Shattering Our Glass Ceiling

Imagine there was a table covered with fleas. The fleas would jump and jump to heights unknown. Then a man came along, and upturned a glass jar over the fleas. Fleas jumped and hit the top of the jar, and could go no further. Then the man removed the jar, and yet the fleas did not jump higher than they had grown accustomed, because they believed there to still be a glass ceiling.

- Dancer (Red Rising by Pierce Brown)

The human body is flow of energy. It is a cascade of biochemical reactions, communications, and interconnected processes, that, when left unattended, deteriorate over time. We call this process aging.

While governed by entropy, life, unlike fragile mechanical processes (think engines) knows no theoretical limit.¹ When the human body is in harmony, it self repairs, and, almost magically, builds itself stronger than before in response to damage. Through this lens, we are an ever expanding and contracting jigsaw puzzle. Without focus, the jigsaw contracts and deteriorates until it is too hard to make sense of the jumbled pieces that remain. But with proper attention, we can not only slow this deterioration, but reverse it.

While we continue to advance our understanding of the cascade, getting a yearly physical is a stark reminder of the nearsightedness of the current medical system. A golden rule of medicine states that a measurement should not be taken if its result has no bearing on the treatment administered to the patient. Yet, the cholesterol levels of millions of young patients is measured through a blood draw, but even if the result comes back red, the ten year risk of heart attack remains 0% for those under 40, simply by virtue of the patients age. No action is taken.

The 10 year lung cancer risk of a pack a day smoker that just saw the turn of their second decade is similarly 0%.

Cholesterol is an unsexy yet powerful example. It is a low hanging fruit: anyone who truly optimizes their cholesterol² can almost forget about having a heart attack, the cause of death of nearly one in five of us.

Perhaps a more immediately appealing example is glucose optimization. If done properly, we can increase the energy efficiency of our bodies so much that certain physical tasks that once tired us out can be accomplished effortlessly. Your doctor calculates your blood glucose once a year through a blood draw. Of course, this is not enough biological feedback to optimize your energy metabolism—although your doctor was perhaps only concerned with detecting pre-diabetes, even though this measurement isn’t even enough to make a diagnosis.

A continuous glucose monitor—still locked behind a prescription, unfortunately—takes over a thousand readings of your glucose a day.

So two distinct domains emerge for optimization: decreasing the rate of our jigsaw puzzle’s deterioration (improve lifespan), and increasing its rate of expansion (improve healthspan). Regardless of whether you deem our glass ceiling to be instated by God or evolution, it has been cracked, if not shattered, by advancements in technology within the past few decades. But it will certainly take a few more decades for these advancements to reach your doctor’s office.

We therefore introduce 121Health, an everything app for your healthspan & longevity. Join our beta waitlist now.

1. Certain types of cells are subject to division limits like the Hayflick Limit. Yet, stem cells dismiss this limit entirely, and, theoretically, any cell can be converted to a stem cell by a change in transcription factors.

2. The truth is, of course, more nuanced than this. Cholesterol moderating pharmacology may have drawbacks for some, and heart disease takes slightly more than just reducing apoB particle count.