87-Year-Old Spends £300K on Immortality
An 87-year-old biohacker is spending £300,000 on "immortality therapy" including advanced supplements, hormone treatments, and regenerative medicine. While extreme, the case highlights growing interest in science-backed longevity interventions, though experts note that fundamentals like diet, sleep, stress management, and social engagement remain critical for most people seeking to optimize healthspan.
- The spending level is high but not unprecedented; tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, a prominent biohacker, spends approximately $2 million annually on his "Project Blueprint" regimen, which involves a team of doctors, over 100 daily supplements, and extensive physical monitoring. - Advanced supplements in these protocols often include compounds like spermidine, a molecule believed to induce a cellular self-cleaning process called autophagy, where cells remove damaged components. - Hormone treatments often involve Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT), which aims to restore levels of hormones like estrogen, testosterone, and DHEA to more youthful ranges, with proponents claiming benefits for skin elasticity, muscle mass, and mood. - One of the most experimental and expensive interventions in the anti-aging field is gene therapy aimed at lengthening telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that shorten with age. - The pursuit of "immortality" has drawn figures from academic science, including Harvard genetics professor David Sinclair, whose research focuses on sirtuins, a class of proteins involved in cellular health and aging, and NAD+, a coenzyme they depend on. - Regenerative medicine in this context can involve highly experimental procedures; for example, Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of biotech company BioViva, underwent her own company's gene therapy in 2015 in an attempt to lengthen her telomeres and reverse muscle aging. - While a £300,000 personal program is extreme, a clinical trial for a telomere-lengthening gene therapy by the company Libella Gene Therapeutics was planned with a cost of $1 million per participant.
