Episode summary
Can We Live Longer? What it Might Mean for Medicine, Money, & Markets - With Dr Andrew Steele
Money Maze Podcast
· · 1 hr 2 min · Guests: Andrew Steele
Summary
Dr Andrew Steele argues that aging is best understood both statistically and biologically: mortality rises exponentially with age, but that pattern is not inevitable in every species. He points to tortoises and naked mole rats as examples of animals that avoid the usual rise in death risk, which suggests the human aging process may be modifiable rather than fixed. That framing leads to a broad case for longevity science as an effort to delay the diseases and frailty of old age, not just to add years.
He says global life expectancy has risen dramatically since the 19th century, first by reducing infant and child mortality through sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics, and more recently by extending healthy older life through cardiovascular care, statins, blood pressure drugs, and CPR. On treatment, he is strongly optimistic: drugs such as rapamycin and senolytics have extended healthspan in lab animals, and he believes dozens of human trials are now plausible. He argues the economics are equally large, with aging driving most deaths and a huge share of health spending, while public funding remains far too small relative to the payoff.
Key takeaways
- Andrew Steele says human death risk doubles about every 8 years, making aging a measurable process rather than a vague decline.
- He argues tortoises and naked mole rats show that negligible senescence exists in nature, so aging is not biologically inevitable.
- Steele says senolytic drugs have made mice healthier and more mobile, suggesting aging pathways can be targeted before disease appears.
- He estimates slowing aging by one year could be worth about $38 trillion in broad economic value.
- He says current public funding for aging biology is tiny relative to the trillions at stake, so investors and policymakers should factor longevity risk into long-term planning.
Notable quotes
“Humans have a risk of death that doubles about every 8 years”
“biology has many of the same questions. They're not um like fundamental particles or you know the depths of deep space”
“their risk of death is flat with time. So they literally don't have a mortality rate doubling time”
“if we were to slow down aging by a single year what would that sort of be worth in this broad sense”
How the episode opens
So, if you're lucky enough to be born in a rich country, your risk of death in that first year of life is about half a percent. And current 10year-olds have this incredible title. They've got a less than 1 in 10,000 chance of not making their 11th birthday.
Um, so I'm 40 this year, and that means my risk of death is about 1 in a,000. By the time I'm 65, it about 1%, by the time I'm 80, it's about 5%. So, that's 1 in 20 per year.
And if we're lucky enough to live into our ' 90s, but unlucky enough that none of the science we're going to talk about today has come to pass, you're going to have a risk of death of about 1 in six. But what I've come to believe is that actually biology has many of the same questions. They're not um like fundamental particles or you know the depths of deep space.
But the fact is that our bodies are made up of somewhere between 30 and 40 trillion cells. And this is the science of complexity. The questions there are just as deep and just as fascinating.
But they also have a huge potential to, you know, make people healthier. And if we can do gene therapies for longevity, which are a potential thing, you know, we've we've discovered a gene in an Amish population in the US that makes people live 10 years longer. We have loads of genes in animals that provide, you know, comparably exciting changes in lifespan.
Would I bet against there being a longevity gene therapy in the next 10 or 20 years? I probably wouldn't because the technology is advancing so fast. To paraphrase the great Charles Darwin, species endure not by brute strength or vast intelligence, but by their capacity to adapt to shifting circumstances.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- longevity
- healthspan and aging
- medical treatments for aging
- longevity economics
- personal longevity habits
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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