The game, in other words, is very much a matter of life – and not death, the ultimate finish line. The goal is to get as far from the end point as humanly possible.
In practical terms, this requires competitors to focus on reversing their biological clock – the equivalent age of cells and tissues, which can be quite different from chronological age, the number of years since birth.
A leader board shows the Top 20 contestants.
Celebrity biohacker Ben Greenfield’s tips for a longer, happier life
Celebrity biohacker Ben Greenfield’s tips for a longer, happier life
On his website, davepascoe.net, the sexagenarian lays out in detail a typical day in his life. A dedicated marathon runner, Pascoe starts his day with a five-minute workout on a trampoline before doing extensive stretching.
A workout follows, alternating weight days and cardio days, usually from the P90X home fitness programme, which has 12 intense workouts that use resistance and body-weight training.
Pascoe has breakfast – usually bananas and an omelette – after his workout. He shares his typical lunch and dinner plans on his website.
Throughout the day, Pascoe does ab-building routines and/or goes for a lengthy run. He also uses an infrared sauna.
“At a bare minimum, I use it three times a week, and always for 25 to 45 minutes. It was one of my first and still my very best and most favourite [investments in] my health and longevity,” he says.
He aims to be in bed by 10pm nightly, and to get six to seven hours of quality sleep.
Unmarried and without children, Pascoe, a retired systems engineer, has not had an easy life, he told the Post. He moved in with his parents in 2001 to become their sole care provider, as they battled various cancers.
Exercise, he says, has been a “coping mechanism for dealing with all that stress”.
A decade ago he learned that “all that stress” was quickly ageing him after he took a telomere test. Telomeres are structures made from DNA sequences and proteins that cap and protect the ends of chromosomes, like the end of a shoelace.
Each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter until the cells can no longer divide – and tissues age. An enzyme called telomerase can restore cell division.
Measuring telomere length is one method of establishing biological age. Pascoe had assumed he was fit and healthy, but his first test pegged his telomeres at the same age as a 68-year-old person’s.
That was the wake-up call he needed to take his health and welfare seriously.
A decade of healthy living later, he entered the Rejuvenation Olympics when he learned about Johnson and saw his scores. “I thought, ‘Wait! No way! Even now, at the age of 60, my pace of ageing is less than his’?”
A year into the contest, the answer is still yes. Johnson reportedly spends US$2 million each year on his attempt to delay the Grim Reaper. Pascoe spends between US$30,000 and $40,000.
Unlike Johnson, Pascoe is not a vegan, and is not a proponent of restricting calories.
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More than an apple a day: how eating more fruit and veg can keep us healthy
“I don’t pay attention to calories at all. By limiting simple carbohydrates most of the time, I eat as much as I like without gaining weight and apparently without increasing my rate of ageing.”
He “doesn’t eat the same thing day after day”, as he is “very interested in nutritional diversity”.
Pascoe says he has been unable to connect with Johnson. “I’ve suggested that we try to get the top 10 leader board folks together to at least meet, and hopefully share what we’re each doing, to learn from one another. But that request has gone nowhere.”
Another participant is Singaporean Tiat Lim, currently 14th on the leader board. The 51-year-old with a biological age of 27 describes himself as a “lawyer by training, serial entrepreneur by occupation”.
He and his sister Yan Lin founded Bespoke Fitness in 2016 – to transform lives through fitness – and are coaches. Lim’s specialisation is “de-ageing”.
Tests at the Mayo Clinic in the United States and at Singapore’s National University confirmed Lim’s biological age was decades less than his actual age.
Like Pascoe, Lim is unmarried and without children, which he suggests is a blessing as he has “no distractions” and can be “100 per cent laser focused”.
The competition works with TruDiagnostic, whose at-home test reveals how old you are from a biological standpoint, and analyses how fast or slow your body is ageing on a cellular level based on more than 75 biomarkers and biological elements of ageing. It requires only about five to seven drops of blood.
Lim says: “Anyone willing to stump up the US$499 per test can join. However, you’ll only be ranked on the leader board if you make the Top 20.”
He wastes no time in taking a shot at Johnson, that “balding guy with grey hair and sunken cheeks”.
Johnson has described having fat injections in his face and using herbs to reverse greying hair.
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He adds that having a sauna mimics the effect of exercise. “So why not just exercise?”
The Rejuvenation Olympics is open to everyone. Many participants choose anonymity, but at the time of writing, at least four women are in the Top 20. The author reached out to some for comments but did not receive a reply.
