Vancouver-based Jevitty Life Sciences wants to help people live beyond 200 years
Jevitty estimates how long you can live based on your lifestyle.
Despite the soothing spa music, I was fully conscious of my purpose at last week's body composition scan in Vancouver: to have everything my body has gone through over the past 20 years laid out in plain, scientific terms. Having a DEXA (dual-energy x-ray) scan took six minutes, and afterwards I received a detailed report on my bone density and fat content (interesting fact: I have more muscle in my right arm than my left one. Which hand do you think I use to smash bugs on my desk?). I was anxious. An individualised physical training programme developed by Jevitty Life Sciences in collaboration with Innovative Fitness is just one of several possibilities. The Jevitty app (which took a million dollars to develop and was released earlier this month) uses actuarial science to determine your lifestyle and then compares it with your body's ability to process oxygen (VO2 max) to calculate your score. The scan identifies areas for improvement, whereas your score on the app is a 'best-case scenario' expiration date to strive for.
How to prolong life
CEO Jerry Kroll says that the higher your VO2 max is, the healthier you are. Eating clean, sleeping well, and exercising often all contribute points, while smoking and drinking negatively affect your score. According to Kroll, the app considers a range of personal information in addition to VO2 max to provide an age prediction. The prediction is gamified to make it fun to strive for a younger age. The app estimates your age based on information you provide about yourself and information from your health device. For example, if you have a VO2 max of 35, live in Boston, have a graduate degree, and have an income of $100,000 a year, the app will estimate that you can live to be 119, 89, or 134 years old. What is Kroll's rating, I wonder, because when asked where he grew up, he declares, “I never grew up.” Despite being 61 years old, Port Coquitlam-born Kroll still feels like a teenager. Jevitty, a Vancouver-based healthtech company, aims to help others achieve the same state of mind: "What Jevitty is working on is the greatest journey of human history, which is to research, create, and live in a healthy and happy environment for people who live beyond 200 years of age.”
Longer life spans may be possible, according to research.
According to longevity science, humans can live beyond 200 years, and Kroll believes that the “human being that lives to 200 years is already born.” Robert Kroll says he and other like-minded people are planning ahead to help people make the right choices today so that they can run a 100-mile race in the future. “You don't want to be the last person to die before we discover how to cure aging,” Kroll asserts. Medical professionals agree, he says. “It's a scientific fact that we will cure ageing.” He considers the concept of electric cars or laser eye surgery being surreal and bizarre to be analogous to the theory of ageing. “When you're aware of who you are, what you are, and what you're doing to make yourself healthier, we can move on to mRNA, stem cell, or gene therapies to cure ageing and prevent ageing,” he says. “Twenty years from now, you'll want to look and feel like a 22-year-old, and that's what Jevitty does.” Elon Musk may still be considering buying out Twitter (at age 119, sipping space kombucha, and scrolling through social media).
