Hi Reader, We've been prescribing Rapamycin in longevity medicine for years. The pitch was always the same: it triggers autophagy — your cells' internal cleanup crew — clearing out damaged proteins and dysfunctional organelles. But a 2026 paper out of Oxford just changed our understanding entirely. Researchers exposed human T-cells to DNA-damaging agents — the kind we get from UV light, metabolic stress, and basically living on Earth. The cells pre-treated with Rapamycin didn't just survive...
9 days ago • 10 min read
Hi Reader, Last week, I sat on a panel discussing “The Rise of the Provider-Influencer.” My perspective is simple: in an ecosystem flooded with health advice, our real job isn’t just knowledge transfer or motivation—it’s interpretation. Then this week delivered a perfect example of why that matters. A major paper in Science landed with a headline that felt quietly demoralizing: human lifespan may be more than 50% genetic—roughly double the estimate most of us have been operating under for...
18 days ago • 10 min read
Hi Reader, 2026 is the year of not only AI really taking over (are you feeling it?) but also the Oral GLP-1 Competition heating up. 🔥 Novo just launched their Wegovy pill and hit over 18,000 prescriptions within its first two weeks. Lilly's likely approval comes in April. And last week, Corxel raised $287M to fund a third contender. The stakes are obvious: whoever cracks the pill wins the mass market. But there's a problem nobody's solved yet—and it's not efficacy. It's keeping the drug down....
24 days ago • 8 min read
Hi Reader, Welcome to the refreshed format of The Longevity Letter. My goal for 2026 is simple: High signal, low noise. You are busy, and the longevity space is getting louder, not clearer. I’ve redesigned this newsletter to be your weekly "Insider’s Rounds"—a briefing on what matters, what works, and what I’m personally testing. We are moving from general advice to specific, actionable intelligence. The TL;DR if you only have 30 seconds: 👻 The Deep Dive: Why I’m treating the Shingles vaccine...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
Hi Reader, This week I'm publishing something I've been asked about for months but most physicians won't touch. Grey market peptides. The "research chemicals" currently flooding Silicon Valley. Tech workers mixing powders in their kitchens. Injecting themselves with insulin syringes ordered from Amazon. Attending "peptide raves" with mix-your-own workshops. I'm not here to tell you not to do it. I'm here because people are doing it anyway—and information asymmetry gets people hurt. This is a...
about 1 month ago • 9 min read
Hi Reader, Most New Year's resolutions fail for a simple reason: people try to install high-performance software (new habits, intense focus) on degrading hardware (your biology). You can have the best discipline in the world, but if your cellular engine is sputtering, you aren't going to get very far. Last issue, we covered "The Plumbing" (vascular health), along with pearls about hair longevity and oral health. Today, we’re covering Part 2—The Engine (Mitochondria) and The Processor (Brain),...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
Hi Reader, Usually, conference swag is junk. T-shirts, stress balls, and socks that end up in the hotel trash. But after spending the last week conference-hopping from the ivory towers of the Buck Institute (deep longevity science) to the neon chaos of A4M Vegas (commercial reality), I realized something while unpacking. The swag isn't random. It’s a roadmap. These samples represent where the biggest longevity companies are spending their marketing dollars right now. They are the bridge...
2 months ago • 8 min read
Hi Reader, Are you at Longevity Global Summit or A4M next week? Let me know! I've been tracking my food this month — something I do quarterly to recalibrate after things get a bit wild with travel and the holidays. At Thanksgiving, Gemini AI nailed it. Protein, carbs, fat — broken down by each item on the plate, with reasonable estimates for portion sizes. No manual logging. No scanning barcodes. And as you'll see in this issue, that same leap in innovation is happening in longevity science,...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, Happy almost-Thanksgiving 🦃! Before you sit down to feast, I want to talk about something usually reserved for “trips” rather than treatment plans: Magic Mushrooms. For years, we’ve looked at psilocybin as a tool for the mind. But news dropping this week suggests it might be a tool for the body—specifically, for slowing down biological aging. Plus: The FDA just approved a massive breakthrough in genetic medicine for heart health, and a new study from the Salk Institute just flipped...
3 months ago • 6 min read