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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For people who have a few hundred thousand dollars to spend and are willing to take on the risks of an “early adopter” and travel to South America, options are now becoming available that were inconceivable just a few years ago.
Mar 18, 2015
Several readers have asked me to comment on the press release and preprint that came out of the Mayo Clinic this week.
Mar 13, 2015
Three years late, Scientific American is reacting to a paper on evolution of cooperation [2012] with a hint that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Mar 9, 2015
We can all agree that priorities in research for a longer, healthier human life span are far from rational.
Feb 26, 2015
Last week Len Guarente announced his company will be selling a proprietary formula based on NR, the NADH precursor.
Feb 13, 2015
The meme we hear in the news is that sedentary time, time spent sitting, is bad for us.
Feb 5, 2015
MYC is the name of a gene that promotes cancer. We’ve known this since the 1970s.
Jan 27, 2015
Last month, an NYU Med School doc published an article saying that our gut bacteria might be evolved to promote our digestion when we’re young, but kill us when we’re old.
Jan 14, 2015
Most people misunderstand what aging is. It’s not just the public who have been deceived -- Most scientists and medical researchers who study aging are on the wrong track.
Jan 5, 2015
The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical.
Dec 31, 2014
“If aging is driven by damage, then damage must accelerate aging. If hormesis induces damage and slows down aging, then aging is not driven by damage.
Dec 22, 2014
Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Dec 9, 2014
