Journal · Longevity
It is the oldest question in medicine, and in 2026 it stopped sounding like science fiction. Therapies designed to slow, and in some cases partially reverse, the biology of ageing are now being tested in human beings. So, will we live forever? The short answer is no. The more interesting answer is that how long we stay healthy may be about to change.
The longest verified human life belongs to Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 aged 122. Despite a century of rising life expectancy, nobody has beaten that record. Most of the gains we have made came from preventing early death through sanitation, vaccines, antibiotics and better cardiovascular care, not from slowing ageing itself.
That is why the longevity field now talks less about lifespan and more about healthspan: the number of years we live in good health. The ambition is not to add frail decades at the end, but to compress illness into a shorter window and keep people biologically younger for longer.
The biggest conceptual shift of the last decade is that ageing is increasingly treated as a measurable, modifiable process. Scientists describe a set of “hallmarks of ageing”, including genomic instability, loss of epigenetic information, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence and chronic inflammation. Each is a potential target.
Epigenetic clocks, which estimate biological age from DNA methylation patterns, have turned that theory into something trials can track. They are imperfect and should not be over-interpreted, but they give researchers a way to ask whether an intervention changes the pace of ageing rather than waiting decades for mortality data.
The headline event was the first human testing of partial epigenetic reprogramming. Life Biosciences, co-founded by Harvard geneticist David Sinclair, received US FDA clearance in early 2026 to begin a Phase 1 trial of ER-100 in people with glaucoma and a form of optic nerve stroke called NAION. Early safety data released in October 2026 from the first three glaucoma participants reported no dose-limiting toxicities, and two of the three showed improvements on visual field testing. It is a tiny, uncontrolled, early study, but it is the first time this approach has been tried in humans. We cover it in depth in our ER-100 explainer.
GLP-1 medicines continued to expand beyond diabetes and weight loss, with large outcome trials linking them to fewer cardiovascular events. Many researchers now see them as the first widely used drugs that act on several age-related diseases at once. See GLP-1s in 2026 for what that means for clinics.
Rapamycin, metformin, senolytics and NAD+ precursors remain the most discussed “longevity molecules”. Human evidence is growing but still modest: small randomised trials, biomarker changes and promising animal data rather than proof that any of them extend human life. That honesty matters, particularly for practitioners whose patients increasingly arrive asking about them.
No credible scientist is promising immortality. Even if every major age-related disease were cured, accidents, infections and the sheer complexity of biology would remain. What is plausible within our lifetimes is something more practical: more years of good health, slower visible ageing and medicine that treats the underlying biology rather than one disease at a time.
The goal has shifted from living forever to staying younger for longer. That is a goal aesthetics has been working towards all along.
Aesthetic medicine sits at the visible edge of ageing biology. Skin is where loss of collagen, slower cell turnover, oxidative damage and inflammation show up first. It is no surprise that the most significant product trends of the last two years are regenerative rather than purely corrective:
Patients are no longer only asking to look younger. They are asking to be younger, at the level of their cells. Clinics that can speak credibly to both will lead the next decade.
Build a regenerative treatment menu.
No intervention has been proven to reverse human ageing overall. Some therapies change biomarkers, and early trials such as ER-100 are testing whether specific tissues can be rejuvenated, but these are experimental.
The strongest evidence still supports the fundamentals: not smoking, regular exercise including strength training, good sleep, a healthy weight, managing blood pressure and cholesterol, and social connection.
Some offer sensible, evidence-based prevention. Others sell unproven treatments. Look for qualified clinicians, transparent evidence and realistic claims.
Sources and further reading: Life Biosciences ER-100 trial updates (2026); López-Otín et al., “Hallmarks of aging: an expanding universe”, Cell (2023); Lifespan.io Rejuvenation Roundups (2026).
Keep reading
In 2026 a therapy built on David Sinclair's epigenetic reprogramming research was given to people for the first time, in an attempt to restore sight lost to glaucoma and optic nerve stroke. Here is what the early data shows.
Oral GLP-1 tablets, higher-dose injections and millions of new patients. How the GLP-1 revolution moved on in 2026, and why it is reshaping aesthetic practice.
Regeneration over correction, GLP-1 pathways, licensing, longevity menus and AI consultations. The ten trends that will define aesthetic medicine in 2027.
