Your doctor can measure almost everything about your health — blood pressure, cholesterol, bone density. But what about how fast you’re aging? There’s no test for that. Yet.

In this video, Dr. Brianna Stubbs of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging explains why our best aging tests fall short — each one captures only a sliver of the picture — and how a Stanford-led coalition called THRIVE is building a single, at-home score for the whole person: a concept known as intrinsic capacity.

One number, built to predict the next 20 years of your health, that will let doctors treat aging at its root before decline sets in.

It’s one of the most ambitious programs in geroscience, and if they succeed, it will impact millions of people worldwide.

Watch Brianna and a cast of top longevity experts in our award-winning documentary Forever Young, now available on Apple TV and Amazon.

🎬 Watch the full documentary — Forever Young — now streaming:

Most people think of meditation as a stress-reduction tool. Something you do in an app, on a cushion, before a hard day. A nice habit, loosely supported by science.

Dr. Thomas Lewis wants to correct that framing entirely.

In this video, Dr. Thomas Lewis breaks down the neuroscience of meditation — and why it reaches further into your biology than most peo…

Dr. Eric Verdin is one of the scientists at the heart of our award-winning documentary Forever Young. He’s also president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

After a private screening of the film, director David Donnelly sat down with Verdin for a live virtual Q&A with the audience. No talking points. Just an hour of unfiltered conversation with one of the most respected minds in longevity science.

In this conversation, Verdin reveals:

* The longevity variable most people completely overlook — and why he’s building an entire research center around it

* Why your outlook on life isn’t just a mood issue — and what the science says it’s actually doing to your body

* On the realities of GLP-1 agonists, V02 max, and other topics that have captivated popular culture

* The booming wellness trend he calls a total scam — and why it makes him furious every time he walks past one

Plus: what’s actually coming in anti-aging medicine, the real science on fasting, and what an approved longevity drug could look like within five years.

This is just the beginning.

Dr. Verdin mentioned something in passing that most people don’t fully register: the biology of aging can be modulated. One of the most extraordinary examples of that happening right now is at his own institution — the Buck Institute’s work on senescent cells, the so-called “zombie cells” that accumulate in your body as you age, quietly driving inflammation, accelerating disease, and shortening your life. Scientists now have drugs that can selectively eliminate them. In animal models, the results are extraordinary.

Paid subscribers get access to that interview as well as our full archive of 100+ videos and articles that give insider access to the drugs, treatments, science, and philosophy driving the most exciting revolution of our lifetime.

The longevity revolution is moving fast.

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In this inaugural Forever Young Substack Live, Dr. Thomas Lewis — psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and co-author of A General Theory of Love — spent 45 minutes answering live audience questions on what actually determines how long we live and how well.

What emerged was part clinical insight, part cultural criticism, part longevity science. Tom covered the p…

Steve Horvath created the epigenetic clock — the molecular tool that, for the first time, made it possible to measure biological age rather than simply count the years a person has been alive. His 2013 paper is among the most-cited in aging research, and his current work at Altos Labs in Cambridge focuses on whether the clock can not only measure aging …

After a recent screening of Forever Young, director David Donnelly sat down with Dr. Laura Carstensen for a live Q&A with the audience.

Our ancestors gave us 30 extra years of life.

So what are we doing with it?

We’ve kept the same life script — education, then work, then retirement — and just stretched it at the seams.

Dr. Carstensen thinks that’s a mistak…

What if we told you there’s an intervention that reduces inflammation, improves cardiovascular function, and costs nothing?

No prescription. No side effects. Available to everyone.

Here’s what the research tells us about gratitude—and why it matters for longevity:

Gratitude is measurable biology, not just a feeling.

According to research published in Psychosomatic Medicine, gratitude is associated with lower levels of endothelial dysfunction—a key marker of cardiovascular aging. Heart patients who reported higher gratitude showed better vascular function, independent of depression or anxiety levels. (DOI)

A six-week gratitude practice reduced inflammation by 27%.

A workplace study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that employees who engaged in daily gratitude exercises for just six weeks saw a 27% reduction in C-reactive protein (a marker of chronic inflammation) and improvements in blood sugar regulation. (DOI)

Chronic inflammation, as we cover in several of our posts, is one of the hallmarks of aging. Anything that reduces it is worth paying attention to.

The connection between gratitude and longevity runs deeper than we thought.

We now know that 93% of how you age is determined by lifestyle—not genetics. What we’re learning now is that how you think is an essential part of that lifestyle equation.

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We live in a culture that has mastered the art of avoiding death.We don’t see it, we don’t talk about it, and we certainly don’t allow room for the fear of it — not in polite conversation, not in our friendships, not even in our family lives.

But Dr. Thomas Lewis makes something uncomfortably clear:Our silence hasn’t made death easier. It has made us more afraid.

Why?

Because the human brain is a prediction machine.It can model anything — danger, possibility, love, loss — but it cannot model its own non-existence.It literally cannot imagine a world without “you” in it.So it defaults to a kind of illusion: death is something that happens to other people.

And that illusion works… until it doesn’t.

In earlier centuries, death was woven into the fabric of life.People died at home, surrounded by family.Children grew up watching life end, not in horror, but as part of the natural rhythm of being human.

Today, you can go an entire lifetime without seeing a body.Death has been sterilized, outsourced, hidden behind hospital curtains.And when something disappears from view, it becomes mysterious… and then frightening… and then taboo.

The result is a quiet epidemic of unspoken fear.People aren’t just afraid of dying —they’re afraid of admitting they’re afraid.

But here’s the part that gives this conversation its power:

Anxiety grows in silence.Anxiety shrinks when shared.

And a little less afraid.

More from Dr. Thomas Lewis:

Research by Pankaj Kapahi of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging shows that caloric restriction doesn’t just reduce weight.

It reshapes metabolism.

When the body takes in fewer calories, it shifts away from burning glucose — a fast but dirty fuel — and begins relying more on fats and lipids. This metabolic switch reduces inflammation, improves mitoch…

Everyone’s talking about extending lifespan — the molecules, the biomarkers, the breakthroughs. Far fewer are talking about what happens after we succeed. Digital sociologist Julie Albright joins us for a provocative exploration of the cultural shockwaves that come when societies suddenly gain decades of extra life. What happens to dating? Purpose? Reli…