50% Chance 40-Year-Olds Do Not Die from Aging: Longevity Expert Aubrey de Grey

Highlights

• de Grey discusses his conception of longevity escape velocity (LEV), a time point when lifespan-extending technologies will prolong our lives so that life expectancy improves at a faster pace than our rate of aging.
• According to de Grey, when we reach LEV, humans will, for the most part, not die of age-related causes.
• He predicts that we will attain LEV sometime in the late 2030s.

Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist and president of the LEV Foundation, made a claim in a Supertrends interview on YouTube that some may find rather mind-boggling. He thinks that individuals who are currently 40 years old have more than a 50% chance of never dying from aging. Aubrey de Grey’s reasoning behind this comes from his prediction that we will hit longevity escape velocity (LEV), where lifespan-extending advancements prolong our lives so life expectancy improves faster than our pace of aging, by the late 2030s. While some may find his view preposterous, de Grey thinks substantial aging interventions may come along that target hallmarks of aging, characteristics of physiological deterioration that arise as we age.

“So, not dying of aging is, of course, the point,” says de Grey. “I think that the chance for a 40-year-old today, in the Western world, is more than 50%.”

People In Their 60s May Benefit from Interventions Allowing Us to Reach Longevity Escape Velocity

For some background, de Grey says he started using the term LEV about 20 years ago, encapsulating the idea of living long enough to avoid dying from age-related causes. This, of course, does not negate other risks of death like an asteroid hitting the planet or getting run over by a truck.

Aubrey de Grey believes that we have more than a 50% chance of technological advancements coming in the next 12 to 15 years that will allow us to attain LEV. He adds that there is at least a 5% chance that we will not get to LEV in the next 100 years, possibly due to unforeseen obstacles.

Moreover, he relays that those who are in their 60s will benefit from future interventions against aging. Along those lines, de Grey says aging interventions propelling us to LEV will apply to people with, perhaps, 10 to 20 years of life left; however, he thinks the therapies will be too strenuous for those “at death’s door.”

Targeting Hallmarks of Aging to Reach Longevity Escape Velocity

As for why Aubrey de Grey believes we will hit LEV toward the latter part of the 2030s, he says we will have new techniques to target hallmarks of aging, aspects of physiological deterioration that accompany aging and play a role in its progression. In that sense, he thinks that we will need combinations of therapeutics, likely coming in the form of injections, that cumulatively target multiple hallmarks of aging.

For example, senolytics—compounds that selectively eliminate dysfunctional cells that accumulate with age called senescent cells—target one hallmark of aging (senescent cell accumulation). A senolytic therapy could be used in tandem with other aging interventions that target different hallmarks of aging, such as the aging-associated shortening of protective caps at the ends of chromosomes (telomeres).

Regarding the use of multiple aging interventions, Aubrey de Grey says the panel of interventions needs to use a “divide and conquer” strategy. He continues that the interventions confronting only one hallmark of aging will not produce any lifespan extension. In that sense, he thinks we will eventually find a way to address them all. In doing so, he believes the magnitude of lifespan extension we get will be an additional 10 to 20 years of life, which is much better than we can do with modern medicine today.

Tackling All Known Hallmarks of Aging to Reverse Biological Age

The overarching goal of addressing hallmarks of aging for lifespan extension, according to de Grey, is to reverse biological age—a measure of our age based on how well cells and tissues function. At this point, though, de Grey thinks our current ways of measuring biological age are very inaccurate and incomplete. These types of measurements, including those that use chemical modifications to DNA, physical strength measurements, and cognitive tests, need vast improvement.

Thus, unless dramatic improvements in tests of biological age come about, measuring the effects of aging interventions may not come from any means other than measuring average lifespans of those who use them. In that sense, we would need to compare how long people who take the aging interventions live to those who don’t.

Aubrey de Grey’s Lack of Specific Aging Intervention Examples Make His Claim Even More Questionable

Some may find Aubrey de Grey’s assessment that 40-year-olds today have more than a 50% chance of not dying of aging far-fetched and perhaps preposterous. He, in large part, bases his position on growing trends in longevity research investments, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) technology that integrates biological data with super-human computational capabilities, and the identification of hallmarks of aging.

At the same time, Aubrey de Grey did not speak much about specific interventions that have been discovered, which he could be basing his prediction on. He did mention possibilities of growing organs like the liver in a lab for liver transplants, which may extend the lifespan of those with liver disease, and research he has done to extend mouse lifespan by combining interventions. He did not discuss anything specific, though, about how we could potentially grow organs in a lab or which therapeutics he has used to enhance mouse aging, much less how long their lifespans were extended (he will, presumably, publish that data at a later date).

With all this in mind, whether possibly for commercial or legal reasons, de Grey did not elaborate on specific aging interventions that may be in the pipeline. Speculatively, he may know about new interventions that he is unwilling to share. In that sense, it is possible that Aubrey de Grey has knowledge about new technologies under development that will allow us to reach LEV by the late 2030s.