - what are the longevity essentials?

I’ve managed to live 83 years without knowing much or, in fact, anything about longevity science. It’s a huge area, baffling to all but its practitioners, and not a little scary.

A recent interview in the Lifespan site with one of the founders of a small American company called Junevity is all about “fixing age-related transcriptional dysregulation using short interfering RNAs, also known as silencing RNAs (siRNAs), a powerful mechanism of regulating gene expression.” Phew!

If you’re still awake, Junevity is starting its mission with obesity and type2 diabetes. Co-founder Dr. Janine Sengstack says it’s her goal to” come up with novel therapeutics to help people live healthier lives”, which is very admirable. Her knowledgeable interviewer describes the aging  process as a “massive dysregulation of things, including transcriptional signatures” that will probably require the help of artificial intelligence to fix.

So what’s “transcriptional dysregulation”, the nefarious process that plays a major role in what co-founder Sengstack describes as the “many complex diseases related to aging”?

Must admit, I haven’t got a clue. I don’t have a PhD in eternal life and I wouldn’t dare to intrude on the field. However, whilst i'm interested in what the real longevity essentials are considered to be, I do find it somewhat worrying that the longevity industry believes that its interference in the normal process of ageing is of great benefit to us. Or rather, could be of great benefit because it’s still highly experimental.

And there’s a lot of interference. Just to take these siRNAs, of which I confess total ignorance, the argument is that they can be deployed to repress certain ageing conditions through six-monthly injections.  

My only medication is an annual anti-flu injection, which has kept me flu-free for years, and a shot of B12 every six months. Otherwise I rely on a lot of mental and physical exercise for my longevity, not that I care about it greatly. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not about how many days you’ve got but how much you enjoy each one. Most days I work on my languages, write an article, practise the piano and train for triathlons. I read years ago that learning a language or playing an instrument is “bench-pressing the brain”, and I believe it. And as countless studies show, physical training slows down the aging process.

Oddly enough, Dr. Sengstack says her pursuit of a career dedicated to helping others live longer healthier lives was inspired by older people she knew when she was a kid, role models who are now in their eighties and still climb mountains. Her German grandma is 91, lives by herself and “has so much energy”.

What interests me most of all is why these people were living long and active lives decades before anybody started talking about transcriptional signatures and, most importantly, at a time when the fitness of the western world was in steady decline. 

While I hope Dr. Sengstack comes up with longevity-improving results, I suspect these healthier older people are worth studying in their own right.