Why is there no rejuvenation therapies on the market

I’m in my 40s , and have been in longevity spaces ever since I was in my early 20s

So far in 2024 there is no rejuvenation therapies that exist

I have been reading research articles for decades and I don’t think we even scratched the surface ; there’s so much conflicting research out there

Plasma dilution or paraboises , Fecal microbiota transplantation , cell reprogramming , mitochondrial transplantation, thymus rejuvenation ,immune system rejuvenation , senescence clearance , clearance of some amyloids , etc ( there are no human studies being carried out to show that this even works )

I try hard not to be a pessimist, but everyday I see headlines saying we are closer but then there’s nothing only hype

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Depends on how you define “rejuvenation” and how you measure your personal health metrics.

Many on this forum have significantly improved their health metrics, including myself.

For me, the key is measuring what my interventions are doing for/to me.

If you have the money, there are some gene therapies that do provide a level of “rejuvenation”, some stem cell therapies, some peptide therapies, etc. Then there is “life style”, which, depending on how you define “rejuvenation” can significantly improve ones markers.

In my opinion, there will not be a magic “pill” for rejuvenation any time soon. There are currently 12 Hallmarks of Aging and each one of those hallmarks will need to be solved. There are a lot of interdependencies in those 12 so if all 12 are not addressed, there will always be aging.

There will be no one and done “rejuvenation” protocol in our lifetime. Human biology is way to complex for that.

Maybe 100 years from now :slight_smile: a new born will have been genetically modified to stop the ravages of aging but for those of us living today, all we can rationally strive for is improving our own health span.

Fortunately there are things that can be done to positively affect health.

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I mean, there are already multiple things you can do today that reduce all-cause mortality and bring you over the age of 100. Then there are treatments that work in mice (and some primates) which can theoretically bring you closer to 120 on top of that.

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Yes - I can relate to your feelings. I mean how long has Aubrey De Grey been telling people that Longevity Escape Velocity is just around the corner… I remember him saying stuff like this 20 years ago when he was based in the UK and first started.

Fundamentally I think the issue is in two key areas:

  1. Historically, the amount of money that is invested in this area has been very, very little compared to all the major disease categories like cancer, etc. Basic research funding for the National Institute on Aging is about $100 Million I think (last time I looked) compared to billions in cancer research each year. So its been seriously underfunded.

  2. Aging is a hard problem, and biotech and drug development take a very long time. The typical drug takes years to find, then 6 or 7 years of clinical testing before it becomes available if it actually passes all these clinical trials, which most don’t.

So now the good news. I was in a similar state as you about 5 years ago, disappointed at the slow progress in this field. But - I had been following the field and there is some good news that has gotten me more excited about the near future.

First of all, a lot more money is now flowing into the field. $ Billions have been invested in companies like Altos Labs, and Hevolution Fund from Saudi Arabia is investing a lot now, up to $1 Billion a year, so the funding issue seems to have been addressed to a significant degree.

The other thing that got me excited is that the good research on the longevity effects of Rapamycin have just continued to roll in and get better the past 5 years. So now we have a drug that has shown longevity and some rejuvenation (nothing like we want ultimately, but a start) in every organism tested. And its been on the market for over 20 years, and used by 100s of thousands of people already and very cheap. So - thats all fantastic news. See information here about how rapamycin can slow or reverse aging in organs: Can Rapamycin repair your organs and therefore reverse aging?

And things like plasmapheresis and Katcher’s E5 and exosomes, etc. are starting to become available in clinics and the research is looking positive, so there are good reasons to be more optimistic in the short to medium term.

So yes, its slower than we’d like - but there is serious and good progress being made now.

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Yours is a succinct analysis, Sabrina. All these things, but the big one isn’t here yet.

You said pretty much everything I was going to say. I would also add that quite a few of these treatments are available if you have the money and look in the right places. The price of stem cells products has come down in the past five years, same goes for exosomes.
There are also ways to get fecal transplants if you do your research. The other thing to bear in mind is that being on a forum such as this puts you ahead of the curve of 99 percent of the public. Lots of early adopters here. I’m sure as a community when this stuff does become available we’ll be some of the first to know beyond the billionaires and well connected.

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@Sabrina1980 you might enjoy this new podcast, which focuses on the movement of longevity therapies into clinical applications: Andrea Maier: Longevity Therapies, From Potential to Practice (Podcast) / Buck Institute

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