Some of the world’s best scientific minds are dedicated to exploring every gene and cell in our body to work out how to stave off the aging process and keep us healthy for longer.

Funded by billionaires like Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, the so-called “renovation science” is now a big business in the heart of Silicon Valley.

New anti-aging ideas range from drug treatments to crazy procedures like injecting young people’s blood.

Several studies in the 1990s and early 2000s showed that older mice injected with blood from younger mice experienced an increase in proteins responsible for repairing damaged tissue, as well as improved brain, muscle and liver function. The US government’s National Institute of Health funds independent research into the treatment.

The pursuit of immortality is no longer the focus. More recently, it has also become a matter of extending something called healthy life expectancy, or “healthspan”.

“There is a moral imperative to try to find ways to keep people healthy for longer, to try and reduce this period of job loss at the end of their lives,” says Professor Dame Linda Partridge, a geneticist at University College London. One method being explored is to give healthy people drugs that treat diseases such as cancer and diabetes years before the disease develops.

And in 2014, US researchers made a remarkable discovery about an antibiotic usually given to transplant patients.

In experiments, middle-aged dogs given the drug, called rapamycin, had above-average heart function for their age. They were also less likely to develop age-related heart disease later in life, compared to a group of dogs who were not given the drug.

Other animal studies have found that it can increase life expectancy by up to 38% and produce more energy later in the creature’s life.

Early studies in humans show that it has a rejuvenating effect on the immune system. The Stanford University researchers found that older adults given a six-week course of rapamycin had an unusually strong response to the flu vaccine and had fewer infections than a group not given the drug.

There are currently more than 2,000 trials looking at the anti-aging effect of rapamycin worldwide – 1,000 of which are in the United States.

Another drug under research is metformin, which has been used to treat diabetes since the 1950s to lower blood sugar levels. But studies have found that people who take it live longer than those who take different diabetes medications, and marginally longer than people who don’t have diabetes.

How do these drugs work? Scientists believe the effect on the body is similar to that of a fasting diet – long known for its anti-aging benefits.

Studies have shown that calorie restriction has a rejuvenating effect on damaged cells.

The lack of nutrients causes the cells of the body to break down for energy, and the first thing that is used is those that are damaged or malfunctioning. This results in the elimination of old, half-dead cells that could have caused disease later in life, while a greater proportion of healthy cells remain.

Studies have shown that the number of dead cells in a person is directly related to the risk of developing age-related diseases such as dementia, cancer and diabetes, among other age-related problems.

Fasting also causes the body to start using fat stores as fuel, which stimulates the release of a chemical that has been shown in some studies to promote new connections in the brain, boosting cognition. Medications such as rapamycin and metformin trick the body into thinking there are no nutrients, which leads to the same effect.

Silicon Valley companies investing in research into these drugs have come up with a new term for them: anti-aging drugs. Some are modified to specifically reverse the effects of aging.

California-based Unity Biotechnology is developing drugs that are said to cleanse the body of aging and dying cells.

She unveiled early results from her first human study — looking at whether a newly developed aging solution could improve age-related vision loss — and reported improved vision and reduced damage to the retina, the tissue in the back of the eye that sends images to the The brain. Moreover, there are larger studies already underway.

Other Silicon Valley-backed scientists believe that the secret to turning back the clock lies in our genes.

And in 2006, Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka discovered tiny modifications in our DNA that can turn cells into smaller copies of themselves. Today, a number of Silicon Valley startups, including Jeff Bezos’ Altos Labs company, are studying the technology to see if it can prevent age-related diseases.

Previous studies found that using these genetic modifications reduced signs of aging in mice and extended their overall lifespan by six weeks. And another 2020 study found that this technique could completely restore sight to elderly mice.

Do these innovations hold the key to eternal youth, or even healthier old age?