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Category Archives: Longevity

From Longevity To Aging In Place, These Are The Top Areas For Senior-Focused Startups – Crunchbase News

Anyone who follows demographic trends is probably aware that the population of older adults in the U.S. and other advanced economies is growing at an unprecedented rate. Today, roughly one in six Americans is 65 or older, and their share continues to rise.

Its a trend that hasnt gone unnoticed in the startup world. Longevity-focused founders and investors have long been working to replace the notion of chronological age with biological age. Who cares about the year on your birth certificate, the thinking goes, if youre healthy, productive and still enjoying what life has to offer?

Its a concept that comes with quite a bit of funding attached. For the past couple years, weve been tracking investment in longevity-focused startups reimagining how we diagnose, prevent, manage and treat age-associated ailments.

This time around, we decided to take a broader view, looking at how startups are tackling the complexities of aging across sectors. This includes anti-aging therapies as well as business models to simplify health care, promote fitness and rev up social connection later in life.

To get a sense where investment is going, we used Crunchbase data to curate a list of companies funded this year with an aging focus. We broke the results down into four categories that encapsulate major trends: anti-aging breakthroughs, preventative medicine, fitness and managing care.

Well start with longevity, probably the most popular theme. Here, startups are testing therapeutics, pitching supplements and working on ways to keep us biologically young, even as we add on years.

Below, we put together a list of 11 companies targeting these areas that secured funding in 2023.

The largest equity funding recipient this year was Viome, a provider of RNA-based testing for your microbiome that also offers custom-formulated supplements, with a focus on healthy aging. The Bellevue, Washington-based company secured $86.5 million in a Series C extension financing in August led by Khosla Ventures and Bold Capital Partners.

Swiss startup Rejuveron Life Sciences is also scaling up, landing a $75 million Series B in September. The company is developing therapeutics to address the foundational causes of cellular damage, which are the hallmarks of aging.

Were also seeing continued investment in the area of epigenetics, which seeks to enable therapies through influencing gene expression. Among this years funding recipients is Silicon Valley-based NewLimit, co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, which picked up $40 million to further its mission of epigenetically reprogramming cells to younger states.

One subset of longevity that warrants its own category is early detection and preventative care. For startups in these areas, the focus is on identifying symptoms and vulnerabilities before they become more serious.

We put together a sample set of five companies funded this year below:

Here, the most famous and heavily funded name is Human Longevity, a 10-year-old, San Diego-based company that offers extensive testing to detect and help preempt cancer, cardiac, metabolic and neurodegenerative disease. The company, which has raised over $340 million to date, picked up a comparatively small $10.5 million equity financing in April.

Lexington, Massachusetts-based Alzheon has been another prodigious fundraiser in the past, with $140 million in venture and grant funding to date. The company is developing a drug for patients at risk of rapid progression of Alzheimers with an eye to preventing the onset of severe symptoms.

Meanwhile, Tally Health, founded by David Sinclair, a well-known expert on the science of aging, stands out as a buzzy newer company. It picked up $10 million in a celebrity-studded funding round for a platform that offers regular testing to calculate how well one is aging.

Were also seeing an assortment of startups looking to promote fitness, group activities and greater community engagement for older adults.

Below, we list six companies along these lines that picked up funding this year:

Among them is Bold, which closed a $17 million Series A round in September to offer personalized online workout plans focused on older adults. The company claims its at-home workouts help lower fall risk and reduce joint pain.

In a similar vein, San Francisco-based Mighty Health picked up $7.6 million this year for an exercise, nutrition and daily health program for older adults that includes personalized coaching.

As people live longer often with conditions that require more support in their latter years startups are focusing on ways to manage care and control finances.

Using Crunchbase data, we put together a list of 13 companies with this general mantra, focused on both medical and nonmedical needs:

Aging in place is one theme we see in a number of investments, with founders applying software, AI and telemedicine to monitor health issues and keep track of well-being.

One example is CarePredict, a Florida-based startup that raised $49 million to date for an AI-powered platform and wearable device that monitors users health needs and sends alerts to caregivers. Tel Aviv-based Uniper-care Technologies, meanwhile, has raised over $20 million for a platform offering doctor visits, classes and other content to seniors at home.

Older adults are also looking for ways to manage complex care needs or to make sure finances are sufficient for many years to come. To this end, New York-based Wellthy raised $78 million to date for logistical and administrative tasks of managing care. On the finance side, Carefull picked up $16.5 million to help protect seniors from digital fraud, scams and identity theft.

Given the sheer magnitude of societal changes that come with longer lifespans, its easy to get the impression that venture investment around the theme of aging looks rather paltry. Thats particularly the case this year, as the steep drop in overall startup funding has extended to startups innovating around areas from life extension to senior care.

Of course, venture has a reputation as a youth-oriented business, habitually betting on younger founders with an eye to their own generation as a target market.

But these days, given expected lifespans for those of us with good health and fortunate circumstances, one thing todays young founder crowd can expect with relative confidence is that eventually, they too will be old. And, if all goes well, they will likely stay old for a very long time.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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From Longevity To Aging In Place, These Are The Top Areas For Senior-Focused Startups - Crunchbase News

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A Longevity Expert Swears By Eating Minestrone Soup Every DayHere’s Why – EatingWell

Waking up to a bowl of oatmeal? Absolutely. A plate of eggs and turkey bacon? Yes, please. A cup of yogurt and some fruit? Sure. But how do you feel about a piping hot bowl of minestrone soup to break your fast?

Pictured Recipe: Slow-Cooker Vegetable Minestrone Soup

The more I do research on what really drives longevity, the more I realize its starting with a savory breakfast, says Dan Buettner, an American National Geographic Fellow who holds three Guinness records for endurance cycling and is the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer from the People Whove Lived the Longest. Most of what people think produces greater life expectancy is misguided or just plain wrong. A lot of the easiest and best things are quite literally right under our nosesespecially if that thing right under our noses is a steaming bowl of minestrone.

And Buettner has been starting his day with exactly that for many years (though to be fair, he eats a rather late breakfast, so its not until closer to noon). This change in his meal planning came on the heels of discovering that minestrone is what members of the worlds oldest family, who live in Sardinia, fortify themselves with daily. Whats more, considering his findings, people could live an extra 10 years if they incorporate healthy habits like eating lots of vegetables and fruits, staying active and cooking more at home.

Sure, its cozy and hearty, but its a got a lot more going for it, too, including:

This minestrone, when you break it down, has about half the fiber you need for the day and has a wide variety of different fibers from the different ingredients, says Buettner. Our microbiome has about 100 trillion different species of bacteria, and when you feed those bacteria the fiber they like, they produce short-chain fatty acids. In our bloodstream, these reduce inflammation, fine-tune our immune system, and create the building blocks for the hormones in our body that make us feel good.

Most Americans dont eat the recommended amount of vegetables, says Sarah Wagner, M.P.H., RD, LD, a clinical dietitian atMemorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. This soup is a great way to get a variety of them in one bowl. She especially likes that the three types of beans are plant protein sources that help ensure your body gets all the amino acids it needs; the potatoes are a great source of carbohydrates and rich in minerals like potassium and magnesium and vitamins B6, folate, thiamin and C; and that barley is a whole grain that can help improve blood sugar control and cholesterol levels and reduce inflammation and risk of certain types of cancer. And she says that compared to a restaurant or canned soup, homemade versions have a lot less sodiumeven when using the bouillon.

With grocery budgets getting stretched thinner and thinner, every penny counts during meal planningand minestrone gives quite a bang for your buck. Its a very affordable meal with an abundance of health benefits, says Wagner. Sometimes we start to think eating healthy means buying fancy products at expensive health-food stores, but here we have a longevity soup made of dry beans and grains, canned tomatoes and inexpensive vegetables. Plus, its a great way to use up any ingredients hanging around in your fridge or pantry that are wilting or close to expiring.

If I have some collard greens or kale or Swiss chard, Ill chop that up and throw it inmost people just throw the stems away, but I chop those up and put them in there, says Buettner, who does the same with fennel tops, too. Thats where most of the antioxidants are, by the way.

While you could follow Buettners minestrone soup recipe exactly, the truth is that any homemade hearty vegetable soup with whatever ingredients you have on hand will start your day off on the right foot. And if you simply cant stomach the idea of serving this for breakfast, lunch or dinner are also great options.

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A Longevity Expert Swears By Eating Minestrone Soup Every DayHere's Why - EatingWell

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More than just a trip the longevity potential of psychedelics – Longevity.Technology

Terran Biosciences founder on longevity-psychedelic crossovers, targeting neurodegeneration and making history.

Terran Biosciences, a CNS-focused biotech platform company, is developing transformative therapeutics and technologies for patients with neurological and psychiatric diseases. As well as targeting schizophrenia, Terrans novel drug Idazoxan (which it has licensed from Pierre Fabre, and for which it holds the global development and commercialization rights) can be used to treat Alzheimers and also comes as an extended-release version that enables once-daily dosing. A treatment for Parkinsons psychosis is also in the pipeline.

Longevity.Technology: Terran has had a busy year; with an exclusive licensing deal with French pharma Pierre Fabre, the first cohort dosed in human clinical trial of its novel lead compound Idazoxan and a suite of IP publications all in the bag, Terran certainly isnt short of news for its festive round robin.

Terran has one of the largest psychedelic development programs in the industry, and is leveraging psychedelics with a long history of human use, including psilocybin, LSD and MDMA. Its no wonder, then, that that Terran had a significant presence at Wonderland earlier this year, and during the event, we were lucky enough to sit down with Terrans founder and CEO, Sam Clark, MD PhD.

We have a number of compounds that have a direct application in the longevity space, including psychedelics. For us, longevity means treating neurodegenerative disorders and healthy aging that doesnt mean our compounds will necessarily make you live longer, or make you live forever, but we believe that as you age, our compounds will help to stop some of the neurodegeneration that occurs with aging.

According to some studies, as we age, the brain shrinks at a shockingly rapid rate. Some reports indicate this shrinkage is as much as 5% every decade after the age of 40 and thats independent of Alzheimers, Parkinsons or any other neurodegenerative disease. The brain is just shrinking, and to address that we looked to psychedelics in psychedelics we saw compounds that were really exciting for their neuroregenerative capabilities.

The longevity-psychedelic crossover that were working on is a compound that originated out of a number of academic studies. Terran was already very interested in psychedelics because of their neuroregenerative capabilities as well as their therapeutic capabilities; for example, we saw studies showing psychedelics had therapeutic potential they could act as rapid antidepressants and work on other mental health disorders and they had neuroregenerative potential. Psychedelics were able to help adult neurogenesis, which is the growth and regrowth of neurons in the adult brain, and they could help reopen critical windows of synaptic plasticity that are thought to not occur after infancy. So we were very excited!

To my knowledge, there hasnt been a study of a psychedelic in Alzheimers disease, yet, but the hope is that because some of these psychedelics may be able to regrow the brain in humans, potentially, areas of the brain where there has been an amount of damage or lost may be able to experience regrowth through taking a psychedelic. But the big breakthrough is that in taking the psychedelic combined with a serotonin 2A blocker means you can have the medication without the associated trip. This could bring the medication to elderly patients and to patients worldwide, and could potentially be a take-at-home medicine.

Psychedelics without the trip can be both therapeutic and preventive. And the same thing for Idazoxan; with the potential to help Alzheimers, youd take it to start treating the disease, but the animal models show that if you take it early, it has a great preventative effect. So this could be an option for people at risk of Alzheimers, or with a family history of the disease.

This leads to our next big program; we are the first people in history to bring the aging biomarker neuromelanin to an FDA-cleared product. We have just received FDA clearance to bring our neuromelanin imaging system to market, meaning people can get neuromelanin scans as they age to provide adjunctive information to help clinicians assess the health of the brain.

Neuromelanin is a breakdown product of dopamine, and as you age, you build up neuromelanin in different parts of your brain. While levels have been investigated in numerous studies, with some doctors recommending regular neuromelanin scans, there had been no way to fully standardize the measurement, and so obtain FDA clearance. Columbia University figured out a way and we licensed the technology from them and built a fully-deployable cloud-based system that can work with any hospital and remotely analyze MRIs for neuromelanin and return results within 30 minutes. It has been cleared by the FDA for adjunctive use and thats a major win for patients.

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More than just a trip the longevity potential of psychedelics - Longevity.Technology

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ROGER GLOVER On DEEP PURPLE’s Longevity: ‘It’s All About The Music’ – BLABBERMOUTH.NET

In a new interview with Outlook India, DEEP PURPLE bassist Roger Glover spoke about the band's longevity. He said: "We've actually stuck to our original intention of concentrating on the music. It's all about the music. Along the way, the digital world has invaded us, but we still record in exactly the same manner, and we still write in exactly the same manner. So that's who we are. Take it or leave it."

Glover also said that DEEP PURPLE's musical focus has always been on creating something fresh and not trying to recapture any of the band's classic offerings.

"One of the rules of life is you can never go back," he said. "Everything has its time. And the music that was made in the '50s had its time. It can't be recreated. You can do parodies of it. But everything has to move forward. Everything has to change. Even as you drag the past with you, because the influences are always there, it's always going to be a new thing. You can't recreate it."

Last year, DEEP PURPLE keyboardist Don Airey told Rolling Stone magazine that there is no concrete plan for him and his bandmates to stop playing live shows.

"We started the farewell tour in 2017. It was due to end in 2019," he noted. "But the thing is, when you're a musician in a band, you think you're in control of it, but you're not. The business is running you.

"Of course, there was so much demand for the band to continue from the promoters and agents that we said, 'Okay, we'll do one more year.'"

Regarding when he thinks DEEP PURPLE will finally call it quits, Don said: "The words of T.S. Eliot [the greatest English-language poet of his generation] come to mind: 'This is the way the band ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.' I think we won't know it's the last gig. We won't have a clue that this one is going to be the last one. That's how it's going to end. It's going to be no big scenario.

"I like what Buddy Guy said. He said, 'Musicians don't retire. They drop.' You do have thoughts about being in the garden and bouncing the grandchildren on your knee, but it's part of your blood system, playing and touring. It's an addiction. I hope I keep playing for a while yet."

In a separate interview with Brazil's A Rdio Rock, Glover spoke about PURPLE's plans for the coming months. He said: "Well, we've just undergone a big change, because our guitarist Steve Morse had to retire from the band because he was looking after his very ill wife. And so we have a new guitarist in the band called Simon McBride. And it's a whole experience; I mean, it's a different band."

He continued: "In a way, we have to embrace change. You can't do the same thing over and over again, and we've had several changes, of course, over the years. And this one is particularly exciting. 'Cause we've been working on a new album; we should have a new album out by next year. And we can't stop writing. That's what we do."

In July 2022, Morse officially left PURPLE to care for his wife, Janine, who is battling cancer.

Morse's announcement came four months after the guitarist said that he would be taking a hiatus from the band, in the hope of rejoining his bandmates once his wife's health improved. He was then replaced on the road by McBride.

Morse effectively took over Ritchie Blackmore's DEEP PURPLE slot in 1994 and had since been in the group longer than Ritchie.

McBride, who is guitar player, singer, songwriter and a band leader all in one, hails from Belfast in Northern Ireland a place that resonates of the best music traditions like Gary Moore and Rory Gallagher, as well as bands such as THIN LIZZY, STIFF LITTLE FINGERS and obviously U2. His biography tells many stories from his band touring with no sound engineer, driver, or roadie, playing 30 shows in 35 days, to him regularly sharing stages with PURPLE singer Ian Gillan and Airey.

DEEP PURPLE's latest album, "Turning To Crime", came out in November 2021 via earMUSIC. The LP contains DEEP PURPLE's versions of great rock classics and musical jewels including songs originally recorded by Bob Dylan, FLEETWOOD MAC, Bob Seger, CREAM and THE YARDBIRDS carefully chosen by each member of the band.

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ROGER GLOVER On DEEP PURPLE's Longevity: 'It's All About The Music' - BLABBERMOUTH.NET

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Walking, Running, and Rucking: Pathways to Enhanced Fitness and Longevity – BNN Breaking

Walking, Running, and Rucking: Pathways to Enhanced Fitness and Longevity

In an era where physical health and longevity are revered, walking and running have emerged as cardinal activities that can enhance fitness and extend lifespans. As per a 2021 study, even a modicum of physical activity, such as a leisurely stroll, can augment the VO2 max, a crucial marker of aerobic capacity and longevity. A brisker pace while walking can further amplify these benefits.

Running, although high-impact and potentially leading to more short-term injuries than walking, also harbors significant health advantages. Studies reveal that running for a mere five minutes a day can extend life as much as walking for 15 minutes. Experts advocate consistency in exercise and advise runners to resume their activity gradually after a hiatus.

The article underscores the importance of warming up before a run to prevent injuries and prime the body for the activity. Detailed are ways to warm up the legs and the significance of stretching muscles to activate circulation. The necessity of allocating ample time for an adequate warm-up before running is emphasized.

Exercise, specifically running, is lauded for its mental and physical health benefits. It is noted that exercise can stimulate memory, regulate blood sugar and insulin levels, enhance mental health and mood, and thwart serious ailments like dementia and Alzheimers disease. Walking briskly for 150 minutes weekly or incrementally increasing the exercise amount can be beneficial. Information about foods rich in amino acids and omega-3, which can also contribute to health, is included.

Rucking, a practice that amalgamates walking with a weighted backpack, offers active resistance training that is both physical and mental. It involves walking with a backpack that constitutes at least 10% of your body weight, making the exercise more demanding. It provides cardiovascular health benefits, muscular endurance, mental well-being, long-term health, and interaction with nature. Research indicates improvements in muscular power, endurance, and oxygen consumption, making it beneficial in combating age-related muscle loss and enhancing balance. It is recommended to start with a weight that is 3-5% of your body weight and gradually increase. It is accessible to various ages and fitness levels.

The content also introduces a feature called My News in the El Tiempo app, which allows users to follow topics of their interest and edit their favorites.

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Does exercise really do nothing for longevity, as a Finnish twins study suggests? – The Conversation Indonesia

Surveys on lifestyle and longevity consistently find that people who do more exercise live longer. So it is surprising to see a report from the Finnish Twins Cohort Study that there is little direct effect of leisure time physical activity on lifespan. What makes this study different from others and is it right?

Human behaviour and biology are complex and interact with wider society and the environment. How much exercise a person gets could be linked to their genetics, diet, disabilities, education, wealth, or just whether they have enough leisure time and a safe green space. Each of these factors could also be linked to lifespan in different ways.

You can probably think of a dozen other things that might be associated both with a persons health and the amount of exercise that they do. The direction of the causation will not always be clear. Although it is certainly true that people who exercise more will, on average, live longer, it is far more difficult to know how much is caused by the exercise itself, versus these other factors.

How can we hope to isolate this single causal effect from the complexity of peoples lives?

Studies of twins can help us here. Twins have similar or identical genetics and early life experiences, so we can more directly test how differences in their later-life behaviour affect lifespan.

This is precisely the approach taken by researchers at the University of Jyvskyl in Finland. They used exercise questionnaires given to 11,000 pairs of adult same-sex twins in 1975, 1981 and 1990, and linked this to death records up to the year 2020.

They found that, as expected, the most active had a 24% lower rate of death compared with the least active. This effect is smaller than suggested by previous studies, and most of the excess risk was confined to the least active 10% of the study participants.

They also looked at biological age, measured by the degree of DNA damage (methylation) and, surprisingly, found that both the most and the least active groups appeared biologically older than the others.

Pairing twins deals with genetics and early life differences, but what about other aspects of health behaviour?

When smoking, alcohol consumption and body mass index (BMI) were taken into account in the analysis, the link between exercise and longevity was much reduced, with only a 9% difference in death rate between the least active group and others and no difference between the highly and moderately active. In other words, for a hypothetical twin pair with very different activity levels but the same smoking history, alcohol use and BMI, there would be very little difference in life expectancy.

But what does it mean to change exercise levels while all other aspects of health remain constant? For example, if the effect of exercise on death was mediated by weight loss, then this analysis would not reveal that link. And if exercise increases but weight does not change, then must something else be compensating?

There was also some evidence that the effect of exercise was stronger in the first 20 years after the assessment compared to the subsequent decade. So it is possible that exercise needs to be maintained to keep its longevity benefits into later life.

This would agree with evidence from clinical trials that show more immediate benefits of exercise interventions on health in people with existing conditions.

So what can we safely conclude from these new findings which have won a national sports medicine prize in Finland, but are yet to be peer-reviewed?

Clearly, people who exercise more live longer on average. Genetics, social factors, existing health and other aspects of lifestyle explain some of the association. We should not rule out a direct link between exercise and longevity, but this study suggests that it may have a smaller role than previously thought.

Nevertheless, experimental evidence shows that exercise can prevent illness and disability, improve mood and overall quality of life, which many would regard as more meaningful outcomes than lifespan alone.

It can be difficult for people to maintain lifestyle changes, and so social and environmental efforts, such as maintaining high-quality green spaces, to support healthy lifestyles are important.

Social inequalities in health and lifespan exist and are growing so its vital that we continue to refine our understanding of the reasons why and what we should do about it.

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Does exercise really do nothing for longevity, as a Finnish twins study suggests? - The Conversation Indonesia

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