{"id":447699,"date":"2026-05-31T11:31:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T18:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=447699"},"modified":"2026-05-31T11:31:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T18:31:36","slug":"inside-vladimir-putins-quest-for-eternal-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=447699","title":{"rendered":"Inside Vladimir Putin\u2019s Quest for Eternal Youth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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AI generated by ChatGPT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essay by<\/strong> Eric Worrall<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just how close are the super rich to achieving medical immortality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Inside Putin\u2019s $26 Billion Quest for Longevity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From mini-pigs and organ printing to cryotherapy and genetics, Russia\u2019s president has turned antiaging research into a Kremlin priority<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Bojan Pancevski<\/a>
May 28, 2026 at 8:00 pm ET<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Vladimir Putin<\/a> was captured by a hot mic<\/a> telling Xi Jinping that humans could achieve immortality by replacing their organs, some dismissed the exchange as eccentric small talk between aging autocrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, during the conversation at a Beijing military parade last September, Putin appeared to be describing a Kremlin-backed longevity initiative that has become one of Russia<\/a>\u2019s flagship scientific projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Silicon Valley billionaires including Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman and Peter Thiel, Putin has long been fascinated with antiaging research. But in Russia, Putin\u2019s quest to stave off decline is now a state priority relying on methods as wide-ranging as organ printing, harvesting mini-pigs and exposure to ultralow temperatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Russia\u2019s government announced that scientists are developing a gene-therapy treatment aimed at slowing cellular aging as part of \u201cNew Health Preservation Technologies,\u201d Putin\u2019s $26 billion longevity initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026Read more: https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/russia\/putin-longevity-antiaging-92dee6e8<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What Putin and Xi were allegedly talking about, replacing worn out organs \u2013 plenty of people have had organ transplants, and received a new lease of life. But I\u2019ve never seen credible research which suggests aggressive organ replacement extends lifespan, other than the obvious benefits of replacing an organ which has ceased to function properly. But perhaps this is because nobody has attempted to replace all their organs, at least all the organs which are replaceable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The immune suppression therapies which accompany organ transplantation carry their own risks. I have a friend whose daughter is currently in an out of hospital after a major organ transplant, the doctors are really struggling to get the anti-rejection drug therapy right. And when they do get it right, my friend\u2019s daughter will have to live with a lifelong reduction in her resistance to cancer, the anti-rejection drugs which help the body accept transplanted organs reduce the body\u2019s ability to recognise abnormal cancer cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just dictators who are playing the life extension game. Google may have been early entrants to the game of unlocking the secret of eternal youth. In 2012 futurist and pioneering machine learning expert Ray Kurzweil<\/a> was appointed to help Google master language processing, which raised a number of eyebrows in the high tech industry. Kurzweil is a legendary machine learning expert \u2013 he first appeared on CBS in 1965 at the age of 17 to display his machine learning skills, and is still going strong. But Kurzweil is also a major advocate of the technological singularity<\/a> and transhumanism<\/a> movement, and has repeatedly expressed a strong interest in medical life extension. Perhaps his duties at Google go beyond helping to advance their language processing technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurzweil estimates AI will exceed human intelligence in the early 2040s, and very much wants to be around to see this happen. His prediction is looking a lot more likely now than when he originally made this prediction in 1999, in his book The Age of Spiritual Machines<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, nobody with the money or the resources is waiting around for super intelligent machines to make such technology available to the masses \u2013 they want to punch through, use their billions of dollars or in Russia\u2019s case the resources of an entire nation to compress decades of medical advances into an injection they can receive sometime next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before you dismiss it all as ridiculous, there are genuine scientific hints that greater longevity may be possible, and that the first breakthroughs may not be that far in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caloric restriction is something which can be done right now.<\/strong> Something strange happens to the body when you reduce food consumption to the equivalent of one cheeseburger per day \u2013 everything seems to slow down. Rats, hamsters, even monkeys given caloric restriction diets tend to live significantly longer and have less health problems than their fatter cousins. But before you rush to empty your freezer, this kind of extreme diet, bringing your body to the brink of death by starvation, carries substantial risks. Such diets require constant medical supervision to ensure you don\u2019t tip over into a life threatening health crisis. You have to be born with the right genes \u2013 not everyone\u2019s body can take this kind of abuse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So please have a long chat to your doctor before attempting anything like this<\/strong>. More information is available on this US government web page<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously life would be a lot more fun if you could have the benefits of caloric restriction without having to starve yourself. One of the most interesting breakthroughs comes close to achieving this \u2013 a small genetic tweak which promotes production of PEPCK-C in muscle tissue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the US Government national library of medicine;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Born to run; the story of the PEPCK-Cmus<\/sup> mouse*<\/sup><\/a><\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard W Hanson<\/a> 1<\/sup>, Parvin Hakimi<\/a> 1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n