I wish there had been so much progress that it was all totally dated, but alas I
I wish there had been so much progress that it was all totally dated, but alas I think it is still a good general overview of the field. You can find out more, and buy it from Amazon or elsewhere at ageless.link :)
(Feel free to leave a rating so I can blast past 1k!)
Ageless just hit 1000 ratings on Amazon!
(I noticed because someone I got chatt
Ageless just hit 1000 ratings on Amazon!
(I noticed because someone I got chatting to on a plane whipped out his phone to buy a copy!)
Glad to see it’s still moving almost five years after it was first published. :)
Let’s scrap the triple lock and use some of it fund longevity science which mean
Let’s scrap the triple lock and use some of it fund longevity science which means the national care service will be cheaper! (And, more importantly, it would be cheaper because people are healthy enough not to need care…)
I enjoyed @xandvt.bsky.social’s new book Make Me Well so much, I made a short vi
I enjoyed @xandvt.bsky.social’s new book Make Me Well so much, I made a short video about it!
Check out the video, or just cut to the chase and buy the book, I guess… :)
Provocative and important post from @karlpfleger.bsky.social: is lifespan, and e
Provocative and important post from @karlpfleger.bsky.social: is lifespan, and even healthspan, the wrong way to measure success in treating ageing?
I enjoyed this analogy with other human megaprojects:
Hi (briefly!) from London!
I’m here for one night only to talk to some doctors
Hi (briefly!) from London!
I’m here for one night only to talk to some doctors and other healthcare pros about longevity science. And that night was last night. And I’m posting this from the airport…
It does feel like the consequences here should be exactly the same as if an empl
It does feel like the consequences here should be exactly the same as if an employee had done it. If your models/employees are outstripping your oversight capabilities, that’s on you to fix.
Haha, thanks!
I had a few quibbles (of course). Great chat overall though—it wa
Haha, thanks!
I had a few quibbles (of course). Great chat overall though—it was cool to listen to two smart but not ageing experts because I’m so marinated in this stuff I sometimes miss things! And hard agree on the AI bros…we need to collect more data, minimum. Would be fun to catch up sometime!
I totally agree that we aren’t taking longer lives seriously enough as a society
I totally agree that we aren’t taking longer lives seriously enough as a society though. The socioeconomic and legal aspects of longevity need some serious work, and the science moves faster than society. That’s why I created @thelongevityinitiative.org…
Looking forward to the rest of the series!
Adam talks about supercentenarians and, while it’s probably no fun outliving you
Adam talks about supercentenarians and, while it’s probably no fun outliving your children and even your grandchildren, the way they do it isn’t just dodging diseases—it’s also dodging the frailty that gets most of us in our 70s–90s.
The average person who lives to 100+ lives to 100 independently!
I’m far less pessimistic than David and @adamrutherford.bsky.social are in this
I’m far less pessimistic than David and @adamrutherford.bsky.social are in this episode! But I’m not on the side of the tech bros either…
On the central question of the show, I think it’s very unlikely we can extend lifespan without extending healthspan, because *it’s being sick that kills you*.
This is one reason I think longevity advocacy has such huge bang for buck: if we
This is one reason I think longevity advocacy has such huge bang for buck: if we could explain to people with money what a collective investment in ageing research could do, they (and we all!) might live longer as a result.
A rising tide lifts all boats, so to speak…
What’s wildest is…I think many of the yacht owners would actually take this deal
What’s wildest is…I think many of the yacht owners would actually take this deal?
A UBS survey found that people with high net worth would give up to half of it for ten extra healthy years. So most people would probably happily trade a yacht’s worth for a shot!
Good morning from Monaco!
I we could somehow turn the value of all the yachts i
Good morning from Monaco!
I we could somehow turn the value of all the yachts in this harbour into longevity research, I’m pretty sure we could add years to human healthy life expectancy…
Berlin was clouded out for the lunar eclipse, so I’ll just have to make do with
Berlin was clouded out for the lunar eclipse, so I’ll just have to make do with this shot of the very-full pre-eclipse moon through high, thin cloud, with a lovely two-tone halo around it caused by optical effects with the ice crystals in the cloud.
Totally worth it, though. Thanks Mallorca! And thanks, the wonders of celestial
Totally worth it, though. Thanks Mallorca! And thanks, the wonders of celestial mechanics. What a first eclipse.
Technical details: 85 mm, base bracket from 1/1000 to 1/4 at f/2.8; corona stacked from 18 brackets during totality; partial phases, various exposures with and without a solar filter.
Viewing this was a challenge: totality was just 2.5° above the horizon, which me
Viewing this was a challenge: totality was just 2.5° above the horizon, which meant that significant parts of the island couldn’t see it due to mountains. Plus, the feels-like temperature hovered around 40°C all day thanks to heat and humidity, which didn’t make waiting for this shot easy!
Total eclipse, August 12th 2026, Mallorca, Spain.
This shot is a 90-minute comp
Total eclipse, August 12th 2026, Mallorca, Spain.
This shot is a 90-minute composite: the base picture is C2, the first moment of totality with Moon covering Sun and corona visible, and the sky split in two by the shadow; and I’ve superimposed the partial phases before and after. 🧪
It was my absolute pleasure to dial in from Berlin to speak with host Greg and g
It was my absolute pleasure to dial in from Berlin to speak with host Greg and guests Sophie (who’s sceptical) and Steve (who’s tried the Wolverine Stack!) about what we know and don’t about experimental peptides BPC-157, TB-500, GHK-Cu and more… 🧪
Listen here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
I think this is a fair point and there is an extent to which AWESOME SUPERINTELL
I think this is a fair point and there is an extent to which AWESOME SUPERINTELLIGENT CYBER CAPABILITIES is great marketing copy, and it also has a slightly ‘ChatGPT can end the world too!’ feel after Claude Mythos headlines recently…but I don’t think it’s marketing/scary are mutually exclusive…
* This is the first time I’ve been described as ‘from Shropshire’ in the media!
* This is the first time I’ve been described as ‘from Shropshire’ in the media! (Apart perhaps from the local paper on A-level results day?!) I grew up there, so my parents were happy to see this description…
It was a pleasure to speak to @thesun.co.uk about the Rejuvenation Olympics and
It was a pleasure to speak to @thesun.co.uk about the Rejuvenation Olympics and longevity science more broadly!
‘Longevity scientist Andrew Steele, 40, from Shropshire*, describes some measures as “biohacking nonsense” and says they “are not very scientific” in their approach.’
On the OpenAI hacking, I think this is the key point: do the advanced cybersecur
On the OpenAI hacking, I think this is the key point: do the advanced cybersecurity capabilities of these models net out at an advantage for attackers, or defenders?
If the ‘good guys’ are always a few months ahead, and a few months is long enough to patch all the things, we’re golden…if not, uh-oh
I could go on…
It’s a shame that longevity medicine is lumped in with facelifts
I could go on…
It’s a shame that longevity medicine is lumped in with facelifts as a kind of vanity.
I think trying to explain why ‘ageing’, biologically and morally speaking, is different from the diseases it causes, is a useful way to understand why it shouldn’t be.
“We have this rampant idea now that to show any signs of dementia is something t
“We have this rampant idea now that to show any signs of dementia is something that we want to stave off or avoid for as long as we can,” he said, “potentially forever.” After all, who wants to lose their memories, their independence, and forget their children’s names?
The ultimate goal of anti-cancer and oncology is to stop normal biological proce
The ultimate goal of anti-cancer and oncology is to stop normal biological processes, so any signs of cancer—aberrant cell division, metastasis—mean that we’re failing. There is no end to cancer, apart from death. There’s always another drug to trial, another procedure to test.
‘Doctors will no longer use the term “anti-cancer”. One medic argued that by usi
‘Doctors will no longer use the term “anti-cancer”. One medic argued that by using it, “we’re subtly reinforcing the message that cancer is a condition we need to battle”.’
(There are issues with ‘battle’ metaphors for individuals, but as a society, we should fight!)
It’s fun to go through this article and replace the word ‘ageing’ with the words
It’s fun to go through this article and replace the word ‘ageing’ with the words ‘cancer’ or ‘dementia’.
I don’t think longevity science is ageist—I want everyone to have a chance to be healthy, however old they are!
The tweet was far more on the ‘we’re all harbouring latent covid, we’re all doom
The tweet was far more on the ‘we’re all harbouring latent covid, we’re all doomed!!!’ end of the spectrum tho, which I think is actively unhelpful for a) the lucky majority who didn’t get long-term consequences and don’t need the anxiety and b) people genuinely suffering from long covid.
Sorry to hear about both of those things. :(
And I totally agree, I think we sh
Sorry to hear about both of those things. :(
And I totally agree, I think we should be more hawkish preventing viral infections not least because of their long-term risks.
…
The health misinformation in the replies to that post is next-level.
Eat more m
The health misinformation in the replies to that post is next-level.
Eat more meat! Get more sun! It’s the covid shots! It’s long covid! (I saw those last two back-to-back which is pretty funny.)
I’m genuinely sorry to hear that Bryan is unwell.
But this episode shows the li
I’m genuinely sorry to hear that Bryan is unwell.
But this episode shows the limits of flashy biohacking theatre vs real medicine: too much focus on social-media-friendly measures like epigenetic clocks and night time erections while overlooking low ferritin for over a decade.
As you can see, there are plenty of examples in nature of animals and plants liv
As you can see, there are plenty of examples in nature of animals and plants living a very long time.
There’s no law of nature that forces organisms to age…so is there even a chance that a human alive today be around to celebrate America’s 500th?!
Honourable mention to an American organism: a bristlecone pine named Methuselah,
Honourable mention to an American organism: a bristlecone pine named Methuselah, high in California’s White Mountains, is ~4,850 years old. It was a seedling before the pyramids, and is older than every country on Earth.
📷 By Dcrjsr, CC BY-SA 3.0
These are all aquatic creatures—on dry land, the oldest animal with a reliably d
These are all aquatic creatures—on dry land, the oldest animal with a reliably documented age is Jonathan the tortoise, at a mere ~193. When he was born, the US was a sprightly 57 years old!
📷 By Kevstan, CC BY-SA 4.0
The giant volcanic sponge (Anoxycalyx joubini): one individual was estimated at
The giant volcanic sponge (Anoxycalyx joubini): one individual was estimated at ~15,000 years old. Antarctic sponges live deep in the ocean, in extremely cold temperatures and high pressures, which may slow their growth and aging processes.
📷 PLoS ONE 8(2): e56939, CC BY 4.0
The ocean quahog (Arctica islandica): the oldest ever clam was nicknamed Ming, a
The ocean quahog (Arctica islandica): the oldest ever clam was nicknamed Ming, and died aged 507 based on scientists counting rings in its shell. This means it was born around 1500. We don’t know how long it might have lived if it hadn’t been caught…
📷 H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0
The Greenland shark (pictured above) is the longest-lived vertebrate on Earth, e
The Greenland shark (pictured above) is the longest-lived vertebrate on Earth, estimated to live to 400 years. They grow 1 cm a year, and don’t reach maturity until 150. Some sharks who came of age in 1776 are cruising the Arctic right now.
📷 Hemming1952, CC BY-SA 4.0
Happy 250th birthday, America! 🎂🇺🇸
To put that into perspective: here are so
Happy 250th birthday, America! 🎂🇺🇸
To put that into perspective: here are some animals that live even longer—some of them alive today were probably around when the Declaration was signed… 🧵
This silver parasol reflects both UV (sunburn, skin ageing) and IR (heat), so I’
This silver parasol reflects both UV (sunburn, skin ageing) and IR (heat), so I’m trying it out in the oppressive 35°C heat in London.
I’d like to do a randomised trial to see if it actually affects my core body temperature, but I think it would be unethical to put myself in the control group.
It might be that something is changing that hits both PhenoAge and cancer risk (
It might be that something is changing that hits both PhenoAge and cancer risk (eg obesity) but doesn’t mean younger cohorts are ageing faster/less healthy in some more meaningful sense…
I had a look at they actually graph this in the supplementary—and the left figur
I had a look at they actually graph this in the supplementary—and the left figure here shows the whole distribution going up, not just a tail fattening, from my read?
I guess this is the eternal question for these biological age clocks—what's their validity outside the cohort they were trained in?
I honestly think until we do something interventional we might just not know, at
I honestly think until we do something interventional we might just not know, at least not for decades! Plausibly obesity is accelerating aging, but diet quality, lifestyle, air quality, infections etc have all basically improved so I’d be somewhat surprised?
Just checked the discussion and…
A new study suggests the uptick in young people getting cancer is because they’r
A new study suggests the uptick in young people getting cancer is because they’re biologically older.
Target the ageing process and you might help the 30-year-olds too! And a proper interventional study would finally tell us what these ageing clocks are actually measuring…
Sure, and we need policy change to make sure these things are delivered more che
Sure, and we need policy change to make sure these things are delivered more cheaply (as they often are in the rest of the world, or indeed in the grey market in the US). The dysfunction of US drug pricing isn’t an argument that science is expensive. :)
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do both! I’m all for better urban planning and impro
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do both! I’m all for better urban planning and improving lives in other ways. But we should be clear-eyed about the order(s)-of-magnitude difference in price tag.
$100 billion a year would almost certainly allow development of longevity drugs
$100 billion a year would almost certainly allow development of longevity drugs over a few-year timespan (it’s about 10× what the US has spent on longevity science EVER) and, if produced at cost, could keep billions of people around the world healthy for less money than this hypothetical city. :)
I think the maths doesn’t work out here—without questioning your $100bn/year for
I think the maths doesn’t work out here—without questioning your $100bn/year for a structurally reformed city, that’s only 50 million people, and GLP-1s are reaching far more than that for less money. Plus, as you say, their price is a policy choice—the cost price is far, far lower.
Vaccines can literally prevent cancer—and the new HPV jab statistics are even mo
Vaccines can literally prevent cancer—and the new HPV jab statistics are even more remarkable than the headline. New article: https://andrewsteele.co.uk/blog/2026/06/hpv-vaccine-prevents-cervical-cancer/
The NHS doesn’t seem to recommend for adults except men who have sex with men up
The NHS doesn’t seem to recommend for adults except men who have sex with men up to 45: www.nhs.uk/vaccinations...
CDC is a bit more flexible and says ‘some adults’ up to 45: www.cdc.gov/hpv/hcp/vacc...
I think if you aren’t in a monogamous relationship there’s probably a case to be made?
I should have scrolled down further: vaccination rates are even higher in the co
I should have scrolled down further: vaccination rates are even higher in the cohort relevant to these cancer stats.
Let’s hope we don’t see an uptick in cancer rates thanks to the reduction in coverage more recently. (But herd immunity hopefully means it will be pretty small.)
…structural change. (eg they’re too frail or unwell to do so, etc) We need medic
…structural change. (eg they’re too frail or unwell to do so, etc) We need medicine to help them because neither optimisation nor large-scale social change can.
Developing medicines is much cheaper and easier than social change so we should push much harder on it than we already do!
I agree with everything you’ve typed! But perhaps you weren’t able to access my
I agree with everything you’ve typed! But perhaps you weren’t able to access my X thread… My point isn’t that we shouldn’t work hard on public health, it’s that preventative medicines that slow ageing are an essential adjunct to it. Lots of people can’t change their diet or exercise, even with…
‘But why weren’t there any cases in the unvaccinated kids?’
> 70% of kids in En
‘But why weren’t there any cases in the unvaccinated kids?’
> 70% of kids in England are vaccinated: www.gov.uk/government/s...
Throw in herd immunity for the other 25–30%, there we go: www.gavi.org/vaccineswork...
By then, I guess almost all countries will have undergone a full demographic tra
By then, I guess almost all countries will have undergone a full demographic transition and > 90% of deaths will be due to ageing…so it's all down to the success of science slowing that down! And I wouldn’t bet against against us curing ageing over the next *century*…but ofc still a chance we fail!
As a British dad living in Berlin, I’m all for affordable housing, supporting pa
As a British dad living in Berlin, I’m all for affordable housing, supporting parents and immigration—but I think campaigning for funding for longevity science is more tractable than trying to juggle those political hot potatoes.
At least mention that next time, @kurzgesagt.org!
But of course the main thing that got my goat was the total failure to engage wi
But of course the main thing that got my goat was the total failure to engage with longevity science—a topic they made several videos on a few years ago!
Claiming a 74% population drop over four generations assumes that medical science will stand still for about a century, which seems unlikely!
There’s also a very strange part where they cast immigration as a pyramid scheme
There’s also a very strange part where they cast immigration as a pyramid scheme because immigrants eventually get old and need care…but that’s exactly the same as children born in Germany?
They’re right that birth rates are falling everywhere so it’s not a permanent solution.
This video is a rare swing and substantial miss by @kurzgesagt.org.
Most import
This video is a rare swing and substantial miss by @kurzgesagt.org.
Most importantly, they don’t engage with improving health: assuming everyone over 65 is a burden is wild when 65 was first set as Germany’s pension age in 1916—at a time when life expectancy in Germany was around 55!
‘Since the programme started in 2021, Pillar 2 has awarded money to six projects
‘Since the programme started in 2021, Pillar 2 has awarded money to six projects looking at underlying ageing biology, according to a European Commission spokesperson. These have received €23 million in total, 0.48% of the €4.8 billion Horizon Europe has so far dished out on health topics, and just 0.08% of the €27.9 billion spent through Pillar 2 as a whole. For comparison, oncology has received
Could Ozempic slow down aging?! A new study suggests yes—but, while they’re exci
Could Ozempic slow down aging?! A new study suggests yes—but, while they’re exciting preliminary results, there are a few caveats too. New Scientist asked me to send in a comment for their podcast—this is the full, uncut version of what I said! https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0q8RLtHUv8s #aging #ageing #longevity #ozempic
I am trying to get all my contacts to move from WhatsApp to Signal for privacy a
I am trying to get all my contacts to move from WhatsApp to Signal for privacy and security reasons. I wrote a quick article to help convince people to make the move, and published it on my website in case it helps anyone else make the case to friends and relatives. Please share if useful! https://andrewsteele.co.uk/blog/2025/07/delete-whatsapp-install-signal/
More nonsense from Meta: this stuff is unbelievable. The hunger for AI training
More nonsense from Meta: this stuff is unbelievable. The hunger for AI training data has turned them from pretty creepy to absolutely unscrupulous data-slurping privacy nightmare, and it's very hard to generally trust a company that behaves like this. If you have the Facebook app on your phone: first, ask if you need it, or if accessing it through your web browser would be better. If you really do
I’ve just noticed that, if you don’t want Meta AI to go through slurping up all
I’ve just noticed that, if you don’t want Meta AI to go through slurping up all your WhatsApp messages, you have to go through and turn this on *for every chat you’re in*. Can everyone please move to @signalapp already? This is getting absurd!
The pictures are spaced throughout the day—January’s was taken at sunrise, and t
The pictures are spaced throughout the day—January’s was taken at sunrise, and the one in December will be taken at sunset. And I was pretty lucky that one morning in February was so beautifully snowy! It was only a few hours later that it had all turned to slush…
With the solstice yesterday, I am now half-way through a photo project: take a p
With the solstice yesterday, I am now half-way through a photo project: take a picture from this exact spot every month in 2025! This is January–June, each picture taken as close to the 21st as weather and my being in Berlin allows. Can’t wait to find out what happens next! #photography #timelapse #seasons #berlin
Prof @sellathechemist has returned his science communication award to the Royal
Prof @sellathechemist has returned his science communication award to the Royal Society in what, if I may say so, is an award-worthy piece of science communication: https://on.ft.com/4l0jtNZ (gift link)
New 30% mouse lifespan extension paper just dropped! Another example of rapamyci
New 30% mouse lifespan extension paper just dropped! Another example of rapamycin + something increasing mouse lifespan more than rapamycin or something alone. In this case, the something is trametinib, an anti-cancer drug. Read more here: https://andrewsteele.co.uk/blog/2025/05/rapamycin-trametinib-cocktail-lifespan-mice/ #aging #longevity #agingbiology #rapamycin
Great piece by Andrew Scott on the longevity revolution—and why we need to seize
Great piece by Andrew Scott on the longevity revolution—and why we need to seize the opportunities it presents. ‘The hardest change of all [is] seeing a longer life as an opportunity and overcoming deeply engrained ageist assumptions.’ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2025/may/15/longevity-ageing-health-centenarian-life-expentancy
Proud to say I helped out a bit with this new video from Primer, simulating the
Proud to say I helped out a bit with this new video from Primer, simulating the evolution of aging with his lovable blobs! If anyone asks me to explain how aging evolved (it’s surprisingly nuanced), I now have a great resource to share: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_JbJTeLZJs #aging #evolution #evolutionarybiology #science #ageing #longevity
I had an amazing chat with Davina McCall (!!!) about ageing, menopause, how we c
I had an amazing chat with Davina McCall (!!!) about ageing, menopause, how we could live to 90 in good health, and how much fun it is to give birth?!? (Her words not mine!) Check it out her new podcast, Begin Again, for the full conversation :) #aging #ageing #longevity #menopause #longevityscience #agingbiology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnL5ni4sxJ8
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