Buying Time with Drugs || Feb. 24, 2026
I hate to say it, but we still haven't located the fountain of youth. Unfortunately, that means there's no current medical breakthrough that will meaningfully reverse the global demographic problem.
It's probably too late for all the boomers in our lives, but there is one class of drugs that could potentially improve long-term health: GLP-1s (aka Ozempic). These reduce obesity and inflammation by mimicking the hormone that slows stomach emptying and makes you feel full for longer. However, these drugs are too new and expensive to count as a solution.
Some countries are going to be worse off than others, especially those that lack a large enough young generation to replace retirees. At the end of the day, the only proven way to extend healthy, productive lives is a lifelong investment in health.
Comments (60)
Kurzgesagt had a video about the ozempic that claims the functional components has been used since 2006
From the world of successful Alzheimer's treatment, led by the teams of Dr Dale Bredesen, comes compelling science around the factors contributing to Alzheimer's (it's not a disease as such but a pattern of brain damage caused by the brain's attempts to protect itself from a range of insults. many lifestyle induced). In short, cognitive decline isn't a given but four commonalities are: poor diet (aka standard American fare), lack of exercise, stress and lack of healthy sleep. Peter's on the money regarding the superior lifestyle of the Scandinavians. Peter Dredge: author "Breakthrough, Surviving Alzheimer's And Why You Can Too", project manager of the world's only (as far as we know) survival of end-stage Alzheimer's and happily a resident of the South Island, New Zealand.
Pretty good Peter, for a non medical guru. Speaking as a DO, MPH, in Prev Med and FM. Good evidence for Metformin as well, which is cheap and could be microdosed + well tolerated.\
I should add retired. There are a lot of influencers but their focus is for the small % who are obsessed trying to find an amino acid that will be a fountain of youth. Most of it is much simpler but people do what they want. All you can do is point the way. For my shortcut - see my pinned tweet on X (twitter) for my one-page trifold for what you should know and ask you provider about. good luck.
Cognitive decline starting age 59-60 with acceleration around age 62-63? Ya mean my wife's right in that I'm getting dumber? 🤣
wait, the real physical deterioration hits hard about 65... stay active or it is worse.
What about Stemcell therapy? Young plasma therapy?
I disagree about Korea...a lot of alcohol consumption, Western food inputs like cheese and butter are permeating throughout diets, and they have extremely high cultural stress to survive. That's not the foundation for a long life...they have some generational genetics to help with that, but the coming generations are fucked.
Freedom 75!
Retire at 82….
"Greater consumption of caffeinated coffee and tea was associated with lower risk of dementia and modestly better cognitive function, with the most pronounced association at moderate intake levels." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2844764?guestAccessKey=c47ed8f5-4979-46ec-972b-0ff3c63d2a56
I am so glad to hear my lifelong caffeine addiction is doing me some good!
Oxford research using omega 3 and greater amounts of Vitamin B's then you can get in your diet. Have shown A reduction of brain shrinkage in the first year of alzhiemer's by up too 73% . (Oxford University VITACOG trial)
Heh... At 67, this post pained me but then I look to Trump, Putin, and Xi etc. and realize, humanity isn't ready for immortality yet either. I guess I'm willing then to be taking the big one for the team So I wave to you youngsters in your lifeboats and wish you God's speed and go back and make myself comfortable as I listen to the Titanic's orchestra in the time I have left and just pray it's longer than the previously mentioned leaders. ;)
You do not understand what underlies biological viability. It is several generations on the maternal side that allows the mitochondrial DNA to adapt to local climate, food, light and geoelectromagnetic conditions. The cultures you refer to as having exceptional longevity all have relatively homogenous populations that have lived transgenerationally in these countries.
That’s interesting. I’ll have to look for reading material about that idea. Sounds about right to me.
Peter is less optimistic about aging than the 100's of scientists working in the field. True, most of the anti-aging protocols require multiple, sustained, approaches and are far better if started early. One pill is not going to be the solution. The economics of extending human health span by one year in the US is estimated in an Oxford University study to have a net present value of $37 trillion. That seems quite high to me, especially considering the US GDP is about $30 trillion. It is clear that broad application of health span improvements will have a tremendous economic impact and, more persuasively, a more productive and engaging elderly population - not a cadre of curmudgeons sitting around wondering when their social security check will be arriving. I speak with some authority. I've been using the most recent longevity protocols and, as I approach 80, am building a thriving business I started four years ago.
The GLP-1 agonists won't help with aging, 25-30 % of their weight loss is muscle. Much of the frailty of the elderly is not neurological, but muscular. This is why occupations that require substantial physical activity like army, police, fire service, have earlier retirement ages.
say....didn't something happen in Mexico this weekend? I can't remember...
My only question is when does Donald make the call to Dr. Feelgood (on the RFK Jr. Hookup)? The future is now. With respect to gene therapy, seniors could take a short vacation to Panama and get a shot of tiger blood platelets concentrated from the plasma of Olympic ice skaters that didn't make the podium.
Odd. Seems to me that the amount of stupid increases with each generation. I guess that could be just my perception. 😉
no, you can actually measure it, humans became dumber. I guess stone age people had to be much sharper in order to survive
Care to comment on the consequences of the “Mar a Lago Accord” and how the US government changing its valuation of gold might affect domestic and international finance?
well a human is not a machine, it is certainly not true to state an exact age at which peoples brains decline, it depends on so many things and with a healthy livestyle there are also many people without brain decline
well it is very easy to create this GLP1 ourselves inside our bodies: it is called fasting.
so true, intermittent fasting is great to stay young, but I was thinking about waterfasting like 2 Weeks each year, or even twice a year, also some fun 3 D Sports like dancing is great and playing an instrument, also learning new languages keeps our brains busy and young
I take issue with a couple of your statements: (1) There is no evidence that cognitive decline accelerates after age 62. Multiple cross-sectional studies show a steady decline in fluid abilities from age 20 to age 80, with crystallized abilities improving until approximately age 60 followed by a plateau until age 80. I can provide the PubMed reference if desired. (2) That is *not* the reason age 65 was chosen as the age of retirement. Germany became the first nation to adopt an old-age social insurance program in 1889, initially setting the retirement age at 70, and it wasn't lowered to 65 until 1916. When the U.S. adopted Social Security in 1935, the Committee on Economic Security found that roughly half of existing state pension systems used age 65 and half used 70, and their actuarial studies showed that age 65 produced a manageable, self-sustaining system with modest payroll taxes. In fact, when the U.S. enacted Social Security in 1935, life expectancy for American men stood at just 58 years, so the concern at the time was more about economic depression and creating jobs for younger workers than about cognitive decline in retirees. I can provide references for each of my statements. When making these sorts of pronouncements I urge you to do the same
so true
Once again Peter misses the mark. Look at Bezos and most of the Gen X rich people: They’re stronger and fitter than people in their 20s and 30s. The reason is because they don’t want more kids and thus are on T, HGH and GLP-1 along with Creatine for memory and brain performance in addition to muscle recovery. GLP-1 is just a tiny fraction of what the rich and health people have realized and you can see it directly if you know what you’re looking at. The hard part is getting male T and HGH up without sterilization which makes demographics even worse.
not true, they just had any no of surgery
There’s a whole lot more options than what’s listed here. e.g. methylene blue, various notropics, high dosage creatine, etc. 🤷🏻♂️
It's remarkable the progress we've made in biochemistry in a single generation. Routine blood testing is cheap. Doctors are much more science-focused. Vaccinations are remarkable and easy (ummm, for those of us outside the U.S.). While I've seen impressive results with GPL1 agonists in friends, they are still very high in cost for most people. They also have side effects. I'm mindful of my doctor's comment "Mark my words, there will be serious health issues found with these drugs." He prescribed me something else instead.
Also, don’t do cocaine.
And don't drive a boat that is hauling it! That will shorten your life soan considerably. 😉
Studies centered on creatine are showing cognitive improvements in aging population.
While GLP-1 was first approved in 2005 for Type 2 diabetes and had been originally researched in the 1980's, I assume Peter was referring to its rise to stardom as a Hollywood weight loss treatment within the past decade. He hits the nail on the head at the end with his observation about diet and excercize. We watch him use this strategy almost every day. While we cannot comment on his diet, we all see him at "work" hiking around the world. And, don't let him fool you, he's not a Gen-Xer, he's actually 102 and eats well and excercizes every day. That's the secret people!
If there was a drug that extended life for us to be productive past 60 do we really want to spend our 60s working 40 to 50 hours a week lol
Yes. I love what I do! My mentor retired from his 3rd career when he reached 80. An active mind is as important as an healthy body.
How depressing. As Gen X I really don’t have any motivation to work any Seder than absolutely necessary right now. I hope not to have cognitive decline, but I’m sure it would take a big cut of any income I bring in because of increased productivity. Yippee
Whatever happened to the new drug that created perfect memory? I remember several years ago a big news splash on the internet about a drug that enabled perfect memory in rats about to start human trials. There was a big debate about the distribution of this new drug in a fair way. A person that could remember everything they saw and read would have a huge mental advantage over others without this drug. It was speculated that when this drug came out, it would only be available to the very rich, creating a superior ruling class of humans. This news completely disappeared overnight. I can’t find it in any Internet search. Did I imagine this? Or did a very rich person/government take the technology and erase record that it existed? If the hype failed, I think the news of failure would be on the internet. Anyone?
Micro dosing lithium has some good results in early trials. I have no interest in working until I die, but I would like to avoid ending up in a nursing home.
Heaven’s waiting room…
Maybe if people weren’t viewed as “Human Resources” to be worked to death, we might not be in this situation, but since anything left of John Birch is woke (read, godless communism), the only hope is drugs and raising the retirement age. Welcome to Ferenginar.
Peters last few sentences are spec on and point to an emergent discipline in health care.... "Longevity Medicine" The medical community is slow to embrace but interestingly the financial people have keyed into. Check out David Sinclair or Peter Atia and the like. Goes all the way back to Hippocrates "let food be thy medicine"
Maybe on a broad basis, drugs aren’t available, but the information here is dated We should look at individuals like Bryan Johnson are doing with anti-aging. He in a group of others involved in bio hacking have managed to achieve rates of anti-age and slowing down their own aging by almost 40%. This is not hyperbole. This is clinical fact, but for the rest of us, one of the most important things you can do to get eight hours of sleep a day. Follow that up with getting rid of shit food in your diet and excercise..
A very large number of people across the world only have access to s#*& food, we all need to work on that!
This class of drugs can be miraculous for some, particularly those with severe Type II diabetes. But for humanity in general, there are big downsides. The risk of severe gastrointestinal dysfunction is high, and is frequently irreversible. We don't know yet how to tell which patients may have these devastating and life-altering side effects. Also, the drugs stop you from eating food, healthy or otherwise. Scurvy, severe vitamin B deficiencies, and other very unhealthy states are showing up in the population that takes these drugs. Muscle wasting is very common. So if you take these drugs, you need to focus on an extremely healthy diet and lots of muscle-building exercise. The vast majority of people who start them stop them within a year. So at this point, they can be useful but are no panacea for aging humanity.
But at least you’ll look great at your funeral 🍺
Yeah, I wanna live longer, so I can work more. Capitalist dream. You'd think corps would fast track the research and force feed it to their slaves, err valued mployees. Why don't they pay me nothing to work that extra time too. Live longer to relax longer, if you ask me.
The problem I have heard regarding Ozempic and others of its ilk is that the positive effect of weight loss plateaus after five (5) years. From that point on you MUST keep taking the drug or all the weight will return. So... you become a drug addict forced to choose between any negative side effects or the return of the weight. In my opinion the real solution will be when we crack two (2) solid technologies. Number one being genetic engineering to redesign our bodies to not get fat, and number two perfect retroviral engineering to deliver the modified genetics to the body. Until then, bandages on bullet holes.
Good points. Although I'm not sure I would want to be genetically altered to not gain fat. There are plenty of probabilities for the future where we are all going to have less food, and we have evolved over time to store food from those periods we get food, in the form of fat. Look at most major religions--they all have fasting seasons. Those were probably originally designed to make sure the congregation got a little food and didn't starve to death during the agricultural off season, and to ensure that the elites didn't hoard what little food existed during those periods for themselves. This over abundance of food may end up being a blip on the timeline, nothing more....
On behalf of all millennials, of whom I represent without their consent, I iz sadz 2 inform uz dat we haz cognitv brain dum dum know! Wez no knew + orz how could read n the X! We 8 tide podz. We huff gas. 🧠 bad. Ssserry
Oh PZ you are so far off on this. Next 5 years is going to make this vid look silly. It won’t be about working longer. Giant reset coming.
Hoping you’re right
Today’s New York Times had an article positing the economy would decline 11% if we lost access to Taiwan’s advanced chips. Are we doing anything meaningful about this vulnerability?
I’m stocking up on donuts
Interesting, but what good is extended life if our jobs are going to be taken by AI and automation? 🤔
I started to hear a lot of good things about Ozempic, even Kurzgesagt made a video that almost promoted the drug. Is it really without downsides? Since childhood, every thing related to weight loss was either a scam or was working but was a disaster in terms of your health 😀 Does everyone get sixpacks now? 😀
Well, no one really cares about side effects because the business plan is Bulletproof ft. Sia, there’s no 30 years case studies and the wealth is enormous. American Pharma doesn’t do gang violence like the Mexicans, but the ROI is global and companies are starting to beat each other up, in this case because Hims/Hers was advertising too much: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/02/09/novo-nordisk-sues-hims-hers-compounded-obesity-drugs.html This also is a great read from late last year: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/08/26/how-glp-1s-wegovy-zepbound-are-reshaping-the-economy.html In the end, people will probably choose the GLPs over putting down the high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar and other high glycemic index foods that are staples of the American diet and the cause of obesity in the first place.
Ethernal youth? No because of the bloody Spaniards . https://youtu.be/6TUXbS5meZw?si=J0eKnY8NzcvfWRCr