OLP Board Member Sir Muir Gray explains that ageing is a natural biological process -not a decline to be feared - and that by understanding it correctly, we can take action to live healthier, fitter, and more fulfilling lives at every stage.

Cellular senescence, often called “zombie cells,” occurs when damaged cells stop dividing but refuse to die, releasing inflammatory signals that disrupt nearby tissues and accelerate ageing. While drugs like senolytics and senomorphics aim to target these stubborn cells, lifestyle choices, regular movement, plant-rich diets, quality sleep, and stress management—remain our most effective defence against their build-up.

This month’s Live Longer Better Plan explores how improving our environment can enhance health, resilience, and well-being. Submitted by an OLP subscriber and supporter, PhD candidate Gerda Bukauskaitė-Žiūkienė, this feature shares ten simple, evidence-based actions to help you improve your environment for yourself and others. 

Sir Muir Gray introduces the fourth theme of the Live Longer Better Plan showing how shaping our physical and social environments to support activity, connection, and purpose can help us live longer better.

Mitochondrial dysfunction is the decline in your cells’ ability to produce energy efficiently, leading to increased oxidative stress and cellular damage. As we age, this creates a vicious cycle of reduced energy and rising damage, which accelerates ageing and contributes to degenerative diseases. Fortunately, lifestyle strategies like exercise, balanced nutrition, and sun protection - along with emerging therapies such as NAD⁺ boosters - can help support mitochondrial health and promote healthier ageing.

In this third theme of the Live Longer Better Plan, Sir Muir Gray explains how many diseases often linked to ageing can actually be prevented or managed through lifestyle and environmental changes—showing that with the right knowledge and actions, you can prevent, manage, and live well for longer.

Dysregulated nutrient sensing is your body’s impaired ability to detect and respond to food and energy signals, disrupting the balance between growth and repair. As we age, this shift keeps cells stuck in “growth mode,” accelerating wear and tear and driving ageing. Fortunately, targeted lifestyle choices like intermittent fasting, balanced nutrition, and regular movement can help restore this system, supporting healthier, more resilient ageing.

In this second theme of the Live Longer Better Plan, Sir Muir Gray highlights how fitness is essential to healthy ageing. Start moving today—physical activity isn’t just beneficial, it’s medicine, reducing dementia risk by 30%, heart disease by 35%, and type 2 diabetes by 50%.

Autophagy is your body’s built-in cellular recycling system, clearing out damaged components to maintain health and energy. As we age, this process weakens, contributing to inflammation, disease, and accelerated ageing - earning it recognition as a key hallmark of ageing. Fortunately, lifestyle factors can reactivate this system therefore naturally boosting autophagy offers a powerful and actionable path to healthier ageing.

With evidence-based optimism, Sir Muir Gray introduces the Live Longer Better Plan (A4, not AI)—transforming the science of longevity into practical, personalised action so we can not only live longer, but better.

Loss of Proteostasis examines how ageing disrupts the cell’s ability to produce, fold, and clear proteins — leading to toxic build-up and neurodegenerative disease. This newsletter highlights emerging research on heat-shock proteins, autophagy activation, and compounds like spermidine and rapamycin that may protect protein quality control and support healthy ageing.

The third hallmark of ageing revolves around epigenetic "switches" that control which genes are active - mechanisms that can be influenced by lifestyle choices and environmental factors throughout life. These reversible changes represent one of the most actionable aspects of biological ageing, offering unprecedented opportunities to potentially slow, or even partially reverse the ageing process through evidence-based interventions.

New research reveals Americans over 55 now face a staggering 42% lifetime risk of developing dementia. This blog breaks down not only what's behind this troubling trend, but more importantly, the science-backed strategies you can implement today to protect your cognitive health for decades to come.

Today we continue our Hallmarks of Ageing series with the second hallmark, telomere shortening, a gradual process wherein the protective ends of chromosomes diminish with each cell division.

Recent research from Oxford University, utilising the UK Biobank to study nearly half a million people, has quantified how our surroundings and lifestyle choices influence our lifespan and disease risk more significantly than our genetic makeup, finding that environmental factors explain approximately 17% of variation in premature mortality, whilst genetics explained just 2%.

Genomic instability, caused by DNA damage, is a primary hallmark of ageing. The evidence is compelling: while people with DNA repair disorders show accelerated aging, centenarians often have genetic variants that enhance DNA repair, suggesting that protecting our genome could be key to promoting a healthy lifespan.

Recent research analysing data from 3,600 participants aged 50-80 reveals that physical movement is the strongest predictor of longevity, surpassing traditional factors like age and smoking, whilst emphasising the importance of consistent daily activity over intensive exercise sessions.

Peer through the neuroscientific lens to discover how alcohol sculpts our brain's architecture, and more importantly, how our remarkable grey matter bounces back when we give it the chance to recover.

Meet the 12 'Hallmarks of Ageing' - the cellular processes that drive how we age. From DNA damage to cellular 'zombies', we're making the science accessible.

Cold exposure, from winter swimming to chilly morning showers, can enhance brain function by strengthening neural connections, boosting mood through dopamine release, improving immune function, and promoting better sleep quality.