Andrew Steele

@statto

Ageing biologist (aren’t we all?) Author of Presenter of Founder of @thelongevityinitiative.org

1.302 Folgt3.513 Follower1.017 Posts

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Andrew Steele@statto· 4d

The first moments of totality in Mallorca #eclipse 🧪

The left side of the sky looks like sunset; the right side looks like half an hour afterwards. In the middle, a glowing ring of fire floats above distant Mallorcan hills.

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 15

“We have this rampant idea now that to show any signs of dementia is something that we want to stave off or avoid for as long as we can,” he said, “potentially forever.” After all, who wants to lose their memories, their independence, and forget their children’s names?

“We have this rampant idea now that to show any signs of ageing is something that we want to stave off or avoid for as long as we can,” Lytle said, “potentially forever.” After all, who wants to die?

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 15

The ultimate goal of anti-cancer and oncology is to stop normal biological processes, so any signs of cancer—aberrant cell division, metastasis—mean that we’re failing. There is no end to cancer, apart from death. There’s always another drug to trial, another procedure to test.

The ultimate goal of anti-ageing and longevity is to stop normal biological processes, so any signs of ageing – grey hair, wrinkles, saggy skin – mean that you’re failing. But DeFino argues that failure is the ultimate success of the anti-ageing industry. There is no end to ageing, apart from death. There’s always another product to buy, another procedure to undergo, another supplement to take.

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 15

‘Doctors will no longer use the term “anti-cancer”. One medic argued that by using it, “we’re subtly reinforcing the message that cancer is a condition we need to battle”.’ (There are issues with ‘battle’ metaphors for individuals, but as a society, we should fight!)

DeFino links the terminology shift back to the fashion magazine Allure’s 2017 announcement that it would no longer use the term “anti-ageing”. Editor Michelle Lee argued that by using it, “we’re subtly reinforcing the message that ageing is a condition we need to battle”.

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 8

I wrote a piece about Bryan Johnson’s diagnosis with autoimmune gastritis. Check it out here: www.linkedin.com/pulse/bryan-...

Headline: Bryan Johnson’s ‘stomach-eating disease’ and the limits of biohacking

I’m genuinely sorry to hear that Bryan Johnson is unwell. But his diagnosis with autoimmune gastritis shows the limits of flashy biohacking versus real medicine.

Johnson spends a fortune measuring himself, but it seems like he’s spent too long focussed on social-media-friendly measures like biological age scores and night-time erections while overlooking a boring marker of the body’s iron stores, ferritin.

He posted a 2,000-word (!) story to X, which reveals some fascinating details. The ‘The Most Measured Man in Human History’ was 48 and had never had a…

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 7

I’m genuinely sorry to hear that Bryan is unwell. But this episode shows the limits of flashy biohacking theatre vs real medicine: too much focus on social-media-friendly measures like epigenetic clocks and night time erections while overlooking low ferritin for over a decade.

Screenshot of a post from Bryan Johnson:

Bryan Johnson
@bryan_johnson
Bad news #1:

I have an autoimmune disease. My stomach is eating itself.

Bad news #2:

2–5% of people have this, too. Likely more, because it hides.

Good news:

I'm going to try and solve it. Will share all.

…

(it’s very long)

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 4

Honourable mention to an American organism: a bristlecone pine named Methuselah, high in California’s White Mountains, is ~4,850 years old. It was a seedling before the pyramids, and is older than every country on Earth. 📷 By Dcrjsr, CC BY-SA 3.0

A beautiful ancient tree, towering against a deep blue sky (probably not Methuselah, whose location is kept secret)

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 4

These are all aquatic creatures—on dry land, the oldest animal with a reliably documented age is Jonathan the tortoise, at a mere ~193. When he was born, the US was a sprightly 57 years old! 📷 By Kevstan, CC BY-SA 4.0

A big tortoise (Jonathan himself!) sat on some grass, munching on a blade of it

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 4

The giant volcanic sponge (Anoxycalyx joubini): one individual was estimated at ~15,000 years old. Antarctic sponges live deep in the ocean, in extremely cold temperatures and high pressures, which may slow their growth and aging processes. 📷 PLoS ONE 8(2): e56939, CC BY 4.0

Weird blue-green vase shapes in the depths of the ocean

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 4

The ocean quahog (Arctica islandica): the oldest ever clam was nicknamed Ming, and died aged 507 based on scientists counting rings in its shell. This means it was born around 1500. We don’t know how long it might have lived if it hadn’t been caught… 📷 H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0

Scientific photos of a clam, from lots of different angles, on a black background

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 4

Happy 250th birthday, America! 🎂🇺🇸 To put that into perspective: here are some animals that live even longer—some of them alive today were probably around when the Declaration was signed… 🧵

A Greenland shark, looking blue, appearing out of the inky black depths of the ocean

Andrew Steele@statto· Jul 1

Since I guess no-one will click on the links I will spoil this Easter egg I put in for my own amusement: ‘supposed’ links to the ITP paper that showed nicotinamide riboside doesn’t extend lifespan in mice. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

97-year-old Chinese billionaire Li Ka-shing swears by a supposed anti-ageing supplement called nicotinamide riboside, and has invested $25m (£18.5m) in a company that makes it.

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 26

This silver parasol reflects both UV (sunburn, skin ageing) and IR (heat), so I’m trying it out in the oppressive 35°C heat in London. I’d like to do a randomised trial to see if it actually affects my core body temperature, but I think it would be unethical to put myself in the control group.

Me holding a silver umbrella on a London street, dressed in a stupid hot shirt and sunglasses.

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 22

I had a look at they actually graph this in the supplementary—and the left figure here shows the whole distribution going up, not just a tail fattening, from my read? I guess this is the eternal question for these biological age clocks—what's their validity outside the cohort they were trained in?

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 22

I honestly think until we do something interventional we might just not know, at least not for decades! Plausibly obesity is accelerating aging, but diet quality, lifestyle, air quality, infections etc have all basically improved so I’d be somewhat surprised? Just checked the discussion and…

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 19

This is a good point, thanks! Boys were only vaccinated from 2019, so going from 0 to ~70–80% here will have topped up herd immunity too.

Similar graph to the above for boys—same pattern, but starting later and fewer columns

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 19

I should have scrolled down further: vaccination rates are even higher in the cohort relevant to these cancer stats. Let’s hope we don’t see an uptick in cancer rates thanks to the reduction in coverage more recently. (But herd immunity hopefully means it will be pretty small.)

Graph of coverage of female cohorts by calendar year from 2013 to 2022. Rates hover around 89% until 2016, then slowly decline to ~75% of completed cohorts more recently.

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 18

I’m pretty sure a ladybird would beat a skateboard in a race

Captcha, with the text ‘Select all items that would beat the object in a race’, a picture of a skateboard, and then a grid of pictures of cars, ladybirds, starfish and a bench

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 18

When you look at death rates since 1970, the effect of the vaccine is striking. There’s maybe a tiny downward trend if you squint, but the story is ‘flat, but noisy’ (due to mercifully tiny numbers). It’s only in the most recent cohort that there’s a totally unprecedented drop.

Screenshot of a spreadsheet, and a graph illustrating what the post says!

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 18

‘But this is a tiny number of women! Something about statistics!’ The odds of going from > 20 deaths in this age group to LITERALLY ZERO if the vaccine wasn’t the driver are ‘essentially impossible’.

Using the three pre-2020 five-year periods as the baseline, the average count is:

λ = (25+16+27)/3 ≈ 22.7

If deaths followed a Poisson process with that unchanged baseline, the chance of getting zero deaths in 2020–24 is:

P(0)=exp(−22.7) ≈ 1.4×10^−10

That is about 1 in 7 billion.

Andrew Steele@statto· Jun 16

Red moon rising over Oxford. 15 years ago today, I took this photo from a field a few miles outside Oxford—and it was a runner up in Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2011! I had planned it for June 15th, when a total lunar eclipse would have been visible…but it was cloudy, so…

A huge red moon sits on the horizon against a deep blue twilight sky, with the spires of Oxford in the foreground, including the university church, Radcliffe Camera, Christ Church, and more

Andrew Steele@statto· May 15

I flew from Germany to San Francisco today, and the views of the frozen north were the best I’ve ever had. We really need to do more to protect this vast, fragile expanse. (I understand the irony of being reminded of this from a long-haul flight.)

A glacier snakes through mountains in a white landscape under a clear blue sky, framed by the porthole of a plane window.

Andrew Steele@statto· May 8

Happy 100th birthday, Sir David Attenborough! For every 1,000 boys born in 1926, only 5 are still around today. He’s a national treasure *and* a statistical outlier.

Line chart titled ‘Happy 100th birthday, David Attenborough! Here’s his incredible story compared to other babies born in 1926.’

The chart shows percent of the babies born in 1926 still alive. Two lines, male (blue) and female (red), both starting at 100% and declining. Both fall steeply in the first year of life and level off around 90%: 11% of boys and 9% of girls born in 1926 didn't make it to age 5.

A shaded band labelled WWII covers ages 13 to 19. The male curve has a visible additional dip around age 18 — the cohort turned 18 in 1944, and a substantial number of young men in particular died in the late stages of the Second World War.

By age 65 (1991), 64% of men and 75% of women born in 1926 were still alive. The female line stays consistently above the male, and the gap widens through old age.

By 2026, Sir David is one of just 0.5% of men and 1.7% of women to celebrate their 100th birthday.

Data: Human Mortality Database, England & Wales cohort life tables.

Andrew Steele@statto· May 7

I asked Gemini for some quotes from me on this topic…and they’re all sourced from that article! AI eating its own tail and poisoning its own dataset…

Dr. Andrew Steele, author of Ageless, is known for a pragmatic, evidence-based approach to longevity. His philosophy generally prioritizes lifestyle foundations and "repurposed" medical drugs over the expensive, unproven supplement "stacks" often marketed to men in their 40s and 50s. Here are relevant quotes and insights from Dr. Steele regarding supplementation and aging:1. On the "Precise" Approach to AgingSteele often argues that as men enter middle age, they should stop guessing and start being selective based on biological needs rather than marketing. "As we age, supplementation should become more precise, not more aggressive. Most people don't need more pills—they need the right supplements, based on real physiological changes." 2. On Creatine and Muscle PreservationFor men over 40, sarcopenia (muscle loss) becomes a primary concern. Steele highlights creatine as one of the few supplements with a solid evidence base. "Creatine is one of the most studied and safest supplements we have. And its benefits don't diminish with age—they arguably become more valuable. For men [over 40/50], maintaining strength isn't about aesthetics—it's about longevity, independence, and injury prevention." 3. On Testosterone BoostersThe "Low-T" market heavily targets men over 40, but Steele remains highly skeptical of over-the-counter herbal solutions. "Testosterone decline with age is real, but supplements are rarely the solution. If there's a clinical issue, it should be addressed medically—not with herbal blends. Save your money." 4. On Popular "Anti-Aging" Molecules (NMN, NR, Resveratrol)While many longevity influencers promote NAD+ boosters and Resveratrol, Steele often points out that the human evidence is still lagging behind the hype."None of these quite has the firm evidence base to suggest that healthy people should take them preventatively, but there's plenty of biochemical diversity there for researchers to explore."

Andrew Steele@statto· May 7

I got a Google Alert for my name yesterday, pointing to an article for an outlet I’d never spoken to, full of quotes I’ve never said. It’s now corrected…but the editor told me ‘I asked Google to find an expert but I think it used AI.’ Isn’t it your job to check..?

“As we age, supplementation should become more precise, not more aggressive,” says Dr. Andrew Steele, a researcher in ageing biology. “Most people don’t need more pills – they need the right supplements, based on real physiological changes.”

Andrew Steele@statto· May 2

An ageing population doesn’t need to mean falling living standards: both Japan and South Korea continue to see rising GDP per capita during this transition, too. The critical thing is keeping people healthy for longer, and longevity science could help with that!

GDP per Capita for Japan and South Korea, 1990 to present. Both lines go up! (South Korea’s particularly steeply, it goes from below Japan to shoot past it recently!)

Andrew Steele@statto· Apr 27

I was in @thesun.co.uk at the weekend! Check out the full interview at steele.link/sun

Andrew Steele@statto· Apr 7

Artemis II just set a new record: the furthest any human has ever been from Earth. But how far is that? I made a to-scale diagram of the Earth–Moon system to try to make sense of it. 🧵

Andrew Steele@statto· Apr 4

I also took a bit of artistic licence and enhanced the aurora at the top right and bottom left! The lower ones are particularly amazing: you can see not just the green curtains, but pinks and reds caused by interactions between the solar wind and gases higher in the atmosphere.

Andrew Steele@statto· Apr 4

This picture is from the window of Artemis and, as normally shown online, it’s confusing: it’s a picture of the *night* side of the Earth—illuminated by moonlight appropriately enough!—but it’s been taken with a super-sensitive camera that makes it look like daytime.