When Dr. Joan Mannick was working as a physician, she came across an interesting article in a scientific magazine. A scientist had doubled the lifespan of a worm by mutating a single gene. 

“She put that into context by saying this shows that organisms have the capacity to live much longer than they normally do,” she remembers. “That sort of was a ‘eureka!’ moment for me because as a physician, you try and treat all these diseases in people to keep them alive a little bit longer, but it never occurred to me that there was a capacity to live much longer that was actually scientifically based and not a bunch of snake oil.” 

Mannick became increasingly interested in both how we can extend lifespan, the total length of a person’s life, and health span, the period of a person’s life during which they are generally healthy and free of serious or chronic illness. 

Today, Mannick is the CEO of Tornado Therapeutics, a Boston-based company aiming to extend healthy lifespan in humans. 

Will we be able to slow the effects of aging?

“There’s some really high-quality scientific research that’s been done showing that aging isn’t just sort of inevitable, random wear and tear, that it’s actually controlled by biologic pathways,” Mannick says. “It’s real science that is just starting to be tested in human studies.” 

Mannick focuses on the mTOR pathway: a complex network of proteins that regulate many essential cell processes in mammals. When organisms eat, the protein mTOR is turned on and stimulates growth. When organisms fast, mTOR is inhibited and upregulates protective pathways. But as we age, there is evidence that mTOR becomes dysregulated, staying on all the time and not responding to fasting. This continuous activation of mTOR can lead to cellular damage and reduced lifespan. By inhibiting mTOR with a specific drug called rapamycin, investigators have been able to extend lifespans in multiple species ranging from worms to flies to mice.

“mTOR inhibition extends healthy lifespan in every species studied to date, so it’s quite likely that it will also have some health benefits for aging humans,” she says. Many questions remain, but Mannick’s team is starting human trials of mTOR inhibitors in 2025 to help answer them.

Will we be able to reverse aging?

In addition to finding ways to slow the effects of aging in non-human species, scientists have discovered ways to actually make them or their specific organs biologically younger, referred to as rejuvenation, through several different processes.

In 2023, scientists successfully used a rejuvenation process called heterochronic parabiosis, which involves connecting the circulatory systems of a young and old organism for several months, in mice. 

“During this procedure, we found that the old mouse is rejuvenated by the young mouse,” says Vadim Gladyshev, a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School who co-led the study with Bohan Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab. “After separating the animals later on, the old mouse remains younger than controls and also lives longer.”

Despite promising research in aging, Gladyshev notes that the field still has some crucial challenges to overcome. For instance, scientists need to reach a consensus on concepts like what the definition of aging is, an essential step toward understanding and changing it. 

What steps can be taken today?

The concept of “biohacking,” making small lifestyle changes to improve health, has boomed on social media in recent years. You may have heard more people talking about cold plunges, sun gazing, or taking supplements. Though these practices may have some health benefits, when it comes to extending health span and lifespan, experts recommend focusing on the fundamentals.

“My kids get stressed when they hear things from biohackers like they have to wake up at 5 a.m. and get exposed to sunlight if they want to stay healthy. I tell them to stop worrying about it. Just relax and sleep,” Mannick says. “There’s not great data supporting most of this, except on the health benefits of exercise and sleep. The rest, there is a huge placebo effect when you tell people, ‘If you do this, this might help aging.’”

While the fundamentals remain the same, our understanding of them continues to evolve. A 2023 study found that sleep regularity, meaning going to bed and waking up at consistent times, may be even more important than the duration of sleep. Study participants with less regular sleep patterns had a higher risk of premature death.

Is food an important factor?

“Researchers have shown poor diet is actually the number one cause of premature death in the US,” says Fang Fang Zhang, professor and chair of Nutrition Epidemiology and Data Science at The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts. “We have so much evidence to support that. However, we’re still not eating very healthy.”

To reduce your health risks, aim for a varied diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains while limiting processed meat, red meat, sodium, and added sugar, Zhang recommends.

“Make sure you’re getting enough protein,” adds Jennifer Hanway, a board-certified holistic nutrition professional and personal trainer based in Massachusetts. “A general rule of thumb is one gram per pound of body weight.” She also recommends integrating anti-inflammatory foods and antioxidant– and polyphenol-rich foods, many of which are fruits and vegetables.

Will everyone have access to optimal health in the future?

Another key to the future of healthy aging is ensuring that everyone can access the benefits of essentials like healthy food.

“It’s hard to ask an individual person to make healthy choices if the food environment [they’re] surrounded by is not promoting that,” Zhang says. Instead, to achieve better longevity through food, the approach should be to implement public health policies that make it easier to eat well. 

These could include taxes on food with unhealthy ingredients, subsidies for foods with healthy ingredients, and better labeling practices to make it easier to tell the difference. For example, Zhang posits that there should be a standardized label for whole grain foods, which are important for reducing health risks like colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. 

As it stands, “There are all kinds of labels that make people think they’re whole grain, but they’re not,” Zhang says. Packages might say multigrain, wheat, or even made with whole grains, but those are not equivalent to whole grains. Check the ingredient list below the nutrition facts to ensure the first ingredient is whole grain when shopping. 

The field of healthy aging today is a combination of basics and breakthroughs. Scientists are making significant strides, but for now, embracing foundational health principles and expanding access to them can help us lead healthier, longer lives — while we await the next big breakthrough.

Tufts Health Plan, a Point32Health company, has Massachusetts-based Medicare Advantage plans to support those who are aging strong. To learn more about your Medicare options, call Tufts Medicare experts at 1-877-212-9768 or visit thpmp.org — and read on for more stories from Tufts Health Plan.