The sport of rejuvenation athletics exists at the intersection of sport and medicine. While efforts to slow and reverse aging have merit from a sporting and competitive character, they also have an important medical role.
The outstanding work of Zhu et al (1) demonstrated that for the 4 most common cancers in the UK and USA, the following broad cancer risk factors can be attributed:
· ~1-7% to random mutations (so called ‘bad luck’)
· ~42% to lifestyle factors (smoking, alcohol, radiation)
· ~50% to ‘extrinsic internal’ factors
Nearly all public health campaigns and messaging focus on mitigating the effects of lifestyle on cancer development. That is smoking cessation, reducing alcohol consumption, improved diet and activity levels, and use of sunscreen to name a few.
The 1-7% risk factors attributed to random mutations are sensibly not addressed by public health groups given there are no interventions clinically available yet. Though it would be rude not to mention the fascinating work of group such as Wolf Reik and Juan Carlos Belmonte who have been able to reset differentiated cells back to their pluripotent state. By daring to return cells back to their pluripotent state, we can imagine a day where we can mitigate and perhaps even eradicate the inborn ‘bad luck’ random errors of cell replication. One day the 1-7% may even be 0-1%.
More prudently we should look in detail at the ‘extrinsic internal’ risk factors that account for the bulk of the global cancer risk profile. What is the extrinsic internal? In essence, it is a grouping of changes within the body that are not driven by obvious behavioural choices (like smoking or alcohol) but nonetheless are not inevitable and can be mitigated or reversed. These include the phenomena of aging, inflammation, hormonal, and metabolic changes.
How can we reduce or mitigate aging or metabolic changes? This is the art of rejuvenation - or the sport of rejuvenation athletics. Epigenetic clocks allow us to measure the rate of biological aging and compare this to chronological age. What gets measured, gets improved. Through personalised programmes with cycles of iterations, we can produce optimal individualised lifestyles to reduce the rate of aging, optimise hormonal health, and optimise metabolic efficiency and health. The competitive nature of reducing aging is the sport. Reducing the relative and absolute contribution of the ‘extrinsic internal’ is the medical imperative.
References:
1. Zhu W, Wu S, Hannun YA. Contributions of the intrinsic mutation process to cancer mutation and risk burdens. EBioMedicine. 2017 Oct;24:5–6.