On June 10, 2019 (for the first time) I measured all of the blood test variables that are included in the biologic age calculator, Phenotypic Age, and ended up with a biological age = 35.39y (https://michaellustgarten.wordpress.com/2019/09/09/quantifying-biological-age/).
While that value is 23% younger than my chronological age (46y), I knew that I could do better! So I tried again on September 17, 2019. Basically, the same biological age, 35.58y:
An 23% younger biological age on 2 separate dates, months apart might be good for most, but not for me. So, I tried again on October 29th, 2019, and voila, a biological age of 31.3y, which is 32% younger than my chronological age! How did I do it?
From my last blood test until my most recent blood test, I attempted a mild caloric restriction. To maintain my body weight, I require about 2800 calories per day, an amount which is based on daily body weight weighing in conjunction with daily dietary tracking. For the period of time that elapsed between my last 2 blood tests, I averaged 2657 calories/day, which is 3.2% less than the 2745 calories/day that I averaged for the dietary period that corresponded to my September blood test. That I was also in a very mild caloric restriction is confirmed by a reduction in my average body weight, which was (purposefully) down 0.7 lbs from September 17 to October 29th, when compared with the dietary period that corresponded to my September blood test (August 20 – September 17).
This is a superficial analysis of how I further reduced my biological age, but in future posts I’ll report the average dietary intake that corresponded to my relatively youthful biologic age!
If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!
Michael Lustgarten 
Love this work Michael. I’ve been following for awhile now. Thanks for publishing all of this. My gut is that chasing a model as an individual based on population averages will result in diminishing returns and thrashing around ~95% of model optimum. Any thoughts on how we can transition to a model that will allow improvement past this point?
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Hey Lance, I hear your concern, but note that these biologic age predictors are trained on data containing thousands of subjects. But as you mention, they may not be the healthiest, thereby underestimating the true effect of optimizing biologic age.
That’s where all my lit reviews on each individual biomarker are important. Based on that, I know which way they go during aging, and how they’re related to disease risk. Based on that and on the BA calculators, I have a great understanding on how to optimize them both!
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Michael, I’m curious — as you’re doing all this, are you also addressing telomeres? AFAIK none of the blood biomarkers you’re looking at correlate specifically with telomere length, but as I’m sure you’re well aware, plenty of studies show that it’s terrifically important for aging and that mice that are genetically modified to have ultra-long telomeres do live exceptionally longer. So this is absolutely something that needs to be addressed to have any chance of exceeding a normal lifespan.
This is a subject of particular concern for me; I just had my DNA analyzed this year, and found plenty of surprises in there since I’m adopted. Turns out I have 5 different SNPs for short telomeres, which is scary.
So, far, I’ve tried:
1) epitalon peptide (and Bill Andrews mentioned during RAADfest that his lab was unable to reproduce the telomere-lengthening effects of epitalon … and the researchers who first publicized it had not yet replied to him with any guidance on what he needs to do to reproduce the results)
2) Bill Andrews’ Defytime Aging Care Capsules (since the active ingredient, TAM CO314818, appears to have significant telomere-lengthening effects — although I’ve also heard vague skepticism about this from some other aging researchers);
3) High-dose carnosine (3-5g / day) based on a recommendation from James Clement of BetterHumans; this dose apparently has the ability to slow the rate of telomere shortening.
So far, I’ve only done 1 telomere test, but I was on epitalon for ~8 weeks beforehand, so if it made any difference at all, I can’t see it in the results (the telomeres were those of someone 1 year older than my biological age, despite my aging.ai blood biomarkers saying I’m 40% younger).
I am planning another telomere test by the end of the year and am hoping the DefyTime and/or carnosine will make some kind of difference, but would love to hear your thoughts as to any other potential interventions.
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The telomere story is overrated for lifespan in humans:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4634197/
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Interesting — I hadn’t seen that paper before. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there may be some survivorship bias in here, in that only those who have the ability to maintain healthy telomere length have the ability to survive past 100 — I suspect the elongation of telomeres in those over 100 may be how they got into that group in the first place.
In any event, I’m going to keep trying to do what I can about this; even if it’s not the #1 risk, there seems to be only upside and no downside to keeping telomeres as long as possible.
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Also note that telomere shortening is a consequence of systemic microbial burden, which increases during aging. I have a section on that in my book…So only focusing on telomere shortening without addressing its root causes won’t be as beneficial.
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Does your microbial burden book have an edition translated into Spanish?
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Hey Renato, unfortunately not yet
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Do you plan to launch the translation ?, my native language is Spanish
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Not yet-google translate may help you. If it translates weird, just message me, I’ll help!
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Great stuff.
Im really dishearted that the only way to slow down aging is caloric restriction.
That sounds so hard especially without undermining sex drive ,focus,work productivity, ability to manage stress.
How do you manage to function on a deficit diet.
Is there another way to get the benefits CR without having to do it so strictly.
Ive just had a big meal and I feel great!
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I don’t think that’s true at all, Jake. On the diet side, there are lots of different fasting-mimicking diets out there, and you can do things like time-restricted eating / intermittent fasting and still get some of the benefits of CR without having to dramatically reduce calories.
Also, I haven’t read Michael’s book yet, but I’ve read David Sinclair’s book “Lifespan,” which you should read immediately.
There’s a lot coming out these days that’s showing that several different interventions — NMN/NAD+ supplementation, the TRIIM trial (GH+metformin+DHEA combo), senolytics, sirtuin activation, exosomes, and possibly telomere elongation as well — all probably have the potential to prolong lifespan slightly in different ways, and are likely to be even more powerful when used in combination.
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Ha, I’m doubtful about Sinclair’s approach for extending lifespan. Not much evidence for it, even in rodents.
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The CR doesn’t have to be huge, even a small cut, 100 cals/day for a long time will be beneficial…
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