Anti-aging technology is coming. Here’s how you can be ready for it

The world’s billionaires are pouring money into age-reversal investments.

Last September, it came out that Jeff Bezos had invested in Altos Labs, a company pursuing biological reprogramming technology. “Reprogramming” is the scientific term for turning old cells young again. It was discovered in 2012 by Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who called it a potential “elixir of life.” The Nobel Prize in Medicine Committee seemed to agree.

Bezos—and Altos—aren’t the only ones.

There’s Google-backed Calico Labs, also focused on longevity via reprogramming. And Lineage Cell Therapeutics, backed by BlackRock, Raffles Capital Management, Wells Fargo, and others.

Coinbase Co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong recently invested in a company working to radically extend human healthspan using epigenetic reprogramming therapies. Altogether, the anti-aging industry is expected to grow to over $64 billion by 2026, a 45% increase from its 2020 value ($44 billion).

So, why are billionaires like Jeff Bezos investing in age-reversal or “anti-aging” tech?

Because they have a Longevity Mindset.

What Exactly is a Longevity Mindset?

One way to understand the Longevity Mindset is by looking at its opposite.

Most people take the aging process for granted. If they’re disciplined, healthy, and lucky, they’ll get 20 or so years of youth, start declining in their 40s, and die sometime between 60 and 80.

They accept that life expectancy is 81.2 years for females and 76.4 years for males—nothing they can do, just take the lemons and make lemonade.

And who can blame them? Nearly every human institution—governments, the insurance industry, medicine, religion—is organized around this mindset.

The anti-Longevity Mindset is: mortality is inevitable, youth is fleeting.

So, the Longevity Mindset is: mortality is avoidable, youth is extendable.

If that sounds shocking to you, you’re not the only one. For years, scientists supporting a Longevity Mindset were shunned, and as a result longevity studies were tabled for fear of losing grant funding.

But medicine has evolved.

We’ve entered a period of exponential medicine: Innovations like genome sequencing, RNA transcriptomics, Wnt pathway modifiers, vaccines, CRISPR, liquid biopsies, CAR-T cells, Gene Therapy, exosomes, and stem cells are just a sampling of the technologies that the world’s billionaires are fast-tracking.

Free from the narrow paradigm of academia, these scientists earn as much as five to ten times a top professor’s salary by working for Altos and others.

Ultimately, aging is a disease—a disease that many of the most powerful people on the planet believe can be slowed, stopped, even reversed.

That’s the spirit of the Longevity Mindset.

How to develop your own Longevity Mindset

Examine and assess the six basic areas of life that everyone, whether you live on the margins or in a mansion, must negotiate.

Beliefs. At one end of the spectrum are people who see age 75 as the end. At the other end are people who see aging as a disease, and who actively track breakthroughs in biotech that have the potential to slow or even reverse aging. Which are you?

Media diet. The films, books, articles you consume have a deep, direct impact on how you think. Does your media diet reinforce the anti-longevity mindset? Or are you reading books like David Sinclair’s Lifespan, blogs like mine, newsfeeds like www.LongevityInsider.org?

Community. The people we spend time with also shape our mindset. Do you spend time with people who constantly worry about death? Or do you hang out with a younger, more vital crowd who surround you with optimism and a youthful vision of the future?

Sleep habits. We physiologically need eight hours of sleep per night. Do you burn the candle at both ends? Or do you prioritize this most valuable resource, using the best techniques to help you?

Your diet. You very literally are what you eat. The nutrients (or non-nutrients) you consume become your body, your mind, your spirit. Do you overindulge in good-tasting (sugar-rich) but destructive foods? Or do you craft a sensible diet and practice intermittent fasting to maximize your energy and longevity?

Exercise habits. Exercise—especially that which increases muscle mass—is crucial to longevity. Do you exercise a minimum of three times a week—perhaps taking peptides to maximize growth hormones and increase muscle mass?

Mindset. Do you cultivate your Longevity Mindset? Do you see your future as bigger than your past?

Laying the foundation of a Longevity Mindset doesn’t take any capital investment. Everyone has beliefs, a media diet, and a community. Everyone has to sleep, eat, and move around.

In the background, billionaires like Bezos are accelerating the industry, working to bring cutting-edge longevity tech to human beings.

When they do, will you be ready?

This article originally appeared in Minutes and is reprinted with permission.