Aging Is Not A Disease

I once stood on a TedX stage and declared aging a disease we could cure. I was wrong, and that error taught me something far more powerful about longevity than any research paper ever could.

The Paradigm Shift

Back when I was in college, I idealistically believed that academia and Western systems of research would discover the root causes of aging and age-related diseases, then hand us the cure wrapped in a bow. The future of aging research looked brighter than ever. We were going to solve this thing.

I’ve since become convinced that medicalization would lead us in the exact opposite direction.

Don’t get me wrong: I still firmly believe we have many answers to the aging process at our fingertips, and even better ones are on the horizon. But here’s what changed: I stopped seeing aging as a disease to be cured and started seeing it as a puzzle to be solved. And that mindset shift changes everything.

Think about it. When you have a disease, you’re a victim waiting for rescue. When you have a puzzle, you’re a player with agency. Diseases invoke fear and dependency. Puzzles invite curiosity and engagement. Diseases seek singular cures dispensed by authorities. Puzzles have multiple solutions you can discover yourself.

Why the System Can’t Save Us

There are scientists arguing that aging should be classified as a disease to open up funding opportunities. If I’m going to pay taxes, I want that money going toward research and infrastructure, so that still aligns with my values. But here’s the catch: research funds flow toward what will make someone else a pile of money, or toward the most incremental step forward that reinforces all previous work.

Potentially groundbreaking research? It doesn’t get funded because it’s too different from what came before. The alternative, private investors funding startup companies, circles back to that same pile of money someone expects to make. Sure, money is nice, but I’m more interested in everyone having agency over their bodies and all available information at their fingertips to make decisions that are best for them.

Let’s say aging does get classified as a disease. In all likelihood, this would make longevity therapies less accessible, and certainly not equitably accessible. They’d depend on the healthcare system, which is already out of reach for many. Whatever researchers find would take decades to develop and would fall under the domain of regulatory agencies and those with the power to prescribe pharmaceuticals. The effective compounds you need? Trapped behind a wall of bureaucracy and excessive costs.

But there’s something even more insidious happening here. When you believe you have a disease that everyone else also has, one that’s nearly 100% fatal, what happens in your mind? What reactions cascade through your body? You’ve just programmed yourself for decline.

(I say nearly 100% because I’ll bet you bitcoins there are masters living in caves who’ve figured all this out already. They’re either laughing at us or rooting for us, and I choose to believe it’s the latter. Look at the Taoist immortality practices, the yogic traditions, the Blue Zone centenarians who don’t even think about aging. They’re not obsessed with longevity research, they’re just doing the things that have quietly worked for thousands of years.)

The Earth-Based Solution

I invite you to try this thought experiment. Consider aging a problem. A puzzle. A game, even. What tools has the game given us to figure out this puzzle?

Let’s begin with where we are. We are Earth-based humans. We live on Earth, we’re made of Earth. Therefore let’s believe the Earth has everything we need to achieve our goals. Our goal isn’t immortality (that could become a curse for someone ready to be done with embodied existence). It’s not just extended lifespan either, that addresses quantity but not quality.

The goal? Living as long as you want to. That’s my metric.

Have all the experiences you’re here to have. Create your impact. Exhaust your unique spark of life, which burns at different brightness for each of us. Then, when you’re complete, have a swift decline without regrets and step into whatever comes next. Death on your own terms, not on a timeline prescribed by social constructs.

Here’s where we start:

Align with Earth’s rhythms. Get up with the sun and get that light into your eyes. This isn’t woo-woo, it’s circadian biology affecting everything from your telomeres to your mitochondria. Spend more time outside moving your body. Breathe deeply. Drink clean water. Eat foods close to the source, as unprocessed as possible.

Master your stress response. Chronic stress accelerates aging at the cellular level through inflammatory markers and oxidative damage. But here’s what they don’t tell you: some stress is medicine. Cold exposure, fasting, intense exercise - these controlled stressors trigger hormesis, making you more resilient. Meditate not to escape stress but to choose your response to it.

Find your drive. Whether it’s some grand purpose, a project you’re building, or just feeling good about keeping your house clean, having something that pulls you forward changes your biology. Purpose affects everything from immune function to cognitive decline.

Invest in face-to-face connections. Not just online community (though that has its place) but actual, physical presence with other humans. The research on social isolation and mortality is staggering. We’re tribal creatures trying to age in isolation, so it’s no wonder we’re falling apart.

Food as Medicine, Medicine as Food

Here’s my stance: meats are food and plants are medicine, and we just don’t realize how much medicine we need.

Before you jump down my throat, hear me out. Meats provide protein building blocks and fats for fuel: the structural components of regeneration. Plants are healing: full of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and enzymes that help us stay healthy. They even have delicious carbs to keep us happy, if you’re into that sort of thing.

This isn’t diet dogma. It’s about understanding the entourage effect: how the “active ingredient” in a whole plant works synergistically with all its other components to create healing that no isolated compound can match. You can grow many of these biological powerhouses in your kitchen or yard. Turmeric with its inflammation-cooling effects. Rosemary with its cognitive-protective compounds. Garlic with its cardiovascular benefits. These aren’t supplements; they’re technologies.

Professionally I work with cutting-edge supplement formulas, and I DO support their use. I take plenty myself. But they’re icing on your longevity cake, not the foundation, and absolutely not a replacement for food.

The Mindset Revolution

What would your life look like if it wasn’t scripted according to social constructs about what a certain age should feel like, look like, or do?

This is what the Blue Zones get right. They don’t have anti-aging clinics. They have cultures that don’t worship youth or fear aging. They have purposeful grandparents, not warehoused elders. They have intergenerational wisdom exchange, not age segregation.

Strip away the stories culture has written on you. At 40, you’re not “over the hill.” At 60, you’re not “elderly.” At 80, you’re not “just waiting.” These are made-up checkpoints in a made-up race.

What if you were starting your third career at 80, or learning to paint at 100? What if 120 brought new PRs in the gym, and 150 meant exploring the wilderness on another continent…or another planet?

Why This Matters More Than Any Drug

When we medicalize aging, we hand over our power to institutions that move slowly, think small, and serve profit over people. When we see aging as our puzzle to solve, we reclaim agency. We don’t wait decades for FDA approval. We start today, now, with what we have.

This is about transcending a prescripted and systematized approach to a lifespan that should instead be filled with wonder and exploration. The same epigenetic changes that million-dollar drugs promise? You can trigger them through lifestyle. Autophagy activation? Try intermittent fasting. Mitochondrial biogenesis? Cold exposure and exercise. Telomere protection? Meditation and community.

The research backs this up, but more importantly, you can feel it. When you align with natural rhythms, when you eat real food, when you move your body and quiet your mind, when you connect with others, you know something shifts. Not because a study told you, but because you’re living it.

Your Next Move

So I leave you with this thought experiment, but now with more context:

If your life was 1000 years, how would that change how you think and show up in the world?

• What would suddenly become urgent, and what could wait centuries?

• What grudges would you release because holding them for 1000 years would be exhausting?

• What skills would you master, knowing you had time for true depth?

• What relationships would you invest in, knowing they could span centuries?

• What daily choices would you make to ensure those 1000 years were vital, not just long?

Start this week. Pick one Earth rhythm to align with: maybe it’s morning sunlight, maybe it’s growing your own medicine plants, maybe it’s replacing your evening scroll with an evening walk. Question one aging construct: the idea that you’re “too old” for something, perhaps.

And remember: you’re not fighting an inevitably fatal disease. You’re solving a puzzle. And puzzles are meant to be engaging, even fun.

The masters in those caves? They’re rooting for us. And they’re probably wondering what took us so long to figure out what they’ve known all along: that aging isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you participate in.

And how you participate is your choice.