Bryan Johnson, the billionaire who spends nearly two million dollars a year on slowing down his aging, has just revealed that he suffers from autoimmune gastritis, an incurable condition in which his own immune system destroys the cells of the stomach lining. This confession has sparked a global debate about whether all the effort and fortune invested to achieve that coveted ‘immortality’ makes sense.
The question is not gratuitous. Biology and genetics do not understand class, nor how much money you have in your bank account to fight against the passage of time. If you draw bad cards, life will already speed up.
Thus, is it worth pushing the body to the limit to delay our biological age by a few years? And more mundanely, to what extent can we improve after 45–50 years old, no matter the therapy, training and treatments to which we subject ourselves?
After the 40… yes, it is possible
Dr. Débora Nuevo, head of the Longevity Unit and the Microbiota Unit at Olympia Quirónsalud, explains that “biology does not turn back the clock, but it does allow rewriting much of the trajectory”.
At 45 or 50, we do not start from zero. There is already a smaller physiological reserve than at 20, but, as Nuevo asserts, “we still have a remarkable capacity to adapt to exercise, sleep, and nutrition“.
What changes is not so much the potential as the time we need to reach it. In other words, the real difference is not in the ‘ceiling’ that can be reached, but in the starting slope and the speed of progress. “A 20-year-old improves faster and with less effort, but at 45 the same stimulus yields less gain per unit of effort. This is because at this age there is a lower anabolic sensitivity, slower recovery, and different hormonal reserves,” the expert notes.
To achieve gains similar to those of the ‘youngsters’, a person in middle age needs more consistency, better planning and more attention to recovery. “But even at these ages the margin for improvement remains large. Most people at this age are functioning far below their real physiological potential, so the possible improvement path is often greater than the gap compared with someone of 20,” she recalls.
What ages you the most is staying on the couch
So does age matter less than we think? When we talk about aging, we usually imagine a linear and irreversible process. Science tells another story. One of the studies that changed cardiologists’ view of aging was the study led by Dr. Benjamin Levine, of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, affiliated with the University of Texas Southwestern.
The research followed for two years sedentary adults around 53 years old who began a structured exercise program. The results surprised even the researchers: the participants increased their aerobic capacity by about 18% and managed to reverse much of the stiffness of the left ventricle, one of the classic changes associated with cardiovascular aging.
This work confirmed something fundamental: often we do not age because we grow older; we age because we stop moving. “That explains why a 45-year-old who starts training can reach physiological parameters similar to those of a 20- or 30-year-old adult who is sedentary. What will not be fully recovered is the speed at which the body responds nor some physiological limits typical of youth, but the margin for improvement remains enormous,” the specialist notes.
Continuity and high intensity
Amid the biohacking craze, social networks are full of miraculous methods to increase energy or delay aging. However, when asked to specialists, the answer is usually much simpler: the important thing is not to find the perfect training, but to combine different stimuli in an intelligent way.
To improve VO₂ max —one of the markers that best predict cardiovascular health and lifespan— a 15-20% increase is possible without compromising joint health and within a realistic range.
Protocol with scientific backing
The specialist from the Longevity Unit and the Microbiota Unit at Olympia Quirónsalud lists the protocols with the strongest scientific backing:
- Moderate HIIT, 2 times a week: 4×4 intervals (4 minutes at 85-90% of maximum heart rate, 3 minutes of active recovery).
- Training in Zone 2 as a base: 3 to 4 sessions weekly of 30-45 minutes at conversational intensity, which improves mitochondrial efficiency without the joint wear of continuous high-intensity training.
- Low impact to protect the joints: cycling, elliptical, swimming or rowing instead of pure running, especially if there is already joint wear.
- Lower-body strength work improves running economy and reduces injuries, indirectly boosting functional VO₂ max.
- The key is not intensity alone, but gradual progression and variability of stimuli.
It is possible to gain muscle mass
One of the changes that worries most people from middle age onward is the loss of muscle mass, but the truth is that muscle has far more memory than we imagine. Research on sarcopenia led by the Nottingham University physiologist Mark Piasecki showed that, in part, it is because some muscle fibers stop receiving nerve signals, a phenomenon called denervation.
What is interesting is that strength training promotes the creation of new connections between nerves and muscle. Dr. Nuevo confirms that we can indeed gain muscle mass from 45, even though the muscle responds more slowly. With age, the so-called anabolic resistance appears, meaning the muscle needs a greater stimulus to grow, but according to Nuevo, this can be compensated with these 3 well-executed pillars:
- Protein: between 1.6 and 2.2 g/kg/day, distributed in 3-4 meals of 25-40 g of high-quality protein, to maximize muscle protein synthesis in each meal and not just the total daily amount.
- Progressive strength training: 2 to 3 sessions weekly, with real progressive overload, prioritizing multi-joint exercises.
- Rest and sleep: muscle protein synthesis occurs largely during deep sleep. Poor sleep negates much of the training stimulus, and insufficient sleep raises cortisol, which has a catabolic effect on the muscle.
The brain can be trained
Not only the body benefits from all this good news: the latest discoveries in neuroscience also offer reasons for cognitive optimism. According to Dr. Nuevo, ‘Aerobic exercise continues to be the most effective intervention to stimulate the production of BDNF, a protein essential for neuroplasticity’.
Although the true memory stimulant almost always goes unnoticed: sleep. ‘Deep sleep is the moment when the brain clears waste proteins via the glymphatic system and probably is one of the most underrated interventions to protect brain health’.
To this adds another piece of advice that science strongly supports: learn new things. A language, a musical instrument or any complex skill forces the brain to build new connections much more effectively than cognitive training apps. In the end, the most effective biohacking remains taking care of the basics: moving, eating well and resting. The lifelong approach.
