Welcome to the latest issue of The Longevity Newsletter, bringing you this week’s longevity breakthroughs.

Today, we have an update on the longevity-promoting fasting mimicking diet… longevity treatments at your gym… and a longevity supplement stack. Let’s dig in.

LONGEVITY LIFESTYLE DEPT.

New study pits Fasting Mimicking Diet against Mediterranean diet

What's the news: Fasting mimicking diet (FMD) is better than the Mediterranean diet (MD) in a head-to-head comparison in overweight subjects.

Why should we believe it: This news is based on a new study published last month by scientists at USC and UCLA. The scientists looked at a group of 88 overweight and obese subjects. The subjects followed either a 5-day FMD protocol once a month for four months, or a continuous Mediterranean diet for four months. Results:

• Both FMD and MD lowered a number of metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors, including weight, fat percentage, and total cholesterol

• FMD improved the reactive hyperemia index, a measure of microvascular function, while MD did not

• MD caused a loss in lean body mass, while FMD did not

Why this is a big deal: Valter Longo, one of the scientists behind this study, is the inventor and chief proponent of FMD. He claims FMD is "equally as effective as fasting, if not more so." What's not clear is whether you really need fasting, and whether FMD does anything for you that continuous healthy eating won't do.

This study gives us a concrete trial of FMD versus continuous healthy eating. It says that yes, there really does seem to be something particularly effective about fasting, or tricking your body into thinking it's fasting via FMD.

So what specifically can you do now: Consider the Fasting Mimicking Diet. This died is not a good fit for everyone. But as this study shows, if you are young and healthy enough to do FMD, it can have real benefits.

Valter Longo has set up a company, L-Nutra, that sells a 5-day meal box called Prolon to completely take care of food during the FMD cycle. To see if FMD is right for you or to get the Prolon meal box, take a look at this L-Nutra page.

WHAT I’M READING DEPT.

Longevity treatments at your gym

What I'm reading: An article from a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal titled, "Waste of Money or Worth It? Longevity Treatments at Your Gym." The article covers a move by several major gym chains into opening longevity clinics, often within actual gym locations.

What’s on offer: Offered longevity treatments include IV vitamin drips, biological-age testing, and peptide injections. Other gyms are now offering in-depth, 50-page health assessments, based on blood tests, and listing health markers, supplement recommendations, and customized diet and exercise advice with a view to longevity.

Not everyone is thrilled: Some experts raise warnings about the effectiveness and even the safety of the longevity treatments offered at gyms. "The bottom line is that there is no strong evidence backing any of these therapies to increase longevity," says Wen Chen at the National Institutes of Health. "You’re at the gym, just work out," says Dr. Steven Novella of the Yale School of Medicine.

Your Longevity Hound's take: New longevity interventions are available, and more are appearing with every passing month. Not all will pan out, but some will.

There's no doubt that exercise is a powerful aid for longevity, but why choose either/or, rather than taking advantage of everything that can help you live longer and healthier? In other words, I'm personally all for the popularization of longevity and longevity interventions, including at gyms.

Buyer beware: This is not an invitation to rush out blindly. Vet any treatment you're considering getting, and vet the clinic (or gym) that's offering it. The good news is, the more people become interested in longevity treatments, the sooner we will have information on which ones work, which ones don’t, and who to trust as a provider.

IRREVOCABLY PERSONAL DEPT.

Joe Betts-Lacroix, CEO of Retro Biosciences

Who we're talking about: Joe Betts-LaCroix, the CEO of secretive longevity startup Retro Biosciences. Betts-LaCroix has a colorful life history that includes almost failing out of high school... years spent living in a shared house with “musicians, artists and weirdos”... studies at Harvard and Caltech... and then a series of entrepreneurial roles that culminated with co-founding Retro in 2021.

Betts-Lacroix's goal with Retro is to add 10 good years to your life. And he might be in a better position than most to accomplish it, because as I wrote back in March, Betts-Lacroix and Retro Biosciences got $180 million of funding from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

And the news is: Retro Biosciences was just profiled in a long article in Bloomberg. Until now, and in spite (or because) of the intense media interest due to Altman's involvement, not much was known about what Retro is actually working on or what Betts-Lacroix's plans are to get to that 10 extra years of healthy life.

It turns out Retro is using a multi-pronged approach, and is planning to get to multiple clinical studies using multiple longevity mechanisms, including artial cell reprogramming, autophagy, and young blood plasma. As Betts-Lacroix put it:

So what's next? $180 million in funding might sound like a lot. But as one of Betts-Lacroix's co-founders said, "Sam will not be able to fund this all the way."

Retro Biosciences will need real results to attract other investors to have a good shot at its ambitious goal. In case you're curious whether Joe Betts-LaCroix and Retro might actually do it, the Bloomberg article is worth a read.

LONGEVITY OFFER

Novos Core longevity supplement subscription

The background: Last November, Julie Gibson Clark suddenly became a longevity celebrity, when it became known that she ranks #2 on the Rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard.

Rejuvenation Olympics is a "let's slow down aging" competition involving thousands of people. It was started by Silicon Valley multimillionaire Bryan Johnson, who spends $2M a year on his personal longevity routine. The shocking thing is that Gibson Clark sits higher up on the leaderboard than Johnson, who is at #6.

How does Gibson Clark do it? Most of her longevity protocol is extremely simple. It involves consistent bed times, daily exercise, meditation, time spent with family, and plain and natural food. These are all longevity practices that are likely to be famililar to you.

Gibson Clark’s supplement choice: The only thing Gibson Clark does that might be new to you is a $79/month supplement subscription. That supplement subscription is called Novos Core. It contains 12 ingredients, some familiar (magnesium, glycine) and others exotic (malate, alpha-ketogluterate), specifically formulated to slow down aging.

Why you might want to try Novos Core also: Expert longevity researchers, including Harvard's George Church who I profiled in an earlier issue, have endorsed the Novos Core supplement subscription. And an in-house study performed by Novos shows that users actually do experience a slower pace of aging, as well as visible anti-aging benefits on the skin.

Conclusion: If you are not yet prioritizing sleep, exercise, a longevity-oriented diet, then the odds are that you should start with one of those. But if you already are doing the basics for longevity, and you want to take the next step, then the Novos Core supplement subscription brings together the best ingredients in a total longevity package.

Click here if you'd like to find out more about Novos Core or sign up for it now

AROUND THE WEB

Simple exercise routine that will extend your life (via Peter Diamandis)

Why methylation clocks are failing (a theory from Josh Mitteldorf)

The #1 sign you'll live to 100, according to longevity experts

Peter Attia is hiring

DEPT. OF LONGEVITY ALL-STARS

Forget centennarians, we should be studying the Karate Kid

Yesterday, longevity Research João Pedro de Magalhães tweeted, "Forget centennarians, we should be studying the Karate Kid." And who can argue with that?

Above are two photos of Karate Kid actor Ralph Macchio. It's remarkable how boyish Macchio looked at age 23 in the left photo. But what's even more remarkable is how he still looks very youthful, even boyish, in the photo on the right, months before turning 60, in 2021.

You might think, "Good for Daniel-san, but so what?" So… scientists continue to tease out how some of us manage to stay healthy and even youthful well into life. Eventually, this will lead to interventions and treatments to make a youthful 60 a reality for all of us, even if we didn't win the longevity genetic lottery like Ralph Macchio did.

I’ll leave you with that thought for this week. As always, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post, consider sharing it with someone who would find it interesting as well. I'll be back in your inbox next Thursday, with more practical, inspiring, and fun news based on the latest in longevity science.

- The Longevity Hound