One Woman Triumphs Over Men with Budget-Friendly Anti-Aging Solutions
Aging & Longevity
The clientele of doctors providing aging consultation as well as people using anti-aging supplements — the longevity industry — is skewed male yet one woman, Julie Gibson Clark, a 55-year-old single mom, has found cheaper alternatives for more effective anti-aging benefits.
Key Points:
- Julie Gibson Clark is one of the top participants in the Rejuvenation Olympics, a global longevity competition, and she only spends a little over $100 per month for her anti-aging regimen.
- In contrast, longevity guru Bryan Johnson, who ranks behind Clark, spends a reported $2 million a year on anti-aging consultations, products, and exercises.
- Clark ages at a pace of 0.665 biological years for each chronological year, where a value less than 1.0 indicates statistically decelerated aging.
Julie Gibson Clark is a 55-year-old single mom from Phoenix who ranks number two on the worldwide leaderboard of an online competitive longevity game — the Rejuvenation Olympics. This longevity game tracks and ranks about 4,000 participants based on what’s called “biological” aging — where a higher or lower biological age compared to chronological age indicates accelerated or slowed aging, respectively.
To measure biological age, participants in the Rejuvenation Olympics undergo tests measuring how fast or slow they age based on DNA molecular tagging patterns (methylation). These tests provide insight into how environmental and lifestyle factors, like abstaining from smoking and/or consuming polyphenol-containing plants, influence the activation of people’s genes to give an indication of their pace of aging.
As for Clark’s slowed pace of aging, she does not use a team of scientists or expensive medical treatments to reverse her age. Instead, she sticks to a vegetable-rich diet, exercises, and meditates for 20 minutes a day. Her biggest anti-aging expenditures come from a $27-per-month gym membership as well as a $79-per-month supplement subscription.
Clark’s low-cost anti-aging regimen has slowed her biological aging to 0.665 years for every chronological year. This pace of aging was determined by averaging biological aging scores over the course of about six months.
As such, Clark currently sits ahead of one of the country’s most famous biohackers for age reversal, Bryan Johnson, on the leaderboard of the Rejuvenation Olympics. In contrast to Clark’s anti-aging regimen, Johnson spends a reported $2 million a year on his age-reversal regimen that includes dozens of daily pills and a team of 30 doctors. Along these lines, Johnson currently places at number six in the Rejuvenation Olympics, aging at 0.72 biological years for each chronological year.
Women Are Gaining Ground in the Male-Skewed Longevity Market
The composition of the longevity market, which encompasses boutique healthcare clinics offering full-body scans, supplement subscriptions, doctors giving preventive medical advice, and exercise regimens, is currently valued at over $26 billion. The value of the longevity market is expected to nearly double over the next decade. The clientele for this booming, high-end healthcare sector has skewed male, but the numbers and influence of women in this sector are growing, according to a Fortune article.
Many of these women are driven by a feeling of being shut out by traditional medicine and research, leading them to take their healthcare-related needs into their own hands. What’s more, many have applied longevity goal-oriented daily routines to their lives so that they can live longer for those whom they love and care for.
Clark Equates Her Pro-Longevity Routine to Daily Hygiene
Clark has neither the time nor the resources to devote to longevity-oriented biohacking — engaging in lifestyle changes to alter one’s biology and enhance well-being — like Bryan Johnson. Instead of engaging in longevity-focused biohacking routines like Johnson, Clark calls herself “health-conscious.”
Clark considers her daily regimen to fight aging more than a “hack.” “I don’t like that term,” says Clark, a recruiter who makes less than $100,000 per year, in a Fortune article. After Clark submitted a salivary sample to measure her DNA’s methylation patterns and her pace of biological aging, she was a bit surprised to find how well she measured up.
“I was like, wow,” she says, and adds, “That also confirmed this stuff has to just kind of be like brushing your teeth.”
Clark uses a vegetable-rich diet, exercises, and meditates
For her routine, Clarke starts her day between 4:45 and 5 AM. She sends her 17-year-old son to school and then goes to the gym for strength and cardio training. She also fasts for 16 hours overnight on a daily basis, often eating her first meal between 10 and 11 AM.
Moreover, at least three times a week, Clark uses a sauna for 20 minutes before taking a cold shower. While working, Clark eats 16 ounces of vegetables a day, mixing raw celery, radishes, peppers, carrots, and broccoli, along with a salad or soup. In the early afternoon, she meditates for about 20 minutes.
A health scare that Clark had over a decade ago propelled her to adopt her healthy lifestyle. When the health scare arose, Clark was having difficulty getting up in the morning, constantly feeling fatigued, and was losing her hair.
Eventually, she tested positive for heavy metal poisoning, likely from her time spent mixing toxic glazes without a mask as a ceramics major in college. While undergoing treatment for her condition, she started focusing more intently on her health.
Her teenage son gives her a constant source of motivation, according to Clark. She wants to be there for him as long as possible, minimizing any negative repercussions of aging.
Determining Who Uses the Best Anti-Aging Regimen
The burgeoning longevity market has spurred people to “take the bull by the horns” in attempts to slow the rate at which their bodies age. Interestingly, Clark has tentatively slowed her biological aging rate better than longevity gurus like Bryan Johnson as shown by the Rejuvenation Olympics absolute leaderboard, all the while using cheaper anti-aging alternatives.
The Rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard will almost surely get updated, though, further stimulating the race to see who can slow aging the best. With this in mind, the verdict is still out to find who uses the most superior anti-aging strategies.
With the longevity market sector’s skew toward a majority male clientele, women may soon equal or surpass their male counterparts in identifying cheaper and more effective pro-longevity routines. Along those lines, three of the top five participants on the Rejuvenation Olympics absolute leaderboard are female, which means it is possible that women using budget-friendly anti-aging techniques are outcompeting wealthy men like Bryan Johnson in terms of longevity.
Julie Gibson Clark is aging at 0.665 of a year for every chronological year she lives. So while the Phoenix-based single mother is 55 years old, her “biological” age, which may determine health span and life span more accurately, is decreasing—that is, according to her latest epigenetic DNA test, evaluating how her lifestyle influences her genes.
Amid the craze to live forever—a $26 billion business predicted to nearly double in the next decade—Clark’s results are more than impressive. In a global online longevity game called the Rejuvenation Olympics, ranking 4,000 people’s pace-of-aging averages across six months, Clark is in second place.
She ranks higher than No. 6 Bryan Johnson, the wealthy tech founder who spends $2 million per year on reverse aging, and No. 19 Peter Diamandis, whose venture fund has put $500 million into growing technologies, many of which are aimed at research and development for healthy aging and extending life span, according to his website.
Unlike the tech millionaires using extreme anti-aging protocols like spending up to $1,000 an hour to see a rejuvenation doctor, Clark’s secret is somewhat ordinary. After all, she makes less than six figures a year and cannot afford to spend her savings trying to live forever since she will need enough to sustain her into extreme old age.
She spends $27 a month on a gym membership and $79 a month on a supplement subscription from NOVOS, the company whose trial she entered and worked with to submit her results to the longevity leaderboard.
“Eventually the wheels will fall off the bus, and I’m like, well, mine aren’t falling off anytime soon,” Clark previously told Fortune. “So I’m going to do everything I can to keep the bus in good order.”
So what’s her daily routine? Turns out, you can do it, too. “This stuff has to just kind of be like brushing your teeth,” Clark says.
A vegetable-rich diet
Clark typically consumes about 16 ounces of vegetables daily, snacking on carrots, radishes, and peppers during the workday. The majority, though, she gets through salads and soups. Eating a diverse array of whole foods, such as a range of vegetables, is associated with a strong gut, which can boost the immune system and keep the body healthy. Clark also limits the number of refined sugars and grains she eats, which contain fewer nutrients than complex carbohydrates.
Strength and cardio
When Clark heads to the gym, she does a mix of cardio and strength workouts each week: two days of upper body workouts with weights, two days of lower body with weights, and one day of strength-training targeting her midsection. She also does about 20 to 30 minutes of cardio four times a week.
On the weekends, Clark hikes, kayaks, plays pickleball, or takes a long walk.
Especially as people age, incorporating strength training into the week can help combat age-related muscle loss. Finding an exercise you enjoy can help you stick with it.
A sauna and a cold shower
At least three times a week, Clark uses the sauna for 20 minutes before taking a cold shower. Longevity experts swear by cold and hot immersion to stress the body.
As longevity expert Dr. Mark Hyman previously told Fortune,
“A stress that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Heat immersion like a sauna can activate longevity pathways, he says. “You’ll end up increasing heat shock proteins, which clean up all damaged proteins and boost your immune system and increase your cardiovascular health,” Hyman says.
A cold shower, similar to the cold plunge, can do more than improve alertness. It can release adrenaline and keep the body resilient—a biological process known as hormesis, which can reduce inflammation.
An incentive to keep going
Clark doesn’t see her health journey as intense, nor does she prescribe to the term “biohacker.” She has found easy ways to prioritize her health through diet, exercise, and healthy bouts of stress.
She also credits her motivating factor to keeping up her routine to live a long, healthy life: her son. As a single mother, she hopes to stay around for her 17-year-old son. “I want to be there for him as long as possible,” she told Fortune. “I want to minimize any negative repercussions of aging.” Julie Gibson Clark | biohacker
Julie Gibson Clark: 5 Ways To Age As Slow As Bryan Johnson On A Budget – Longevity LIVE
Wealthy men are spending millions to lower their biological ages and live longer.
These women are beating them with cheaper solutions
Anti-Aging Breakthrough: Julie Clark (55) Outpaces Biohackers