Aging & evolutionary biology
Josh Mitteldorf is best known for promoting the theory that aging is not “wearing out” but rather an evolved program that limits lifespan. The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. He began blogging about aging on this site in 2012. His guidance for a long life is at AgingAdvice.org. His two books on aging are available at Amazon and elsewhere.
Mitteldorf’s PhD is in astrophysics. Since about 2020, he has taken up a new challenge as curator and critic of science on the fringe, writing about promising science that the science establishment has unjustly neglected.
In other areas of life, Mitteldorf’s two daughters were among the first girls to be adopted from China in the 1980s. He has taught a weekly yoga class for fifty years. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. Follow his other writing at mitteldorf.substack.com, and listen to his poetry on YouTube.
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Time and again, evolution has learned (after repeated blind alleys) to do what is best for the community in the long term and not always what is best for the individuals in the short term.
May 14, 2018
Part II: Why We Should Trust the Methylation Clocks to Measure Aging
Apr 16, 2018
Part I: An Incipient Revolution in Epidemiology There are a great number of promising interventions that might have anti-aging benefits, singly and in combination.
Apr 9, 2018
I have been enthusiastic about telomerase therapies for anti-aging since 2003. But if I can’t change my mind as new data appears, what’s the point of being a scientist?
Mar 19, 2018
Methylation of DNA is the best-known mode of epigenetic regulation (turning genes on and off). Methylation patterns are stable unless they are actively changed, and can persist over decades, even across generations.
Feb 15, 2018
The Most Promising Way Forward for Anti-Aging Science Today We now have many effective interventions (mostly of small effect) for longevity and preventive care.
Feb 6, 2018
My book (with Dorion Sagan) has just been released as a Kindle edition in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore and various European countries.
Jan 19, 2018
Pre-announcement Announcement Life Extension Foundation has just announced that next week they are going to announce a partnership with the Young Blood Institute for what is perhaps the most ambitious human trial of anti-aging medicine ever.
Jan 19, 2018
Like you, dear Readers, I tend to be focused on the biochemistry, and have to remind myself again and again that the mind and body are intertwined.
Jan 15, 2018
This time each year, I take the liberty of posting something more speculative and personal.
Dec 31, 2017
In 1999, I met Cynthia Kenyon for the first time, and she told me her one-line proof that aging is an evolved trait.
Dec 6, 2017
Were I, like Adam, choiced by evil snake That fruit of knowledge I might free partake Or, spurning insight, might forever be, And dwell in vast, obscure eternity… By two such options I’d be sorely torn— ’Twas not for blind submission I was born.
Dec 4, 2017
