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I'm Dave Asprey. That's Dave spelled D A I V E. And this is your 10 minute weekly upgrade on the biggest stories in biohacking, longevity and the world of health. Let's go. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the Human Upgrade. Honestly, this is one of those episodes where I have to stop and say, we are living in a genuinely weird and genuinely exciting moment in history. So let's get into it. For those waiting for proof, this one's for you. Aging might officially be proven reversible, not slowed reversible. David Sinclair, Harvard geneticist, friend of the podcast, guy who I deeply respect even when I push back on him, stood up at the world government's summit in Dubai and said the first human trials of epigenetic reprogramming are moving forward right now. And he thinks 2026 will be the year we finally have an answer to the age old Benjamin Button question of can we turn our bodies back in time? Here's why that's a big deal. His framework, which I've talked about for years, is that aging isn't just wear and tear. It's an information problem. Your DNA is basically fine, but the system that reads your DNA, that gets scrambled over time, and if you can unscramble it, you can potentially roll back biological age in tissues. In mice. His team used something called partial Yamanaka factor reprogramming. They restored vision, they reversed age markers in tissues, and now they're taking that same idea into humans, starting with the eye. This is not the supplement stack conversation. This is asking, can we take old tissue and make it young again? Now the trials are small. Nobody's rebooting their whole body. But over the next two to three years, we're going to get real human data. If it shows functional rejuvenation with acceptable safety, this becomes a legitimate medical category. If it blows up, the whole field recalibrates hard even. Either way, this year is the window. Pay attention. Google is redesigning drug discovery, but it's not open. And that matters. You've heard me talk about AlphaFold on the podcast. The DeepMind system that cracked protein structure prediction and basically gave it away to the world for free. That was a moment. It changed biology research globally overnight. This next thing is different. Isomorphic Labs, that's the drug discovery spinoff from Google. DeepMind has built what outside scientists are calling an AlphaFold four level system for drug design. It doesn't just predict protein structures. It models how small molecules bind to targets, scores drug candidates, optimizes them, and Integrates chemistry constraints across entire drug programs. Years of early discovery work compressed. But here's the thing. It's closed. No public model, no downloadable weights. You get access through pharma partnerships. That's it. So what does this mean for you? Not a lot. Tomorrow. But the drugs available in the 2000-30s, the ones targeting senescent cells, mitochondrial function, immune aging, proteostasis, those may be designed by systems like this. More shots on hard targets, faster pipelines. The catch? When the engine is proprietary, it can widen moats. Instead of democratizing access, expect more AI designed drugs. Just don't assume they'll be cheap or easy to get. Story three. This one's a little dark, but stick with me because the signal is important. When Mexican and US forces reportedly killed the biggest cartel leader in the world this week, El Mencho investigators found something unexpected at the hideout. A freezer full of vials of Tasha Nil Plus. That's a glutathione based injectable, marketed for cellular health, detox, anti aging, skin brightening with a dosing schedule attached. Let that land for a second. This guy, running a violent criminal empire, living off the grid, hunted by governments, had a biohacking protocol, a written biohacking protocol in his freezer. That is how far this culture has traveled. We're not talking Silicon Valley anymore. We're not talking Beverly Hills med spas or longevity clinics in Scottsdale. This stuff has reached every corner of the world, including places with zero regulation, zero sterility standards, zero medical oversight. And that's actually the story. The anti aging aesthetic has gone fully global faster than the science, faster than the safety infrastructure, faster than anyone's ability to keep up with it. The culture normalized injectable wellness before the data caught up. Which means the burden is on you to be the adult in the room. Look, I'm not here to tell you not to experiment. You know I don't believe that. But there's a difference between informed, intentional biohacking with clean sourcing and a real protocol. And just vibing your way into injecting something because the packaging looks premium. One of those is upgrading yourself. The other is just doing what a cartel boss did. Except with better Instagram aesthetics. Know your compounds, know your source, know why you're doing it. That's it. Story four. This is the least sexy story this week. And it might be the most important. Measles is back. Hundreds of cases in January. Thousands within weeks, spreading across multiple states. Measles has one of the highest reproduction numbers of any infectious disease. Ever studied when populated population immunity drops even a little, it moves fast. I know this audience. You're optimizing mitochondria, you're tracking hrv. You're doing all the things. But here's the reality check. If the basic public health floor erodes underneath you, your personal optimization is sitting on unstable ground. Outbreaks eat hospital capacity. They consume ICU beds, staff, bandwidth, everything that affects, elective procedures, chronic disease management, all of it. The high yield move here is simple and deeply unsexy. Check your MMR status, check your family's MMR status. Close any gaps before outbreaks get local. Foundational stuff beats exotic hacks when society looks shaky. I've been saying that for 20 years. And I mean it now more than ever. Story 5 policy I know, I know, but hear me out. President Trump's State of the Union touched on drug pricing. Medicaid, fentanyl enforcement framed as public health. The details were vague, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that federal agencies align their work plans around these signals. That's how Washington works. Why does this affect you specifically? Because policy is the weather system that determines what's easy or painful to access. If drug pricing pressure ramps up, that hits how aggressively insurers manage GLP1s statins, PCSK9 inhibitors, and eventually longevity drugs. If virtual care gets support, tele longevity expands. If it doesn't, those services get pushed into cash pay niches and prices go up. You don't need to be a policy wonk. You just need to remember regulatory currents quietly shape what you can access and what everything costs, from diagnostics to the most cutting edge therapies coming down the pipe. And if things tighten up here, the biohacking circle will start to look outside the borders. Maybe it's worth you sending some feelers out just in case. So here's what I actually want you to take from this week. A cartel kingpin had an anti aging protocol. Harvard is reversing aging in human trials. Google's AI is redesigning drug discovery behind closed doors. The future is here. It's just unevenly distributed and kind of chaotic. And yet measles is back because people skipped a vaccine that's been around since 1963. That's the week. In one sentence, the cutting edge has never been more cutting and the basics have never been more neglected. I've been in this space for over 20 years. The people I know who are actually thriving long term, not just optimizing on paper. And they're not the ones who found the most exotic protocol they're the ones who got the foundation so dialed in that the advanced stuff actually works when they add it. Sleep, light, food, quality, movement, knowing what you're putting in your body and why. The breakthroughs are real, and I'm genuinely excited about them, but they're going to land on top of whatever foundation you've built. Make sure it's worth landing on. All right, guys, that is your weekly biohacking roundup. Join me again next Friday for another rundown of the biggest health stories in the news. Enjoy your weekend.