The Surprising Lack of Breakthroughs in Life Extension Science Over 40 Years | Siim Land

**Benjamin Hopkins** (0:00)
Well, welcome back everyone. We have the pleasure of having Siim Land with us on the podcast today, who is one of the leading voices in the sort of emerging longevity world at the moment. So Siim, thank you so much for your time.

**Siim Land** (0:14)
Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

**Benjamin Hopkins** (0:16)
Perfect. Well, I want to start with the quite broad question of, I know you've been quite deep in this world for sort of a decade now. What surprised you the most so far?

**Siim Land** (0:27)
In terms of the field overall of longevity and I guess life extension, I would say that the biggest shock or some people might not know is that there hasn't been any dramatic breakthrough in extending lifespan of even lab animals like mice. So the longest life extension was somewhere in the 80s, which resulted from regular calorie restriction and it extended lifespan of mice by up to 60 percent, which is currently considered like the gold standard life extension method, non-genetic life extension method, and also the record, like a non-genetic intervention of the longest result. So that is in a way disappointing that there hasn't been any dramatic breakthrough in life extension science over the last 40 years.
But it also just highlights how important some of the fundamentals or basics are, such as making sure that you're not overweight and obese, and kind of using this calorie restriction to reverse engineer what are some of the underlying mechanisms that drive that process, and how you can use it to maybe develop future pharmaceuticals or drugs that can get the same effects without necessarily eating half as less as you normally would.

**Benjamin Hopkins** (1:41)
That's a great answer. I think it touches on a lot of interesting turning off points. One of them specifically being where the world is currently going, it keeps us on a linear path to longevity. What do you think will be the unlock to something non-linear, right? I think they use the term escape velocity when it comes to longevity. But what do you think will be the unlock?

**Siim Land** (2:00)
Yeah, so the term longevity escape velocity created or coined by Aubrey Degree. And it's essentially that at a certain time, he says it's 20, I think he initially said 2045, but now he says 2040 or even 2035, that when you reach that point, then you pretty much catch the wave of future technologies and science that enables you to live a lot longer. So every year that goes by, science and technology keeps you alive. And it's almost like an exponential curve, eventually that every year that you stay alive, you gain additional two, three years. But I think, as I said, there hasn't been any breakthroughs that would indicate that we're getting close to that.
You know, it could be like a very exponential curve that happens in, let's say, a few years, you never know. But I think the thing that will provide the biggest potential for the longevity, this velocity has to be something related to genetics, because genetics is very powerful in longevity, much more powerful than people think. And you're not going to live 200 years with just diet and exercise, or even taking some supplements. It has to be something that transcends the human biology or the human genetics, which for humans, they think the potential maximum lifespan for humans, some say it's 120, others say it's maybe 150 So, I mean, there is a limit, there's like a genetic limit, a species limit, if you will, so that when you overcome that, then that will enable you to either slow down the speed of aging so that 100 years feels like 200 years, or you actually do something else with your genes that either regenerates the body or somehow makes it live longer. So there are some species that have practical immortality or that they revert back to an earlier stage when they reach a certain stage of development, so certain jellyfish and certain hydras, they mature and then they revert back to a more youthful state. And of course, there are some other animals as well, like bowhead whales and Greenland sharks that live 200, 250, even 400 years with certain genetic traits that enable them to live a long time. So figuring out what are some of these genetic factors that make humans live longer will enable at least the average person to reach the age of 100, 110 in pretty good health. We know a few genes that play a role in longevity. Of course, there's thousands of them that ultimately determine how you longer live, but there's very few long-hanging fruit that can already be used to potentially extend lifespan.