The Dream Of (Quasi) Eternal Life
The central goal of medicine has always been to increase lifespan, often shortened by accidents or diseases, with an equally important secondary goal to preserve health in a broader sense.
The idea of immortality has always fascinated me, initially expected to be obtained in myths only through the wills of gods or arcane means.
So it is not surprising that when modern medicine started to perform real-life miracles like curing deadly infections (antibiotics), preventing epidemics (vaccines), or performing life-saving interventions like heart surgery and organ transplants, it started to be expected to one day drastically increase the human lifespan beyond its natural limits.
Over the course of the twentieth century, human life expectancy at birth rose in high-income nations by approximately 30 years, reinforcing the hope of imminent endless youth.
In our modern myths from science fiction, it is expected that “rejuvenation” treatments or genetic engineering could radically reshape the human body and increase lifespans.
So the question is if this trend can continue and if casually reaching 100 or 150 years old will be considered normal in the future.
Not So Fast
A new study, published in Nature Aging, under the title “Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century“, might tamper a bit with this optimistic scenario. The authors are researchers at the University of Illinois, the University of Hawaii, Harvard University, and the University of California.
In this paper, the authors analyze data from 1990 to 2019 related to death rate and life expectancy. They claim to have found a steep decline in the improvement rate since 1990. This led to the fact that survival to age 100 years is unlikely to exceed 15% for females and 5% for males.
And worse, the researchers claim we should not expect much improvement in life expectancy in the future.
The Exception Of The 20th Century
For most of human history, life expectancy at birth stayed mostly stable, only very slowly increasing by an average of 1 year every one or two centuries since the time of the Roman Empire. But in the 20th century, it suddenly changed radically, with 3 years of life added per decade, or an annual rate of change of 0.3 years annually, a phenomenon described as “radical life extension”.
While better medical technology is often credited for this, another maybe even more important key factor has been better sanitation and public health, like water treatment, clean food supply, and public hospitals.
An overall rise in prosperity linked to the Industrial Revolution also led to better nutrition, better work conditions, safer home and transportation, and overall bodies in better shape than before.
Declining Rates
Over the past decades, the rate of change in life expectancy has started to slow down, inching toward a much slower 0.2, and still falling in recent years toward a mere 1 year every decade.
The steepest decline was in the USA due to rising mortality in middle-aged people from 2010-2019 (rising body weight, linked to diabetes and heart failure, and drug use, are likely to blame) and Covid-19 in 2020.
Source: Nature
Another phenomenon, which is more of a statistical nature, is slowing down the progress rate early on. Most of the life expectancy low levels were due to the death of infants at an early age.
This means that one such death prevented had a tremendous mathematical impact on the average life expectancy (adding decades of life to an individual) compared to increasing the life of an elderly person by a few years.
So the more time passed, the more a major reduction of death from all causes is needed to improve the overall average life expectancy. So while it might be very impactful at the individual level, it shows much less when looking at national average life expectancy.
Source: Nature
Can It Still Happen?
This statistical effect, combined with limited improvement in survival rates past 80-100 years old, makes a radical increase in life expectancy in the future very difficult, at least for developed countries.
“If life expectancy at birth were to hypothetically reach 110 years, death rates at all ages from all causes of death combined—up to age 150 years (for example, decades beyond the observed survival distribution for humans)—would need to be 88% lower than the observed death rate at age 109 in Japan in 2019”.
So, indeed, eliminating most causes of death today is somewhat of a serious challenge for modern medicine.
“Yielding a life expectancy at birth of 110 years at any time in the future requires survival to age 100 by about 70% of females”
This also illustrates how to increase life expectancy, a radically different approach is required than before.
Previous progress was made by suppressing “untimely” deaths from infectious diseases and preventable accidents. Further progress will need to be made by fighting aging itself.
What Else Can Be Done?
Is this statistical analysis proof that life expectancy is doomed to stagnate from now on, barely improving at all?
Only if we ignore the very real radical development in biotech of the last few years. We previously explored this in “Aging is a Part of Life—That Doesn’t Mean We Can’t Put Up a Fight.” And there is more than one promising medical revolution on the horizon or already happening.
Stem Cell Therapies
At the core of most aging-related diseases and death is the slow decay of tissues, driven by the aging of the body’s cells.
We know for a fact that it is possible for an “old” cell to become young again from a metabolic and genetic standpoint. This is actually something happening each generation, with the first cell of new embryos being “reset” when it comes to aging.
It is also something researchers and doctors do when they produce stem cells from existing tissues.
A growing array of therapies is using this very technique to cure diseases. This includes for example diabetes, heart & kidney failure, and even cancer. You can read more about companies pushing this technology in “5 Best Stem Cell Companies to Invest In”.
Genetic Engineering
There is an argument to be made that aging is something that evolved instead of just being a byproduct of accumulated damages (the theory of evolvability, in contrast to other theories about the evolution of aging).
In that context, aging is seen as a mechanism that was selected by evolution. And if that’s the case, it is a mechanism that could be turned off and is an idea that has gained momentum in the last 10 years.
Source: Nature.com
Reducing or potentially fully canceling the genetic programming of aging could be done through a few methods we already partially understand:
- Epigenetic rejuvenation brings back the cell’s DNA to its “young” state.
- Telomere resetting, canceling the effect aging has on chromosomes’ structure.
- Removal and/or silencing of aging-related genes, mostly through CRISPR technology.
When it comes to modifying the genetics of people for longevity, the bar for authorization by the FDA will likely be very high. For now, only deadly diseases from deficient genes have been authorized for CRISPR-based gene therapy.
So this might be not only a technically difficult task but also one that will need to deal with a complex and demanding regulatory environment.
Neurobiology
It seems that even when the body holds on, our brain suffers from aging past a certain point. As the population gets older, diseases like dementia or Alzheimer’s are becoming more prevalent.
We can only imagine that a much higher life expectancy would lead to an even larger problem regarding cognitive decline. So better treatments will be needed.
(We discussed in “The Next Blockbuster Therapies: Curing Neurological Disorders” which technology and the associated companies could help)
AI
AI is now the main focus of the tech world, with hundreds of billions of dollars in investment. And this is now being recognized by 2 of 3 of the STEM Nobel Prizes in 2024.
It could also have a tremendous impact on biotechnology, and therefore aging. A big role will be in handling the flood of data created by the new multiomics techniques giving us new insights into how living cells work.
More directly, for example, AI could predict Alzeihmeir’s, helping start treatments early. AI could also be deeply embedded in brain-computer interfaces, helping to alleviate neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease.
Investing In Longevity
Longevity is for now a barely emerging market, mostly touched by therapies in other biotech domains, like cancer therapies, stem cell research, etc.
This is nevertheless maybe the ultimate biotech/pharmaceutical product, with virtually everyone on Earth a likely eager consumer, at least for decades until everyone might be genetically engineered from birth to benefit from the same.
You can invest in longevity-related companies through many brokers, and you can find here, on securities.io, our recommendations for the best brokers in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, as well as many other countries.
If you are not interested in picking longevity companies, you can also look into ETFs like Global X Aging Population ETF (AGNG), ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG), or Vanguard Health Care ETF (VHT) which will provide more diversified exposure to capitalize on the growing longevity industry through healthcare and biotech exposure.
Or you can check out our article on the “Top 5 Companies Offering Solutions to Increased Human Longevity”.
Longevity Company
Longeveron
Longeveron Inc. (LGVN +0.52%)
Longeveron Inc. (LGVN +0.52%)
Longeveron is working on cell therapies for repairing damaged tissues, degenerative diseases, and the effects of aging.
Its main technology is Lomecel-B™. These are cells collected from donors’ bone marrows, selected, and then mass-produced. They are multipotent cells called medicinal signaling cells (MSCs) with the capacity to repair damaged and/or inflamed tissues.
Source: Longeveron
The company pipeline is focused on 3 different applications for Lomecel-B:
Early clinical trial results seem to indicate an increasing survival rate for HLHS, a dose-dependent improvement of aging frailty, and improved cognition and quality of life in Alzheimer’s patients.
Lomecel is a stem cell-based method looking to reverse aging or regenerate damaged tissues. This approach seems successful and shows that aging could be at least partially be corrected with the replacement of damaged cells by “fresh” stem cells.
And contrary to solely looking at increased longevity, or gene therapy, the diseases targeted by Longeveron are likely to be of high interest to the FDA, which could help for obtaining a final approval at some point in the future.
