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4 interviews · 10 quotes

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Why We Age: David Sinclair on Lifespan

It’s a seemingly undeniable truth that ageing is inevitable. But what if everything we’ve been taught to believe about ageing is wrong? What if we could choose our lifespan? David Sinclair, PhD,…

10 min read

Wisdom

The Resilient Mind

What 161 conversations with the world's leading thinkers reveal about resilience and mental strength

47 min read

From the archive

Quotes

Even if we could live to 1000 years, life would still be too short for many of us. I'm 51, that went in a blink of an eye. I don't think finding purpose in our lives will be an issue.... Longer life gives us a more purposeful life.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

I used to be skeptical about whether I could live an additional 5 years. Now, I'm convinced that I could live 20 years beyond what I would have done. Drugs on our near horizon will give us easily another 20 years, and the drugs not far behind that, another 100. I've never been more excited about the prospect of human health than I am right now.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

We are literally right now living through one of the biggest revolutions in human history, certainly in medicine, and most people aren't even aware that it's about to happen. Economically, the world is going to be much richer if people live longer. That means more money to spend on urgent challenges such as climate change.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

Ageing is not separate from Alzheimer's or heart disease. The leading causes of those diseases is the ageing process, which we can now control. Based on what we're doing in the lab, we know that if you turn the clock back, those diseases go away- that's a revolution. We've been working on a band aid system trying to fix the diseases that are already there, while ignoring the main cause.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

In my lab, we can control ageing easily. We have mice where we can dial up the ageing process or reverse it. It's not that hard when you know how. Until recently, we didn't know there was a backup copy of the information which has been corrupted, and now we can reset it using an embryonic gene trick. Ultimately, I think we'll be able to pop a pill and reset our body's age.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

Ageing is malleable, we can control it. 20% of our health in old-age is due to genetic factors, and the rest is due to our lifestyle. We can measure this clock. It's literally measuring chemicals in our own DNA. Here's the good news…. That number can be changed. If you smoke, if you don't exercise, if you eat lots of fatty foods, that number will accelerate and if you do the right things, perhaps even take some medicines, you can slow that number down – even reverse it.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

Ultimately, I think we'll be able to pop a pill and reset our body's age. It takes us about 4-8 weeks currently to reset the age of a mouse, it shouldn't be any different for humans.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

In December 2020, we published in the journal nature that we could turn on 3 genes in mice, that are normally only switched on in embryos. By doing this, we could reverse the age of complex tissues in adult mice. We used this system to restore eyesight to blind, old, mice!

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

We are literally right now living through one of the biggest revolutions in human history, certainly in medicine, and most people aren't even aware that it's about to happen.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension

Ageing is malleable, we can control it. 20% of our health in old-age is due to genetic factors, and the rest is due to our lifestyle. We can measure this clock. It's literally measuring chemicals in our own DNA.

— David Sinclair

Longevity researcher & Harvard Medical School professor studying aging and lifespan extension