Discover how the new Healthspan XPRIZE could make 70 the new 50—and what you can do today to stay ahead of the anti-aging curve. In Episode 65 of Next Act Ninjas, longevity scientist and coach Rachael Van Pelt decodes the $101 million prize’s criteria, from grip-strength tests to brain-speed quizzes, and explains why 40 global semifinalists are racing to reprogram cells, clear “zombie” senescent cells and turbo-charge mitochondria. You’ll hear both the promise and the pitfalls of moonshot research, plus a step-by-step, over-50-friendly roadmap—strength workouts, cardio, nutrient-dense meals, sleep optimization, cold plunges, intermittent fasting—to lengthen your healthspan right now. Measure your own biomarkers, cut through hype, and build the resilient body and mind you’ll need when rejuvenation therapies finally land. Grab the free Healthspan Starter Guide by emailing healthspan@rachelvanpelt.com with “XPRIZE” in the subject line, and subscribe for weekly science-backed strategies to live well, love more, age less.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the HealthSpan XPRIZE
01:34 The Target Goals of the HealthSpan XPRIZE
03:09 Three Key Areas of Aging Research Focus
05:20 What Fans of the Healthspan XPRIZE Love About It
06:43 What Critics of the Healthspan XPRIZE Don't Like
09:57 Improving Healthspan While You Wait for the Research
12:40 The Big Picture for Healthspan Research
Hey, hey, welcome back to Next Act Ninjas, the go-to podcast for mastering your health and wealth longevity. I'm your host, Rachael Van Pelt. Today, we're going to talk about the latest healthspan XPRIZE. I remember the first time I heard the word XPRIZE. Back in 2004, a $10 million check incentivized private teams to send the first ships to the edge of outer space. That prize catalyzed the modern era of commercial spaceflight. Two decades later, that same prize machine is pointing its spotlight at human aging. In late 2023, XPRIZE and a Saudi-funded group called the Havolution Foundation announced a $101 million XPRIZE for extending healthspan. By 2030, they hope to hand that money to a team that can make a 70-year-old function more like a 50-year-old with just 12 months of treatment. That is a big, audacious moonshot goal. Today, we're going to explore what it really means, where the hype hides, and, most important, what you can do while the scientists race for the prize.
In most of the Western world, people now live an average of 80 years, give or take, and yet the last 10 to 20 of those years are often spent dealing with disease or disability. The goal of the Healthspan XPRIZE is to erase that gap. Think about how nice that would be, gaining 10 to 20 bonus years of good health, rather than struggling with rapid decline all those years. To achieve this goal, the XPRIZE contest is focusing on the three areas that matter most for day-to-day independence. Number one is muscle power. How well can you grip, stand, climb, and carry? Number two, brain sharpness. Can you think quickly, remember names, plan a busy day? Number three, immune strength. Does your body fight off bugs and bounce back from vaccines? To win, a team must improve all three of these things at once, and they have to do it safely.
Now, how are scientists going to determine if someone got younger? Well, for muscle, they're going to test grip strength with a handheld meter. They're going to time how fast people stand up from a chair and walk. That's called the "get up and go" test. And they're going to measure lower body strength and power. For the brain, volunteers will take computer-based memory and reaction time tests. For immunity, they're going to look at how well a person responds to routine vaccination and whether chronic low-grade inflammation in the body drops towards more youthful levels. And all those physical improvements have to happen within 12 months of treatment. That's long enough for the body to remodel, but short enough to have results within a more reasonable timeframe.
Who's still in the race? Well, more than 600 teams from 58 countries threw in their hats, but just this month, judges trimmed the field to 40 semi-finalists, and each of those labs were awarded a quarter of a million dollars to keep pushing. The solutions that these 40 teams are pursuing fall into three big buckets. The first bucket is cellular reprogramming. You can think of your cells like smartphones, smartphones that have been used for decades. They start to collect glitches, they slow down. Cellular reprogramming is an attempt to roll those phone's software back to a cleaner, earlier version without wiping out all the important data. Scientists add tiny bits of genetic code that tell the old cells to "act young again". In mice, that reset makes organs work better and extends lifespan. But the hard part is dialing the clock back just the right amount. If you dial it back too much, the cells forget what job they have and they can turn cancerous. The biological version of a phone stuck in endless reboot.
The second big bucket that some of the teams are pursuing are senolytic drugs. As we age, some cells stop working, but they refuse to die. Scientists nicknamed these "zombie cells". They sit there spitting out chemicals that harm the nearby tissue. Senolytics are drugs that track down and destroy the "zombie cells". Early versions, they were like carpet bombs. They were really effective, but they were messy. Whereas newer versions act more like snipers, aiming just at the junk cells and sparing healthy ones. If they succeed, the tissues around the cells can breathe again. That reduces pain and stiffness and can even improve memory.
The third big bucket teams are pursuing fall into the category of mitochondrial boosters. Inside every cell are thousands of tiny power stations called mitochondria. Every time the generators for these power stations sputter, their energy output drops. That's one of the reasons that we slow down when we age. Some of the semi-finalist teams are feeding cells special nutrients that coax those mitochondria to recycle their worn out parts and fire up like new. Now early studies are promising for each of these three areas, whether it be mitochondrial boosters, senolytics, and cellular reprogramming. But only time will tell which of these will turn back the clock the best.
Fans of the XPRIZE love it because of the math. Competition and big money typically lures even bigger investment. When XPRIZE previously dangled $10 million for private space travel, competing teams actually raised and spent 10 times that amount going after the solution. So the prize money didn't just rally scientists, it stimulated more investors to jump into solving the problem. The same is probably going to happen here. Investors will funnel billions of extra dollars into aging research. Normally that money just comes in as a slow trickle through government research grants. Prize rules also force the teams to share their data early. In fact, milestone payouts depend on it. So that's going to speed up exchange of scientific ideas and potentially accelerate the pace of discovery.
Perhaps the biggest win comes when the concept of healthspan becomes mainstream. You know, I've been talking about the importance of healthspan for nearly a decade, but my clients and listeners to date have mostly been leading edge early adopters. Because let's face it, not everyone thinks about shrinking years of disease and disability to improve long-term quality of life. However, when the average person starts to talk about healthspan, not just lifespan, that's a huge deal. That cultural shift alone can push politicians and insurers and employers to take anti-aging and disease prevention more seriously.
On the other hand, critics of XPRIZE are quick to point out that competitors don't always hit their target. The $10 million Tricorder XPRIZE delivered clever gadgets, but no real-world medical tools that were approved by regulators. Another XPRIZE for ultra-fast genome sequencing was canceled prematurely because industry advances were far outpacing those that were in the contest.
There's also a downside to all the hype called "celebrity drag". That's when scientists become less productive after they win awards and become a bit of a celebrity. They're getting pulled into so many meetings, speeches, and press events that their research slows and they just publish fewer high impact papers. When that happens, scientific progress in the area slows considerably.
And the study of cellular aging in and of itself has its own unique hurdles. Reprogramming cells in short-lived mice that live in a sterile lab is one it in long-lived, cancer-prone humans is quite another. There have been a lot of biomolecular targets that seemed promising over the years, but never panned out. In fact, there's a great book called Why We Die written by Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan.He devoted an entire chapter to fountain-of-youth hype. Overhyped anti-aging claims slowly erode public trust in biomedicine, especially when those early human trials go sideways. So it's important that we keep every scientific breakthrough in perspective.
And we have to think about how private funding affects public funding. The US National Institute on Aging awards about $4 billion a year to universities doing aging research. If Silicon Valley venture capital and flashy headlines pull attention away from that study funding, basic research, could really suffer.
Another concern that critics bring up is the question of who gets treated first if a winner emerges. The XPRIZE charter says any therapy has to be "globally accessible", meaning it can't cost Ferrari-level money. But market history shows that good intentions don't always match launch prices. When the treatment for hepatitis C initially came on the market, it was about $84,000. It only became widely available after cheaper generics appeared about a decade later. So if a rejuvenation cocktail works but it costs six figures, early access is only going to be available to the wealthy. Keeping prices reasonable is going to require loud voices from patient groups and from listeners just like you.
Bottom line, there's a lot to get excited about, but there's also a lot to be wary of. While we wait for these 40 semi-finalist teams to chase that fountain-of-youth solution, I suggest that we stay curious and follow what's going on, but without getting sucked into the hype. Bookmark the XPRIZE Healthspan website. Take a quick peek a few times a year to stay in the loop. But if a slick crowdfunding pitch labeled "future XPRIZE winner" lands in your inbox, I would say invest with caution. Remember, in any big contest, most racers lose.
In the meantime, you might want to measure your baseline for those three outcomes that teams are trying to improve. Remember, those outcomes are muscle power, brain sharpness, and immune function. The tests that you do don't have to be fancy. Just pop into your local gym and squeeze the hand-grip dynamometer. Most trainers have one. And you can go to TestMyBrain.org and do a cognitive self-test. Maybe ask your doc for an inexpensive inflammatory panel; C-reactive protein (CRP) by itself is fine if they don't have a fancier "immune age" test available. Keep a record of your numbers. Think of it as taking a before photo for a renovation project. You're going to thank yourself later when those real rejuvenation tools come out and you want to prove they work.
Meanwhile, double down on the healthspan pillars that we already know work. Four 40-minute cardio sessions per week, three 30-minute strength sessions per week, meals packed with nutrient-dense foods like whole grains, nuts, seeds, berries, and veggies. Make sure you have a consistent bedtime and wake time routine that sets you up for seven to eight hours of quality sleep. Sprinkle in some stress-reducing self-care, maybe a bit of yoga or prayer and meditation. Don't forget to add a few micro-stressors like a cold plunge or intermittent fasting. Those simple habits will improve your healthspan in all the ways that these fancy therapies are aiming for.
Now if you collect baseline data for grip strength, mental sharpness, and inflammation, I highly recommend that you repeat those tests again after you've been consistent for about six months or so with those pillars of healthspan. You're going to see improvements that are probably as good as many of the competing XPRIZE teams will find with their fancy senolytic drugs and mitochondrial boosters or cellular reprogramming protocols. Will you dial back the clock 20 years? Probably not. But neither will most of the XPRIZE teams. In fact, we're going to be lucky if one of those 40 teams hits on a winning protocol.
If you are feeling extra adventurous, check out the clinicaltrials.gov website some evening. Plug in your zip code, age range, and the keyword "aging" and see what pops up. You might find a reputable university study near you that's looking for healthy study volunteers. Contributing your body to science can be a powerful way for you to accelerate progress in aging you get a front row insight into what's coming.
In short, stay curious but grounded. Build the strongest, most resilient version of you right now so that when the labs finally unveil their anti-aging solution, whether that's in five years or 15, you're going to be ready to add rocket fuel to your engine. The big picture, even if Healthspan XPRIZE never crowns a final champion, it has already broadened the conversation. When governments, tech billionaires, and everyday people discuss compressing old age misery into a small window, something in society has shifted. That shift alone will influence policy, corporate wellness, and personal habits, maybe even yours.
Will the prize be a moonshot triumph or just a shimmering mirage? I think it's going to be a mix of the two. Moons, of course, they pull explorers forward. Mirages, on the other hand, remind us that we have to pack real water for our trip. So keep a hopeful eye on the horizon, but don't gamble your future hoping for a fountain-of-youth discovery. Build your muscle now. Treat sleep like the free hormone therapy that it is. Lower your daily dose of doom-scrolling so you can calm inflammation throughout your body. And if the labs ever unveil a winning therapy, it's just going to be an added bonus, won't it?
Now if you want some ideas for getting started, email healthspan@rachelvanpelt.com with the word "XPRIZE" in the subject line. I'm finishing a free listener guide to maximizing healthspan and I can send it to you the moment that it's ready. Together we're going to build a science-backed roadmap for creating your best next act. Until next time, live well, love more, age less my friends.