Age no bar: Hacks to live better, not just longer

Over the past two years or so, a quiet but potentially transformative movement has been shaping up in Bengaluru.

- Charles Assisi

It’s not driven by celebrity biohackers or billionaires in Silicon Valley chasing immortality. Instead, scientists, doctors, and technologists are collaborating on a far subtler ambition: Rethinking what it means to age. And how to do it well.

At the centre of this movement are people such as Prashant Prakash and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. Prakash, currently affiliated to Accel India and one of India’s most influential investors believes the health-tech narrative has just begun unfolding. Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of Biocon, is one of India’s most respected figures in biotechnology. Together, they're part of an ecosystem helping shape a distinctly Indian vision of longevity that differs from the discourse in the West.

There, longevity is often framed as a battle against time. Bryan Johnson, for instance, follows a famously meticulous regimen. He tracks everything from his gut microbiome to sleep cycles in an effort to reverse his biological age. Harvard biologist David Sinclair has popularised the idea that ageing can be delayed or even reversed with molecules, supplements, and cellular reprogramming. They are not on the fringe any longer. If anything, they represent a growing class of first movers who believe death and decay can be reversed.