AI-powered psychology app to mitigate post-COVID syndrome

Mental health decline hurts humanity’s longevity potential

· COVID19 has eroded humanity’s longevity potential and left a lasting mark on the collective mental health;

· FuturSelf.AI is a free web tool that helps people improve their mental resilience and slow down aging;

· In Deep Longevity’s most recent publication, bad mood is shown to be an aging-accelerating factor stronger than smoking.

Aging is a universal process affecting most living organisms. In recent decades, our understanding of its driving forces has significantly improved thanks to the progress in molecular biology. DNA sequencing and other similar technologies have allowed scientists to define the hallmarks of aging, such as genomic instability, stem cell exhaustion, and mitochondrial dysfunction. These hallmarks develop at a different pace in people, which depends on one’s genetics, lifestyle, and environment.

In 2013, a technology was developed that could monitor the pace of aging using epigenetic information. Epigenetics is a mechanism of gene activity regulation that places small residues on top of DNA as a signal that a gene needs to be expressed. In his seminal paper, Steve Horvath compared epigenetic marks across multiple tissues to demonstrate that as people grow older, the epigenetic landscape of the DNA shifts in a predictable pattern. This pattern has proven to be so consistent that it has been used to create multiple digital models of aging (aging clocks) that can predict a person’s age, mortality risk, or incidence of aging-related health conditions.

COVID and longevity

Now, aging clocks can analyze practically any type of biodata to assess the aging rate in humans and other species. Studying the footprints of old age with aging clocks gains knowledge that may be applied in drug design and creating anti-aging therapies. According to recent economic estimates, life extension is an industry that has the potential to contribute an equivalent of USD367 trillion to the global economy.

Now is the crucial time to actualize the benefits of longevity-focused medicine. The COVID pandemic and its repercussions have significantly reduced the global lifespan. According to a recent report by CDC, Americans lost 0.9 years of life expectancy in 2020–2021 alone, reaching the lowest point since 1996.

A major contributing factor to this sad statistic is the post-COVID syndrome, or long COVID. Even young fit people may suffer from headaches, shortness of breath, and fatigue for up to 12 weeks after their recovery. Some symptoms of long COVID affect the mind rather than the body: lack of focus, restless sleep, low mood.

According to a recent publication from a Hong Kong-based startup, Deep Longevity, feeling down is a major pro-aging factor. In a study of 11,914 older adults, feeling unhappy, lonely, and hopeless has been shown to have a stronger effect on the aging rate than smoking. This study illustrates that the effects of long COVID may harm the organism beyond the observable symptoms and thus decrease the global lifespan.

Feeling unhappy, lonely, and suffering from restless sleep adds more age than smoking. Other factors that accelerate aging are being male and living in a community with low access to healthcare services.

Previously, Deep Longevity showed that people with a high aging rate are more vulnerable to COVID, which might create a feed-forward loop eroding humanity’s longevity potential.

Restoring the longevity potential

Many anti-aging solutions are still in their research phase. One of the potential cures involves directly reprogramming the epigenetic code with Yamanaka transcription factors. With this therapy, terminally differentiated cells can become stem cells again and rejuvenate the organism. Another rejuvenative therapy announced in 2019 by Libella Gene Therapeutics is focused on lengthening telomeres, flanking genome segments that limit cell division. To avoid US regulations, the trial was launched in Colombia. In an unprecedented twist, anyone could volunteer to participate in the trial for a USD 1 million admission fee.

But you don’t need to be a millionaire to set on a journey toward healthy longevity. Some aging clocks are freely available to consumers and can guide you on your path. FuturSelf.AI is a free online web tool that features a psychological aging clock. After filling in a short survey, a user receives a comprehensive report about their pace of aging and mental well-being trajectories. Another tool for slowing down your aging rate is Young.AI, featuring several aging clocks, including BloodAge which can analyze clinical blood tests in the context of aging.

FuturSelf.AI is a free online tool that offers AI-assisted guidance toward healthy longevity. It features a recommendation engine based on self-organizing maps (SOMs)