A longevity-focused entrepreneur shares the causes of aging and what you can do to minimize their impact.
Ever since he was a pre-teen, Chris Mirabile has been dedicated to supporting his health. Even at such a young age, he was weightlifting consistently and eating a balanced diet — and he followed these practices for years, he says. But Mirabile’s day-to-day care for his well-being didn’t prevent the unthinkable: At just 15 years old, he was suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumor and required emergency surgery to remove it.
“That experience really evolved my interest in health from one that was, admittedly, purely superficial — it was about athletic performance and being attractive — to one that was more biologically driven,” Mirabile recalls. “...It planted that seed in my mind of wanting to make sure what I'm doing for my health is not only good for me today, but it's good for me tomorrow and years to come."
Flash forward to 2019, the serial entrepreneur founded NOVOS Labs, a consumer-forward biotech company creating longevity-promoting supplements. Below, an abbreviated version of Equinox's audio conversation with Mirabile, during which he breaks down the main causes of aging and shares the steps you can take to improve your longevity.
What are the main factors that play into aging?
Mirabile: There are 10 known causes of aging, [including] stem cell exhaustion. Stem cells are what produce new healthy cells. And as you get older, you have fewer stem cells, or they're just less effective at creating exact replicas of cells. [There’s also] mitochondrial dysfunction. So these are the power plants of your cells, and they are converting carbohydrates, fats, and proteins into energy for your cells to be able to utilize and then, essentially, function properly.
But then there are some less well-known causes of aging, [such as] cellular senescence. This is essentially when your cells turn into a zombie-like state, and when they're in a zombie-like state, they secrete inflammatory molecules that can then cause neighboring cells to also become senescent or zombie-like. And when you're young, there are very few of these cells, but as you get older, it increases exponentially and it can lead to things like skin wrinkling or hardening of the arteries and so on.
Other [causes] are loss of proteostasis, altered intercellular communication, genomic instability, [and] epigenetic alterations — that's a really important one, the epigenome — telomere shortening, deregulated nutrient sensing, and cross-linking.
Note: This interview took place in Sept 2022. Since then, scientists have increased the list from 9 root causes of aging to 12, as described in this scientific paper.
What contributors to aging can you stifle most readily?
Mirabile: All of them in one way or another are readily actionable. For example, mitochondrial health is largely influenced by not only your diet but your activity. If you are exercising a lot, you're going to increase the strain on your body, and your body is going to adapt by increasing its mitochondria. Think about if you go out for a long run and you're feeling exhausted — your body is saying, “I need more energy. I need a more efficient use of my energy.” And so your mitochondria will become more resilient, and you'll also produce more mitochondria. Being physically active is one of the best ways that you can increase mitochondria.
A second way to do it is actually through supplementation. So there are different supplements that can, first of all, fuel the mitochondria — give them what they need to thrive — but also, counterintuitively at first, it can actually put a little bit of stress on the mitochondria, and then those mitochondria come back stronger. So the concept is known in biology as mitohormesis. Mitohormesis is essentially mito for mitochondria, and then hormesis is the idea of putting stress on something and then that thing coming back stronger as a result of the stress. Exercise is a great case-in-point example of it. If you can only lift 50 pounds today, but you do it for five reps, maybe next week you can come back and do it for six reps, or you can lift 55 pounds for five reps.
That is a case-in-point example of hormesis, where the body is coming back stronger. You can do the same in a supplementation sense for your mitochondria and have your mitochondria come back stronger.
Is there an age that's too young to start thinking about longevity?
Mirabile: There's never a time that is too early for you to live a healthy life that is mindful of your future. That [healthy life] comes down to things like diet, activity, rest and sleep, psychology, and even supplementation. And the earlier you start [to] exercise or eat healthy, the better it is for you in the long term. Now, you're going to probably notice more pronounced changes if you go from an unhealthy life and you're 60 years old to a very healthy, longevity-focused lifestyle, but you can get started as early as you'd be willing to.
What’s the relationship between longevity and preventative care?
Mirabile: Longevity is a form of preventative health or preventative medicine. With that said, not all forms of preventative medicine are necessarily conducive to longevity. There are certain things you can do for the sake of short-term health that are not necessarily going to be good for you in the long term. So this is actually a biological concept known as antagonistic pleiotropy, which is a big word for a simple concept. It [the theory that] what's good for you in the short term might come back to harm you in the long term.
For example, sun exposure. If you get sun exposure today, you're going to increase your vitamin D production. Your body will produce more nitric oxide. It will produce endorphins, which make you feel [happier] and excited. At the same time, you're causing DNA damage and mutations, which can then lead to melanoma in the future. So that would be an example of something that's good for you today, but not good for you in the long term.
And a longevity perspective is one that considers this: What is good for you both in the short term and in the long term? How do you help people get through that shift in perspective to start to pursue things that might be a little bit longer lasting? A lot of aspects of longevity actually do give you short-term benefits. So it's important to understand that there are biological causes of aging… But when you address these biological causes of aging, you're actually improving your biology here and now in the present. And it's also going to lead to better health outcomes in the long term. So for example, [with] the things that I do for my health, I find myself being more energized, more lucid, and aware of things. My cognition is better than ever. My sleep is better than ever, and this is relative to my entire lifespan. I feel better today at nearly 40 years old than I did in my teens and in my twenties and early thirties.
It's not something that is a quick fix in the sense that you can just take a magic pill and suddenly live forever and feel amazing. Though there are supplements — and we can talk about NOVOS and the benefits that brings — but it's a more long-term approach, and you'll start seeing these improvements over the course of days, weeks, months, and years.
Disclaimer: The topics discussed in this interview are at the cutting edge of health and wellness. This interview represents the views and opinions of Chris Mirabile and does not represent the views of or any endorsement by Equinox. Chris is an entrepreneur and thought leader, but he is not a doctor, or healthcare professional. This interview does not constitute medical advice and is provided for entertainment and informational purposes only. Information and views on this topic may evolve based on future research and learnings. Consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions and before making any decisions on these thought-provoking topics.