The pursuit of longevity?

I am in mid-thirties, and living long hadn't crossed my mind. Last year, I launched a longevity brand. I met people passionate for the cause. Now, health has taken a new meaning. So, what is all this?

👋 Hola! Welcome to Out of Singapore. This is Shan, I write this newsletter every Sunday. In the past 14 months, I put my head down and built Xandro Lab from ground up. This brand provides solutions in a space that I had zero idea about - longevity. So, I have became a student in disguise (still am). Today, let’s break down this space based on my learnings.

We will cover

1. What’s longevity (life span and health span)?

2. What are active pathways and mechanisms being researched?

3. The famous stars in longevity field

4. How to live long healthy?

Let’s get started.

#1 What’s longevity?

You understand longevity - It is the pursuit to live a longer life than usual. Most of us degenerate by the age of 80. There are some who live long to 90s and 100s, however, it is a state which most won’t like. The recent efforts at longevity aims to solve this - be able to live healthy and productive beyond the age of 80. The most common age limit cited is 120. As per David Sinclair, and also common sense, we are going to see more people live upto 120.

There are two keywords talked about in longevity - lifespan and health span.

Life span is the total number of years a person survives, including their time spent in coma or paralysis. It is counted till the time a person breathes, whatever state they maybe in.

Health span is the total numbers of years a person is healthy. I personally define healthy as being productive at home or in work. If you are able to work in a office, home or run a business actively, then you are qualified to be called “healthy”. Of course you could have diseases, but it doesn’t hamper your entire day. If you can function well for 8-10 hours each day, you are “healthy” enough. These healthy years would count towards health span.

Longevity researchers are working to increase the health span, not lifespan.

#2 Active longevity pathways in research

I have tried to consolidate most aspects on this field in this longevity pathways document. There are some more left to be detailed out, however, these seven pathways are the most important and recognised ones at the moment. Mitochondrial health and microbiome health are two key areas that I will add details about later on.

Before I move on, take a quick look at the table below. Read it at your leisure. The longevity pathways document has more reading materials (if you are curious).

To summarise, researchers are looking at

1. Calorie restriction

2. Sirtuins activators

3. mTOR inhibitors

4. AMPK activators

5. NAD boosters

6. Telomerase activators

Most of these work in one of these three ways.

1. Eat less, expend less energy, create less free radicals

2. Repair cell, retain and repair cell DNA

3. Supress immune responses

Rapamycin is a potent immunosuppressant, which exerts an anti-rejection effect by inhibiting T cells and B cells. It has a significant effect on a variety of autoimmune diseases. Source

I understand that today has been way too much of scientific discussion. Don’t worry about the science, try to get the gist of the writing. This will take some time to digest. To make it easier, look at the diagram below. Again, don’t try to understand what’s happening. Notice the flow in the diagram and the keywords. It will give you some sense of how things work.

Source: Harvard Energetics Lab

#3 Stars in the field of longevity

While there are several doctors, researchers and others who are “longevity experts”, these four people have captured the attention of the world.

1. David Sinclair - The man behind resveratrol and NAD.

2. Peter Attia - He wrote a bestselling book “Outlive”.

3. Bryan Johnson - This guy takes stem cell and blood from his son to stay young. Successful entrepreneur.

4. Andrew Hubberman - Runs a wildly successful podcast called Hubbermanlab.

#4 How to live long healthy?

Okay, so much information about the field. But how do we live long? Here is my recommendation. These are based on my learnings and conversations with experts over the past one year. Please do your own research.

Here you go - My five recommendations to live long.

1. Eat less, fast frequently. Best is to follow intermittent fasting schedule.

2. Start strength training today. Lift weights, do body weight exercise and run often.

3. Sleep like there’s no tomorrow. Don’t compromise your sleep at any cost.

4. Quit processed food. Eat fresh, eat nutritious. Pretty looking foods are not the best.

5. Supplement. Go for NMN, resveratrol, magnesium and curcumin as basic.

This is definitely not all. Social life determines stress and happiness. Alcohol kills you every time. Find out what are you missing to being healthy in life. It’s a long evolving game. Keep yourself updated. 🫠

That’s all for today.

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Thank you for reading again. 😍 Please like and share. Comment if you learnt something new. Comment if you disliked anything. Comment and like. 🤣

Let me know how was this week’s writing. I welcome constructive or destructive feedback. After all, feedback is how we grow.

Jisoo - Secret to living long happy life 🙈

Hahaha, I wish, I wish. Jisoo is definitely giving us another reason to live long.

Have a great week ahead! Cheers (no-alcohol, okay?)