Health & Longevity
Health information is scattered across lab portals, wearables, and memory. I built Selfscope Health to bring it onto one private, honest timeline. And I'm watching a bigger question closely: how far medicine can push healthy lifespan.
Why this matters to me
Most of us get a snapshot of our health once a year, read it in isolation, and forget it. The useful information is in the change over time: what moved, when, and what else was happening.
I came to this as a builder and an operator, not as a clinician. I'm interested in healthspan (years lived in good health) and in making it easier for people to bring good data and good questions to the professionals who care for them.
See what I actually do: my protocol
Nothing on this site is medical advice. I share research interests and product work, not treatment recommendations.
Projects
A private lab results and health experiment tracker. Your records and the changes you make on one timeline, encrypted on your device.
Role Founder
A product exploring better delivery and tracking for health routines. In stealth, so details are limited for now.
Role Co-founder
Selfscope Health is invite-only right now. Founding testers get early builds and a vote on what ships next. Free to join.
Get a founding inviteLongevity escape velocity
Longevity escape velocity (LEV) is the hypothetical point where new treatments add back more than one year of remaining life expectancy for every year that passes. Beyond that point, aging would no longer be "winning" on average.
Nobody knows whether or when that happens. Serious researchers disagree about it. I treat it as a long-term interest that's worth understanding, not as an outcome my products deliver.
So how close are we? Start with the data.
How far we've come
Years are added by what actually reaches people: vaccines, antibiotics, clean water, safer births, and better treatment for heart disease and cancer. Research is where it starts, but the gains come when therapies are approved, available, and used.
Hover or tap to compare. Sweden has one of the longest continuous records; Japan has led the world for decades.
| Year | World | Sweden | Japan |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1800 | 28.5 | 32.2 | n/a |
| 1850 | 29.3 | 44.7 | n/a |
| 1900 | 32 | 52.2 | 38.6 |
| 1925 | n/a | 62.5 | n/a |
| 1950 | 46.4 | 71.1 | 59.3 |
| 1975 | 58.3 | 75 | 74.4 |
| 2000 | 66.4 | 79.7 | 81.2 |
| 2023 | 73.2 | 83.3 | 84.7 |
What the data says. In just over a century, average life expectancy worldwide has more than doubled. Vaccines, antibiotics, clean water, and safer births did most of that early work. Since about 1970 a second wave has kept going: medicine now adds good years later in life too, extending what a 65-year-old can expect by about a month every year.
That progress is real, and it adds up. It's still a fraction of a year per year, so reaching escape velocity will take a change in kind, such as treating aging itself. That's exactly the change I think is starting now.
Data: Riley (2005); Zijdeman et al. (2015); HMD (2025); UN WPP (2024); Human Mortality Database (2025); UN, World Population Prospects (2024). Processed by Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0. Period life expectancy, both sexes. World figures before 1950 are sparse historical estimates. Decade gains end in 2019 to exclude the temporary COVID-19 drop. Retrieved 2026-10-25.
My view
The history above is the past. I don't think it's the best guide to the next twenty years. Three things are changing at once, and they push on the two dials that matter: how fast treatments improve, and how quickly they reach people.
This section is my opinion, not medical advice. The trends are real, but nobody knows how fast they will translate into longer, healthier lives.
AI "virtual cell" models can now predict how cells respond to drugs and genetic changes before anything is tested in a lab. Arc Institute's STATE model, for example, learned from 167 million human cells. That means more good candidates, found faster.
Moves the dialHow fast treatments improve
Sources: Freethink on virtual cells
In April 2025 the FDA announced a plan to phase out animal-testing requirements for some drugs, in favour of AI models and human-cell testing. "Digital twins" of patients are being explored as virtual control groups, which could make trials smaller and quicker. These are early but real shifts.
Moves the dialBoth: faster improvement and a shorter path
Sources: FDA announcement · Digital twins overview
Montana's experimental treatment center rules took effect in July 2026. Licensed centers can offer therapies that have passed early safety testing, after review by a state board. That review is not FDA approval. Japan has offered conditional, time-limited approval for regenerative medicines since 2014. I expect more places to follow.
Moves the dialPath to patients
Sources: Montana DPHHS adoption notice · Japan's conditional pathway
My bet
Escape velocity won't arrive for everyone on the same day. Like every major technology, the benefits will be uneven at first. They will go to people who adopt new therapies early, measure what happens, and have access to them. Averages will lag years behind. My central guess is that the first people cross that line around 2033.
Some people are already living at the front of the curve (here's what I do). But being an early adopter isn't just about trying new things first. It's about doing it in an informed way, with good clinicians, and measuring what actually happens. That's why I built Selfscope Health, a private tool for tracking your own biology over time. And I'd like those benefits to spread quickly, not stay at the front.
How that compares
Try it yourself
It opens on my bet: escape velocity around 2033 for early adopters, and years later for everyone else. Pick your age and press play to watch it unfold, then compare it with today's pace and the other scenarios.
Thought experiment · not a forecast
Think of your remaining life expectancy as a bank account of years. Every year, you spend one. Every year, new treatments put some back. If they put back less than a year, the balance keeps running down. If they ever put back a full year or more, it stops falling. That point is called longevity escape velocity.
Starting points: remaining life expectancy in high-income countries (2023), with "today's pace" as the 2009–2019 average yearly gain at each age. Source: Human Mortality Database and UN World Population Prospects via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0). These are population averages, not a prediction for any person. The scenarios, including Steve's bet, are illustrative.
Let's connect
working on biomarkers of aging, longitudinal cohorts, or interventions that could extend healthspan.
Email Stevewho want patients to arrive with better-organized data and better questions.
Email Steveinterested in personal health data, interoperability, and tools people trust with sensitive information.
Email Stevein health tech or longevity who are looking for a hands-on collaborator or an operator's perspective.
Email Steve