MIT Technology Review is reporting that a neuroscientist and physician has launched a six-month competition that rewards participants for getting biologically younger. The outlet said roughly 500 people will try to reverse their biological age, which is measured in several ways, with a leaderboard tracking results.
It said the contest, called the Younger contest, was created by Christin Glorioso, founder and CEO of NeuroAge Therapeutics, a company that offers tools to track brain health and aging. Glorioso told the outlet one goal is to explain aging clocks to the public. MIT Technology Review said such clocks are designed to measure biological age, often by assessing chemical signatures on DNA, proteins or lipids in blood, and that more than a hundred exist.
The outlet said using these clocks to estimate an individual's biological age remains controversial because scientists do not fully understand what each clock captures. It said Glorioso hopes data from the contest will produce what she calls the world's most comprehensive clock dataset.
According to MIT Technology Review, participants will submit blood spot samples to TruDiagnostic, complete cognitive tasks for a brain age score, provide physical measures such as grip strength, and upload selfies to an app that estimates face age. It said the contest officially begins in January, though about 120 people have already signed up and some have started.
The outlet said Glorioso also hopes to gather information on purported longevity approaches, with some participants offered red-light masks, sauna access or other low-risk offerings from sponsoring companies. It said she views the event as a public health initiative, citing an estimate that slowing aging in the general population and adding one year of life expectancy would save the U.S. economy $38 trillion.
MIT Technology Review said a longevity-focused physician in New York, Hillary Lin, has begun logging baseline measurements and worries six months may be too short to detect changes in biological measures of aging. It said the leaderboard is sparse so far, with only seven people having logged baseline measurements.
Full Article: A new contest pits competitors against each other in a race to biological youth