If you enjoyed this, you might like my book on the science of aging and longevity, Ageless https://ageless.link/

There’s a new series on longevity science on Disney+ called Limitless, starring Marvel’s own God of Thunder, Chris Hemsworth. I’m excited to see a big-budget, beautiful documentary about aging biology with a huge name like Thor, I mean Chris, behind it—so I thought I’d make a review of the science behind it.

If you want to help spread the word about aging biology or donate to a charity working on it, there’s more information here: https://andrewsteele.co.uk/ageless/ho...

This isn’t a sponsored video but the footage of Limitless is courtesy of @disneyplus and @NatGeo. Thanks for letting me use it!


Chapters

00:00 Introduction
01:14 Fasting
05:19 Memory
11:22 Acceptance
13:44 Becoming truly Limitless


Sources and further reading

Calorie restriction

Clive McCay’s classic 1935 paper on calorie restriction in rats https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2520283/
CALERIE results https://www.thelancet.com/journals/la...

APOE and dementia

First, a quick note: I mention APOE2 at one point in the video without really explaining it! Sorry. This is a different, rarer version of APOE which seems to be protective against dementia. More in the links below…

Chris’s interview with Vanity Fair about receiving his APOE results https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/...
APOE variant Alzheimer’s risks via https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
Read more about APOE and Alzheimer’s disease risk in this ridiculously in-depth overview https://www.alzforum.org/news/confere...
APOE4 seems to be protective against parasitic infections https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
APOE4 protects against melanoma https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
But APOE3 seems to be best against covid, APOE4 and APOE2 do worse https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158...

Base editing: Revolutionary therapy clears girl's incurable cancer https://www.bbc.com/news/health-63859184
Nature News piece on the state of therapies using base editing more widely https://www.nature.com/articles/d4157...
The original 2016 paper I show in the video https://www.nature.com/articles/natur...

Rapamycin, senolytics and aging biology generally

You should check out my book which goes into a lot more detail about these! And it’s got loads of references in the back if you want even more detail https://ageless.link/
I also did a talk for @TheRoyalInstitution which is (I think) the best overview I’ve done so far    • Getting older without getting old - w...  


Credits

Yeast image by Pilarbini https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
C. elegans video by Heiti Paves https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Drosophila picture by Sanjay Acharya https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Lab mouse image by Rama https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Lab rat image by Janet Stephens https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Guppy image by 5snake5 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Monkeys on dietary restriction image by Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin-Madison. Canto, on the left, is 27 and calorically restricted, while Owen, on the right, is 29 and was allowed to eat what he liked. https://news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/monk...
And, once again, thanks to Disney+/National Geographic for the footage from Limitless!


And finally…

Follow me on Twitter   / statto  
Follow me on Instagram   / andrewjsteele  
Like my page on Facebook   / drandrewsteele  
Follow me on Mastodon https://mas.to/@statto
Read my book, Ageless: The new science of getting older without getting old https://ageless.link/