A 60-year-old CEO says she lowered her biological age to 35 with 4 simple changes

The author of "Live Longer with AI" says blood tests suggest she's biologically 35 — and only getting younger.

• A 60-year-old says she's essentially been aging in reverse for about the past four years.
• One "biological age" test she recently did said her body is 35.
• She enjoys hiking, raving, hormone therapy, and fasting.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tina Woods, a 60-year-old healthcare entrepreneur and the CEO of Business for Health in London. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I just turned 60, and I've never felt better.

I've got the strength of an ox, dance moves to rave all night, and I radiate renewed joy for my marriage and my job.

I made a conscious decision to change the way I live a few years back. I was in the midst of quitting the corporate world, watching my kids enter adulthood, and starting hormone replacement therapy. I decided this would be a good time to embark on a very simple — but remarkably effective — longevity quest.

It all started when I was researching my 2020 book, "Live Longer with AI," and I began seeking out the advice of longevity experts all over the world. At that point, longevity science was still pretty fringe, so there were a lot of fairly out-there characters I spoke to who wanted to live forever and who touted radical life extension as something within our grasp.

But even among the most die-hard immortalists I spoke with for the book, I started to notice a trend. Most of the stuff they were actually doing day in and day out to stay young is pretty simple and cheap. It usually involves some form of caloric restriction, a healthy diet composed of lots of plants, decent exercise, and good sleep. In short, the basics. Stuff your grandmother could have recommended.

I reduced my 'biological age' by 10 years — here's what that means

Tests I took on my 60th birthday this spring suggest my brain is aging like that of a 35-year-old, my heart health is mid-40s, and so is my metabolism.

It's amazing to realize that in just four years, I've reduced one key measure of biological aging by a decade — my GlycanAge has plummeted from 46 to 35, while I've aged from 56 to 60. (The GlycanAge test is a finger prick that's meant to track the level of chronic inflammation in your body, which directly predicts a lot of age-associated decline.)

It drives me crazy when people wear these kinds of one-off "biological age" stats like some sort of badge of honor. As if any of the new tests being used for aging are definitive or validated.

I find that what they can do is help provide an overall snapshot of our health. Taken together, along with daily data from my smartwatch and various apps I use to track my health over time, my GlycanAge provides a single datapoint that goes hand in hand with how I feel, which is fantastic.

If I hadn't been doing research for my book, and meeting with experts offering to let me try out all this longevity medicine tech for free, I probably wouldn't have ever paid for a biological age test. It costs hundreds of dollars just for one. Do I really need a test to tell me that I have never felt this good? Regular checkups, blood tests, and scans at the doctor are one thing, but I wouldn't pay 300 pounds just to brag about a biological age result. (Though it is cool to see.)

4 simple changes I made to stave off aging

• Supplements: I do take some supplements, but I don't expect them to perform miracles.

  Like a lot of longevity-seekers, I make sure to pop some vitamin D every day, and then there's B12, omega-3s, and collagen for my joints — which are definitely not what they used to be, I'd probably rate them my oldest body part, biologically speaking.

  A bone scan I did as part of my recent longevity workup in Poland has proved to be diagnostically useful, and has convinced me to start supplementing a bit of calcium as well. I do enjoy eating Swiss cheese on my non-fasting days, and I also try to prioritize proteins like chicken and fish in my diet, as well as lots of plants. I make a mean lentil soup, and I snack on seeds and nuts, generally avoiding ultra-processed foods.

• Caloric restriction: Four days a week I stick to only eating one meal a day, and — though it's still somewhat controversial — I'm convinced this is one of the big keys to healthy aging. It was a conversation with geneticist and longevity doctor Nir Barzilai in New York that really pushed me over the edge on this idea, as he explained how, mechanistically, it makes sense that a little caloric restriction, and specifically, some fasted time each day, might be good for human longevity. (We already know this is great for flies, worms, and mice, and there is enough anecdotal evidence of a benefit in people that many longevity scientists already practice some form of caloric restriction or fasting themselves.)

• VO2 max: I also hold a religious devotion to exercise — I enjoy Zumba class twice a week, plus strength training at home in the cellar (my "gym") and YouTube videos for some conditioning. My VO2 max, a key measure of heart health and fitness, is off the charts!

  

  All this regular training keeps me fit as a fiddle and ready to rave all night with my husband at some of London's grooviest clubs. Being on the dance floor absolutely electrifies me, and it has also rekindled aspects of my relationship with my husband which I'd lost during early menopause, bringing us closer together in a funny sort of way. I feel like music is my lifeblood. I even DJ now — I recently turned tables at the world's first longevity rave (held at a vegan cafe, of course).

• HRT: One of the most pharmacological ways I've changed my biological age since I started this journey is hormone replacement therapy for menopause. It's been an eye-opening experience. I'd always been pretty fit and relatively healthy, but I noticed during menopause that I was starting to gain some weight, and I felt just generally kind of low-energy, not like myself. Low sex drive, urinary issues. Yuk, I thought. This is a bit boring.

  My doctor suggested I try HRT — I started with a patch version, but that didn't work very well. My current regimen is a few pumps of estradiol gel, which is rubbed into the skin, plus progesterone capsules and a tiny bit of testosterone gel I take off-label (I monitor my hormone levels very closely with regular blood tests, and make sure my testosterone sachets are brand name, not sourced from a dodgy online pharmacy.) It took a while for me to find the dose that worked well for me, but now I absolutely love it, and I'm convinced that it's played a big part in my recent biological age reduction (along with eating healthier, losing about 20 pounds, finding my joy, and everything else!) I was initially worried that the testosterone might hurt my heart health, or mess with my cholesterol levels, but I'm pleased to report everything seems to be going really well.

Joy is a key component of my longevity

I do hope that more effort is placed on measuring how happiness and optimism can change our lives and help improve our longevity. There's already been some study of how big stressors and health events — like a pregnancy — can temporarily speed up biological aging. And we know that happier, more optimistic people tend to live longer.

Scientific studies on flies, worms, and mice won't ever give us better insights into how happiness, purpose, and joy affect human health. I'm looking forward to seeing how we might better study this in people, gathering biological age data that will illuminate the simple, low-cost things we can all do to live more fruitful and, yes, longer lives.

I know the longevity Blue Zones have gotten a lot of attention as beacons of healthy aging, and a lot of the techniques their backers espouse do make sense. But I'd like more solid, scientific data to inform what the rest of us can do moving forward to make the most of our days, in a relatively cheap and simple way.

It's amazing to see the impact of all this basic stuff: nutrition, fitness, purpose, joy. I'm not getting any IV blood transfusions, stem cell treatments or any of that other biohacking stuff that costs an arm and a leg, I'm doing all of this pretty low-cost. I'm now convinced that hope and happiness will outdo any pill when it comes to improving biological aging. That's just my opinion for now, but it's based on what I've seen in myself.