Water for longevity, NR supplementation, and a Silicon Valley wunderkind's $180M investment

Welcome to the latest issue of Long Youthspan, the only longevity newsletter that’s fun to read. I’m your host, the Youthspan Hound.

In today’s issue, we have some inspiring dog news as well as plenty of practical human longevity advice. Let’s dig in.

PRACTICAL LONGEVITY ADVICE

An extra glass of water today might save your life in 30 years

What’s the news: If you are well hydrated, you are more likely to live a long and healthy life. You are also less likely to get a whole host of nasty diseases, including:

• heart failure

• stroke

• atrial fibrillation

• peripheral artery disease

• chronic lung disease

• diabetes

• dementia

Says who? This comes from a January 2023 science paper, based on a massive study of 11,255 adults, with data gathered over 30 years. The paper was written by scientists at the federally funded National Institute for Health.

Why this is a big deal: The list of nasty outcomes above is long and scary. It would be amazing to significantly cut down your risk of, say, dementia and diabetes with something as easy and pleasant as a tall glass of water.

Yes, but: The current paper only reports a correlation. In other words, we can't say for sure whether being more hydrated will make you live longer. Maybe longer-lived people exercise more, which makes them more thirsty, which means they drink more... you see where I'm going.

So what specifically can you do now? You could drink more, right now. But your editor at Long Youthspan has long been skeptical of chugging gross quantities of water, ever since reading Matt Stone's Eat For Heat.

The Long Youthspan recommendation: Just ask yourself, "Am I thirsty right now?" If you find that the answer is yes, get some liquid. Make it water, broth, a tangerine, or maybe a Bloody Mary (fine, that probably won't help your longevity).

Who knows? An extra glass of water today and tomorrow might save your life down the line. The NIH scientists say that half of us don't get the recommended daily water intake, which starts at 6 cups, and goes up based on how sweaty and salty you get during the day.

THOSE LUCKY MICE DEPT.

Age-related lost sense of smell restored via NR supplementation

What's the news: Supplementation with nicotinamide riboside improved sense of smell and longevity in aged mice.

Why should we believe it: This news comes from a study published last month, February 2023, by scientists working at National Institute on Aging, within the National Institutes of Health.

Why this is a big deal: Sense of smell grows worse with age. A loss of sense of smell is also an early symptom of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

At the same time, as we age, levels of the cellular coenzye NAD+ decreases in our bodies. This decrease of NAD+ is one reason that the olfactory bulb — our smelling apparatus — becomes damaged and works less well.

Is there a way to prevent or reverse this age-related smell loss? The present study supplemented mice with nicotinamide riboside — an NAD+ precursor — and found:

1. Supplementing with NR for 8 weeks partially restored the lost sense of smell in these aged mice

2. The same treatment increased longevity — mice supplemented with NR survived significantly longer

So what does this mean for you? Improved sense of smell is probably just one very visible (smellable?) improvement due to NR supplementation. When levels of NAD+ go up, there are likely to be many other benefits in the brain, and throughout the body as well, or at least in mice.

Your Long Youthspan host isn’t in the habit of suggesting longevity treatments based on the latest mouse research alone. However, the present study is just another pebble in the growing hill of evidence about the benefits of supplementing with NAD+ in humans as well as mice. In other words, if you're not yet supplementing with NAD+ or one of its precursors, it might be time to consider it.

IRREVOCABLY PERSONAL

Silicon Valley wunderkind invests $180 million in longevity research

Who we're talking about: Sam Altman, a 37-year-old Silicon Valley CEO. A generation ago, Altman was a wunderkind entrepreneur. He started his first company at age 19 and sold it a few years later for $45 million. He then became CEO of the investment fund Y Combinator before he turned 30.

Today, Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, which he co-founded with Elon Musk. OpenAI is the organization behind ChatGPT, the incredible AI chatbot released last October, which has Google, Facebook, and Microsoft scrambling to keep up.

And the news is: Altman just invested $180 million of his own money into a little-known longevity startup, Retro Biosciences. The stated goal of Retro Biosciences is to add 10 years to average human lifespan.

At this point, Retro is being secretive about how they plan to do that, but they do say they are "starting with cellular reprogramming, autophagy & plasma-inspired therapeutics."

Why this is a big deal: Altman joins a growing list of absurdly rich people — including Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Twitter's Jack Dorsey, PayPal's Peter Thiel — who have invested or donated unimaginable sums of money to longevity research.

It's another sign of how hot the longevity field is becoming. It's also making me hopeful that in the next few years, or maybe sooner, some of this massive investment will start to pay off with revolutionary new treatments for long youthspan.

A LONG YOUTHSPAN OFFER

The only skincare line proven to reverse skin's biological age

What is it: OneSkin, a skincare brand co-founded by Drs. Alessandra Zonari and Mariana Baroni, along with a team of other bioinformatics researchers. OneSkin sells the usual range of face and body creams and lotions. What's new is what's inside.

So what's inside? Of course, OneSkin products feature familiar skincare ingredients, including various plant oils. But the real magic is OS-1, a peptide that's been shown in a laboratory study to:

1. Reverse human skin's biological age

2. Prevent the accumulation in the skin of senescent cells — aged cells that secrete inflammatory signals

Do OneSkin products actually reverse skin aging? The science is there, at least in a lab situation. Whether that translates into meaningful real-life skin rejuvenation is another issue.

As you can expect, the OneSkin website features in-depth case studies of smiling and attractive customers who use the company's products. What's more, the company has also gotten the unsolicited endorsement of Dr. David Sinclair, the Harvard biologist who is perhaps the best-known face of longevity research, who says he has used OneSkin and who personally found it works. In case you're interested in trying out OneSkin yourself:

Click here to see the full line of OneSkin products

WHAT WE ARE READING DEPT.

The Stretch Letter

What we are reading: The Stretch Letter, a bi-weekly email newsletter written by Charlotte Grysolle. The name "The Stretch Letter" is motivated by a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." And that's been my experience so far reading Charlotte’s newsletter.

As the editor of Long Youthspan — and in my other pursuits — I spend my days researching, collecting interesting new facts, and writing about them. I believe myself well-informed about things like health, psychology, and productivity. And yet, in each Stretch Letter issue I have read so far, I have come across new, mind-stretching ideas.

How much do you know about your sense of interoception? Have you heard about a simple way to measure your ultradian cycle, so you can take advantage of your natural most-productive time of day?

These are a few of the new ideas Charlotte has shared in recent issues. Her future issues promise to be just as good. I won't be missing them, and I advise you not to miss them either. Sign up for The Stretch Letter for free here.

DID YOU KNOW DEPT.

Dog longevity drug study gets first-ever nod from FDA

Here's a bit of inspiring news to wrap up this issue of Long Youthspan:

The Food and Drug Administration just gave its "program concurrence" to dog longevity company Loyal. This means Loyal will have the opportunity to prove, via a rigorous scientific study, that its proposed drug actually extends dog lifespan. If successful, Loyal will then get FDA approval for its drug.

If Loyal is successful, it might actually extend dog lifespan and, more importantly, dog youthspan. Speaking as a Youthspan Hound who wants to stay healthy and youthful, I'm all for that. But the current news is still bigger.

This is the first time the FDA has given its nod to any kind of drug approval process explicitly having to do with longevity. And Loyal CEO Celine Halioua has stated that her goal — in case Loyal is successful with dogs — is to trial the same drug in humans also.

Even if Loyal's drug trial is not successful, the very fact of FDA “concurring” with Loyal's longevity study will open up the doors to other companies who want to test longevity drugs. In other words, this is another significant sign that we are entering a new era of longevity research — this stuff is really happening.

Keep with me inside Long Youthspan, and I'll update you on the latest longevity breakthroughts — whether from Loyal or from other sources.

Thanks for reading, and I'll be back with you next Thursday.

- Your Youthspan Hound

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