What is the future in longevity research? Will we be still talking about rapamycin, Metformin, caloric restrictions, 10 years from now? Let's put it this way. I hope we're talking about a range of new things that have bigger effects than these interventions. And I think that's very possible. I am very optimistic about rapamycin to some extent, Metformin, periodic fasting. 

I don't think calorie restriction is very useful. 

It is not very easy for most people. But using time restricted feeding or something like that may be beneficial. But I think these are going to have moderate effects on aging, maybe that if we're lucky, maybe that's 10 years of extra health. That's a big effect. I mean, what would you pay for that?  Dr. Brian Kennedy. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. 

However, I think the bigger question is, can we really break the barrier down and you talk to the more futuristic thinkers in the field Aubrey de Grey comes to mind. And they're talking about living to 1000. On the other hand, it's not clear how easy it's going to be to break down the maximum lifespan in humans. That has certainly not gone up at the same rate that the average lifespan has gone up.  Dr. Brian Kennedy. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. 

So if these interventions we have right now, if what they do is squarely get everybody living healthy longer. That's great. That's a huge win bigger than any disease drug. But I think the fundamental question right now is how do we break down that barrier to maximum aging?  Dr. Brian Kennedy. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. And that's still a very, very open question. It's been possible to do it in animal models. But the data is lacking in humans that that can be done at the moment. So we may need to think about different kinds of interventions to achieve that goal like reprogramming, gene therapy, or other things that make it past the current level of intervention. 

I think the personal approaches we're testing are going to be great. I'm very optimistic, but I'm hoping that there is more. There are radical strategies that are at least being tested in a decade to go beyond that level. But the societal implications of a technology appears that can really, really change that and break through that barrier. 

These are going to be huge, because somebody said about the progress of science, the proponents of new theories almost never win. It is the proponents of old theorists eventually die. Yeah, that's the I think the other way of saying it is that scientific progress goes one funeral at a time. Yeah. Yeah. Then, I hope we can get beyond that. I mean, I think we need to be more open minded.  Dr. Brian Kennedy. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Put our own egos aside a little bit for the betterment of healthcare. But you're partly right, there's certainly a lot of entrenchment. And that's part of the reason it's been hard to get aging funding, that the NIH was set up within the 60s before with the idea of funding disease research. And at that time, that made sense. And so all the research is around disease, most of the therapies treat diseases as if they're individual entities, we know they're connected. 

And the NIH, the National Institute of Aging gets like less than 1% of the budget when it's the only thing that affects everybody in the United States. And it's so entrenched that if you go to other Institutes and say, Hey, we need more of the money in aging, because aging is causing your disease. You can imagine the response you get to that. So I think governments need to rethink where they're putting their research dollars, and how they're doing their medical care and focus more on prevention. And a little bit less on building nursing homes. 

And so those kinds of changes have to happen. I've been talking about this for 15 years, I, my own brain shuts off when I talk about it anymore. But it's getting more and more urgent that this something happened because the percentage of older people in the population has continued to skyrocket.  Dr. Brian Kennedy. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. And so, there are there are huge societal implications. If we stop aging, for sure, even if you stop aging completely though, changes would be relatively slow. 

I mean, when you think about it, the year after you've got the magic pill, people would be one year older, and the next year, they would be two years older, it's not like we're suddenly going to have 200-year-old people. So those changes in the rate of technology advances, I think, are relatively gradual, even. But I think that in the long term, certainly there are big implications if people live a lot longer. And I think most of those are probably good. And some of them are unpredictable. But those changes are not happening in a vacuum they're happening in a world that's changing in many other ways simultaneously. So I think it's a little bit hard to predict. 

People have this doom about overpopulation, I don't think that's an issue. I mean, population grows by birthing, having kids and geometric expansion, not by so much by making people live a few years longer. That's a linear expansion.  Dr. Brian Kennedy. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. So I don't think that's the concern. But there are other changes that will be really interesting and impactful. Professor Kennedy, is there anything in your interest in your experience in your wisdom that you'd like to share with our viewers? Yeah, I think that we're at this stage. 

Now, 10 years ago, I would say, Oh, we're working on aging, it's gonna be great, just hang in there. But I think we're at this stage now where it's possible to think about your own aging process and do something. And, again, come back to lifestyle. I know it's hard to do. But it's valuable. But then also looking at these natural products and other interventions that are out there, measuring your aging.  Dr. Brian Kennedy. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. All of these things are potentially very helpful. Most of them are not fully validated yet. 

So you'd be an early adopter.  Dr. Brian Kennedy. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. And if you want to wait until they're fully validated, I understand that. But I think it's possible to really take charge of your aging. The rate or aging is not inevitable, I think it can be changed. And it's probably the most important thing you can do for your health. So it's worth giving some thought. Well, this is an optimistic note, Professor Kennedy, thank you very much for this very informative conversation, and we certainly will follow your research and we'll come back to you In the future hopefully to learn more about how longevity field progresses to human practice. Happy to chat anytime! Thanks a lot!