Ageing: the realist's guide

As I explore preventive health and longevity research, I encounter all sorts of wild claims about reversing or even stopping ageing—Dracula-style.

And while that’s entertaining, let’s be honest. We can’t banish ageing, but we can age more like cathedrals than flip-flops.

Unfortunately, there are some common misconceptions about the ageing process. Some are harmless distractions, others waste time and resources, and a few can do real damage.

In this post, I’ll explain some of the hype and offer practical ways to consider and manage aging.

Note to scientists: I’m oversimplifying here. Please feel free to correct me in the comments.

What Is Aging Really?

Put simply, aging is the progressive loss of resilience. Our bodies are complex systems that lose their ability to bounce back over time. As our DNA gets damaged and environmental and lifestyle factors pile up, the self-repair cycle breaks down. Imagine your body as an energy-producing machine. There are two ways to assess how well it’s running:

The Engineering Approach: Think of an engine. You can evaluate its power output, mechanical wear and tear, and whether it’s making strange noises. Diagnostic tools give you objective data that can be measured and analysed scientifically.

The Time Approach: The simpler way is to look at how long the engine has been running. Boat engines, servers, and even humans use time as a proxy for performance. This is where “biological age” clocks come in handy.

Biological ageing clocks tell your health story in the language we all understand: time. They’re simple, easy to grasp, and a great way to gauge your ageing rate. But while they’re helpful, they can also be misleading.

Understanding Aging Clocks

?? What Aging Clocks Do: Aging clocks measure the rate at which your body loses resilience. Think of them as a speedometer for your biological decline, not a crystal ball for your actual age. They track markers like DNA methylation, which fluctuate based on lifestyle and environment—so your biological age can change with things like diet or stress.

?? What They Don’t Do: These clocks don’t give you the whole picture. They don’t account for mitochondrial health, cellular stress, or inflammation. Plus, they’re often based on specific population data, meaning they may not apply to everyone equally.

?? The Misuse Problem: Many people and companies oversell ageing clocks, claiming quick-fix diets or supplements can “reverse” ageing. In reality, short-term improvements don’t guarantee long-term health benefits.?

Your favourite influencer didn’t just “get eight years younger”—they simply slowed down the rate of damage accumulation.

Takeaway: Aging clocks are valuable tools but are just one piece of the puzzle. Don’t treat fluctuating numbers as permanent results or a ticket to longevity.

The Dangers of Over-Optimisation

In our quest for better health, we often get caught up in optimising numbers—whether it’s sleep scores, step counts, or biological age clocks. But here’s the issue: when you chase perfection in a narrow set of metrics, you lose adaptability and resilience.

Consider a long journey ahead of you. Do you choose a Ferrari or a Toyota Land Cruiser? The Ferrari performs spectacularly, but only on a suitable surface and with the right fuel. The Land Cruiser? It’s adaptable and reliable in a wide range of conditions.

Humans, unlike cars, are built to adapt. We become more flexible and resilient through selective exposure to different types of stress. The Navy SEALs don’t pick the fastest or strongest team members—they choose the most adaptable. There’s a lesson here for all of us.

Key Point: Chasing optimisation often comes at the cost of adaptability. Building resilience means being able to handle the unpredictable.

What Resilience Really Looks Like

Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back from illness or injury—it’s about thriving under less-than-ideal conditions. Here are a few real-world examples:

• Resilience means strong muscle armour to protect you when you fall in your 70s.
• Resilience means functioning on 4 hours of sleep without losing your mind (hello, parents).
• Resilience means eating outside your regular diet without stressing over it.
• Resilience means having body fat reserves for energy and immune support during a health crisis.

Resilience isn’t about perfection—it’s about being adaptable, durable, and ready for whatever life throws your way. Isn't that a great definition of youth?

The Allostatic Advantage

Most of us are familiar with homeostasis—the idea that the body returns to its baseline after a shock.?

But there’s a more powerful concept called allostasis. Instead of returning to where you were, allostasis means your body adapts to new challenges and becomes more resilient.

Think of it this way: rigid routines may keep you stable, but breaking them occasionally strengthens your adaptability. Skipping a meal with friends because it doesn’t fit your diet or stressing over one lousy night of sleep can strain your health and relationships unnecessarily.

Takeaway: The body thrives on balance.? Health should enhance life, not isolate you from it.

Embrace the Chaos

There’s an old joke about why Bulgarians drink: that alcohol kills the slowest neurons first, making the overall neural network faster. I wonder if we inadvertently invented the first anti-ageing protocol...?

As Kevin Kelly writes in Out of Control, even nature relies on turbulence to stay healthy. Forest fires clear out the old to make space for new growth, and storms shake things up and expose weaknesses that otherwise go unnoticed.

Just as randomness drives evolution and growth in nature, it’s vital for our resilience, too.

So, here’s the question: Do you want to be a Ferrari, optimised for one perfect track? Or a Land Cruiser, ready for anything?

Choose wisely. And remember: resilience beats rigid optimisation every time.

#longevity #AgingScience #Longevity #Epigenetics #HealthTech #TruthInScience #AntiAging