Key Points:
- Julie Gibson Clark is one of the top participants in the Rejuvenation Olympics, a global longevity competition, and she only spends a little over $100 per month for her anti-aging regimen.
- In contrast, longevity guru Bryan Johnson, who ranks behind Clark, spends a reported $2 million a year on anti-aging consultations, products, and exercises.
- Clark ages at a pace of 0.665 biological years for each chronological year, where a value less than 1.0 indicates statistically decelerated aging.
Julie Gibson Clark is a 55-year-old single mom from Phoenix who ranks number two on the worldwide leaderboard of an online competitive longevity game — the Rejuvenation Olympics. This longevity game tracks and ranks about 4,000 participants based on what’s called “biological” aging — where a higher or lower biological age compared to chronological age indicates accelerated or slowed aging, respectively.
To measure biological age, participants in the Rejuvenation Olympics undergo tests measuring how fast or slow they age based on DNA molecular tagging patterns (methylation). These tests provide insight into how environmental and lifestyle factors, like abstaining from smoking and/or consuming polyphenol-containing plants, influence the activation of people’s genes to give an indication of their pace of aging.
As for Clark’s slowed pace of aging, she does not use a team of scientists or expensive medical treatments to reverse her age. Instead, she sticks to a vegetable-rich diet, exercises, and meditates for 20 minutes a day. Her biggest anti-aging expenditures come from a $27-per-month gym membership as well as a $79-per-month supplement subscription.
Clark’s low-cost anti-aging regimen has slowed her biological aging to 0.665 years for every chronological year. This pace of aging was determined by averaging biological aging scores over the course of about six months.
As such, Clark currently sits ahead of one of the country’s most famous biohackers for age reversal, Bryan Johnson, on the leaderboard of the Rejuvenation Olympics. In contrast to Clark’s anti-aging regimen, Johnson spends a reported $2 million a year on his age-reversal regimen that includes dozens of daily pills and a team of 30 doctors. Along these lines, Johnson currently places at number six in the Rejuvenation Olympics, aging at 0.72 biological years for each chronological year.
Women Are Gaining Ground in the Male-Skewed Longevity Market
The composition of the longevity market, which encompasses boutique healthcare clinics offering full-body scans, supplement subscriptions, doctors giving preventive medical advice, and exercise regimens, is currently valued at over $26 billion. The value of the longevity market is expected to nearly double over the next decade. The clientele for this booming, high-end healthcare sector has skewed male, but the numbers and influence of women in this sector are growing, according to a Fortune article.
Many of these women are driven by a feeling of being shut out by traditional medicine and research, leading them to take their healthcare-related needs into their own hands. What’s more, many have applied longevity goal-oriented daily routines to their lives so that they can live longer for those whom they love and care for.
Clark Equates Her Pro-Longevity Routine to Daily Hygiene
Clark has neither the time nor the resources to devote to longevity-oriented biohacking — engaging in lifestyle changes to alter one’s biology and enhance well-being — like Bryan Johnson. Instead of engaging in longevity-focused biohacking routines like Johnson, Clark calls herself “health-conscious.”
Clark considers her daily regimen to fight aging more than a “hack.” “I don’t like that term,” says Clark, a recruiter who makes less than $100,000 per year, in a Fortune article. After Clark submitted a salivary sample to measure her DNA’s methylation patterns and her pace of biological aging, she was a bit surprised to find how well she measured up.
“I was like, wow,” she says, and adds, “That also confirmed this stuff has to just kind of be like brushing your teeth.”
For her routine, Clarke starts her day between 4:45 and 5 AM. She sends her 17-year-old son to school and then goes to the gym for strength and cardio training. She also fasts for 16 hours overnight on a daily basis, often eating her first meal between 10 and 11 AM. Moreover, at least three times a week, Clark uses a sauna for 20 minutes before taking a cold shower. While working, Clark eats 16 ounces of vegetables a day, mixing raw celery, radishes, peppers, carrots, and broccoli, along with a salad or soup. In the early afternoon, she meditates for about 20 minutes.
A health scare that Clark had over a decade ago propelled her to adopt her healthy lifestyle. When the health scare arose, Clark was having difficulty getting up in the morning, constantly feeling fatigued, and was losing her hair. Eventually, she tested positive for heavy metal poisoning, likely from her time spent mixing toxic glazes without a mask as a ceramics major in college. While undergoing treatment for her condition, she started focusing more intently on her health.
Her teenage son gives her a constant source of motivation, according to Clark. She wants to be there for him as long as possible, minimizing any negative repercussions of aging.
Determining Who Uses the Best Anti-Aging Regimen
The burgeoning longevity market has spurred people to “take the bull by the horns” in attempts to slow the rate at which their bodies age. Interestingly, Clark has tentatively slowed her biological aging rate better than longevity gurus like Bryan Johnson as shown by the Rejuvenation Olympics absolute leaderboard, all the while using cheaper anti-aging alternatives. The Rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard will almost surely get updated, though, further stimulating the race to see who can slow aging the best. With this in mind, the verdict is still out to find who uses the most superior anti-aging strategies.
With the longevity market sector’s skew toward a majority male clientele, women may soon equal or surpass their male counterparts in identifying cheaper and more effective pro-longevity routines. Along those lines, three of the top five participants on the Rejuvenation Olympics absolute leaderboard are female, which means it is possible that women using budget-friendly anti-aging techniques are outcompeting wealthy men like Bryan Johnson in terms of longevity.
Comments