Steve Horvath: “I would like to be able to choose if we want to die, instead of being prescribed by nature”

Steve Horvath (Frankford, 1967) was 17 years old when he decided he wanted to travel through space.

He soon realized that going as far as he intended requires, at best, a few hundred years.

He needed time, a lot of time, so he traded space travel for a new focus: aging.

The researcher from the University of California in Los Angeles proposed in 2011 a method to measure biological age through chemical markers in DNA that modify genetic expression.

The process, known as DNA methylation, was called the Horvath clock.

The scientist now works for Altos Labs, a company financed by millionaires like Jeff Bezos, specialized in rejuvenation and that offers large remunerations to its researchers.

“I am no longer interested in space travel.

I wouldn't leave, I like the Earth, but I still want to prolong our useful life,” he says in a video call conversation with EL PAÍS.

Question:

Why are we so fascinated by aging?

Answer:

For the first time in history, we could have a rational approach to doing something about it.

People have always been obsessed with aging.

In the past, people were very religious.

Because?

Because they were worried about death and illness, and one way to deal with that anxiety is religion.

And then, many felt driven to achieve some kind of immortality, for example, on the battlefield.

They wanted to be Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar because they wanted people to remember them.

It is again a push against mortality.

Much human behavior in the past was driven by this concern.

Q:

And now?

A:

Today we do see that it is possible to carry out interventions that extend our healthy years.

For example, many people follow

influencers

on social media who give them lifestyle advice, from intermittent fasting to specific exercise routines.

Still, everyone understands that the lifestyle will not lead to drastic increases in healthy years.

You might make four or five, but it won't be 50. And many people simply can't exercise or live a healthy lifestyle, for whatever reason.

That's why they would like to have medicines that help them.

Q:

Is it difficult to study aging?

A:

Many researchers say it is the most difficult condition of all, because all the organs go downhill.

The kidney, the brain, the skin, everything.

So it seems very complex.

But I have the opposite opinion.

Studying it is remarkably easy.

Aging processes are related to development processes and are very deterministic, we can measure them very well.

I feel that we will come to understand aging quite well.

Q:

Is biological age the same as chronological age?

A:

Some people look much older than they should be, or, on the contrary, much younger.

For example, my father-in-law is 92 years old and when we go hiking he walks faster than me.

We all know an older person who is very fit.

And, on the contrary, we all have a friend of our same chronological age, but who suffers from many conditions.

Your chronological age, the one marked by the calendar, does not always reflect how fit you are physiologically

Q:

How is biological age measured?

A:

There are many ways.

One, for example, is based on proteomics, measuring proteins in the blood.

But in my case, we focus on DNA molecules, because we believe that these changes in DNA are one of the fundamental causes of why we age.

Q:

Why?

A:

Imagine a person who lives in Valencia, with a perfect climate, is always relaxed and stress-free, exercises, meditates and eats a healthy diet.

This person will still grow old and die.

And the question is, why would that happen, even if you do everything “correctly”?

And the answer is that there is an innate aging program.

It is in all of us.

We cannot influence it with lifestyle or by reducing stress.

Q:

What do you think about the proliferation of companies that offer biological age estimates?

A:

I went to a conference where a speaker said that half of all longevity and health clinics now measure methylation age.

I had two emotions about it.

First, I was happy because that was my dream in 2011, that people would find it useful.

I'm also a big believer in empowering people to measure things and I want them to have access to that information.

The second emotion is the fear that some of the measurements are misleading and anyone can offer a measure of age, even if it is not scientifically validated.

A 50-year-old individual having a biological age of 60 does not mean that his or her lifespan is 10 years shorter.

Q:

What can it mean?

A:

There is a great danger that someone will go to a company, measure something, then get an answer they don't like, become depressed or upset.

Imagine you are 50 years old, you measure your biological age and they tell you it is 60. Some people, very worried, will say: 'Oh my God, I will die quickly.'

That's one of the reasons I do interviews, I want to tell the public that when you get a biological age estimate, it doesn't directly translate to life expectancy.

A 50 year old individual having a biological age of 60 does not mean that her lifespan is 10 years shorter.

There is a non-linear relationship.

Q:

So what influences aging more, external factors, such as diet or pollution, or “programming” in DNA?

A:

There are different answers.

A group of researchers will say that we age because our mitochondria decrease.

Others will respond that the waste removal system in our cells is not working.

Some believe that communication between organs is broken, that signaling hormones no longer act.

These debates still happen: what comes first and what is more important?

I wouldn't say that epigenetics [changes in DNA due to age or environmental factors, for example] is the most important thing because I just don't know.

But no one doubts that epigenetics plays a key role.

Q:

Is DNA programmed to prevent us from living longer and longer as we evolve?

A:

Yes

is there an upper limit?

Yes, there is, if you follow what one would call natural aging.

Will there ever be a person who lives 200 years because he follows a good lifestyle?

No I dont think so.

But this response changes if the person undergoes interventions that restore the young methylation of their DNA, the young epigenetic profile.

So yes, someone can live longer and extend their lifespan.

Q:

Why is it so difficult to create anti-aging drugs?

A:

There are many risks.

Any medication has certain side effects, there is nothing that is 100% safe.

For example, with Yamanaka factors [specific DNA sequences that, if activated from the outside, initiate a process that transforms a mature cell into a stem cell, rejuvenating it] the great danger is cancer.

Then, many are interested in rapamycin, very popular in the field of aging.

I don't take it, because it suppresses your immune system.

Others use antidiabetic medications, such as metformin.

But, unless you have high blood glucose, for the average person it could again cause side effects.

Q:

The figure of billionaire Bryan Johnson, who invests millions of euros a year in returning biologically at the age of 18, to the point of receiving blood plasma from his teenage son, has become very popular in the media.

A:

I admire him, for several reasons.

He is very dedicated and very disciplined, he eats the same food every day, and think about how difficult that is, it requires tremendous discipline.

I see him as an Olympic athlete in a rejuvenation Olympics.

Q:

What do you think about injecting blood to rejuvenate?

A:

Young blood actually rejuvenates various organs in mice and rats.

Even in humans, although weaker, there is evidence that it rejuvenates.

The effect is less pronounced.

In rats, we published an article where we found that there was a rejuvenation of up to 50%.

But in humans, age rejuvenation based on young blood is much less.

Think two years or something like that.

I think it's scientifically interesting.

I'm still not sure if I would do it personally, but I don't want to say no to it.

Q:

What will we see in the field of aging in the coming years?

A:

The exciting thing is that right now many leading researchers have entered the field and there is tremendous interest in drugs being developed.

There is also a significant investment.

My hope is that one of the companies pursuing rejuvenation actually succeeds and we all benefit.

Q:

How old do you think we will live?

A:

I think we should have a reasonable goal.

Mine is for people to live five more years in a healthy way.

Not longer years, but healthier years.

So instead of developing dementia at 85, people will develop it at 90. Or, instead of having diabetes at 75, they will have it at 80. As for the future, I would like people to be able to choose whether to die or not, rather than being prescribed by nature.

To me, the best society would allow people to make the decision of when they want to die.

That's my utopia.