Highlights

  • At 81, Scott says he does not have time to wait for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve aging interventions that could contribute to living longer.
  • Scott has undergone injections with amniotic exosomes (particles from amniotic fluid), uses peptides, and has traveled to Honduras for non-FDA-approved gene therapy in his quest to defy aging.
  • Kenneth Scott estimates that he and his wife spend about $70,000 annually on treatments intended to help them reverse aging.

Every few months or so, the internet rages about news related to the tech entrepreneur, Bryan Johnson, who uses a rigid dietary, supplement, and exercise regimen in hopes of defying aging. Albeit, Johnson’s no holds barred approach to extending lifespan by any means necessary has intrigued many and garnered some ridicule. All the same, whether influenced by his example or from his rationales for different types of routines to combat aging given via YouTube, others have joined in pursuing enhanced longevity.

One such longevity seeker is 81-year-old Kenneth Scott, a biotech investor and real estate developer who has jumped on the bandwagon for preserving youthfulness.

“When your heart stops beating, you’re guilty of mass cellular genocide,” he said to Quartz. “Our culture has the mentality that we were born to die. From childhood, we were taught that we’re going to die. But I suggest that that culture is out of date.”

Kenneth Scott Has Invested into Personal Aging Intervention Regimens and Biotech Research

Much like Bryan Johnson, Scott has invested a large sum of time, money, and energy toward reversing his age. Accordingly, Scott says his quest does not entail just wanting to slow the aging process—he wants immortality.

Kenneth Scott is now part of a movement of longevity seekers that has given way to numerous longevity conferences and experimental aging interventions. Interestingly, people in the pro-longevity movement often travel internationally, to places like Honduras, to undergo procedures not approved by the FDA or administered by doctors in the United States.

As for the purported benefits of Kenneth Scott’s routine, which is meant to prolong his life, he claims he can dance like he did when he was 18. Moreover, he says he has youthful skin and that his biological age—a measure of age assessed with protein, metabolite, or DNA markers reflecting tissue and organ function—reads 18 as well. What’s more, Scott says that he and his wife spend about $70,000 annually for treatments meant for age reversal. Also, he and his wife have invested an estimated $500,000 to $750,000 in biotech companies that study aging intervention technology.

Kenneth Scott Makes His Own Shampoo, Avoids Soap, and Travels to Honduras for Gene Therapy

Some examples of things that Kenneth Scott does to purportedly maintain such a young biological age include eating a plant-based diet, getting blood platelet-rich facials, and making his own shampoo with the anticancer medicine dasatinib and plant pigment quercetin. He got inspiration for his shampoo, in part, because dasatinib and quercetin have been shown to reduce numbers of dysfunctional cells that accumulate with age—senescent cells. Moreover, the two compounds have supposedly been studied for their use in improving wool production in sheep, according to Quartz, perhaps inspiring Scott to try stimulating hair growth with application of the compounds via shampoo.

“I don’t usually put shampoos on my hair. I don’t usually use soaps, except as a lubricant, when I’m shaving,” says Scott. “But in the interest of perhaps improving the quality of my hair, making it thicker, regenerating on some of these balding spots, getting the color back, I am now doing an experiment.”

Not only that but Kenneth Scott does not use soap, because he thinks soap will expose his skin to toxins. Since skin is the largest organ in the body, he believes toxins in soap may contribute to widespread age-related physiological damage.

“Have you ever seen a deer out in the wild go to Walmart to buy some shampoo?” Scott asked. “The reality is, wild animals don’t put these things on their body, and we didn’t evolve to do this either.”

Other procedures that Scott undergoes are perhaps also somewhat peculiar and happen in the clinic, such as amniotic exosome injections—injections with particles contained in amniotic fluid (fluid that cushions a fetus). Scott has the amniotic exosome injections done at a clinic in Miami and says the procedure is legal as long as the clinics do not claim the procedure can do anything. Also, Scott spends $500 to $600 per month on peptides—small chains of protein building blocks—that may work against aging. All the same, he says it is difficult to measure what benefits he gets from peptides.

What’s more, like Bryan Johnson, Scott travels to Honduras for non-FDA-approved gene therapy injections from the company Minicircle. Following one of his gene therapy procedures, Scott says he was able to run through the Miami airport—a colossal building. For comparison, two months prior to the gene therapy, Scott says he had to pause out of exhaustion from attempting the same feat.

All the same, a number of experts have cautioned about making trips to offshore clinics for aging interventions that have not been FDA approved. Following that line of thought, aging expert Dr. Matt Kaeberlein from the University of Washington has suggested that this practice may be dangerous, especially since the research conducted at these offshore locales is not held to the same rigorous standards as research done at universities and pharmaceutical companies.

Even so, Scott conveys that he does not have time to wait for the FDA to approve of interventions against aging that may prolong his life.

“My concern is me, not the regulations which have been created,” he says. “I have a life expectancy of seven years at this point. I don’t really have a lot of interest in five-year trial programs, so I just get on and do it.”