By Madeline Holcombe, CNN
(CNN) — The search for immortality is a tale as old as time, but it certainly has taken on a new look.
The ancient Mesopotamian epic “Gilgamesh” chronicles a king’s search for immortality after the loss of a friend. Myths of a “fountain of youth” prevailed from the times of Alexander the Great to the golden age of Spanish explorers in the 16th century.
Now, tech billionaires are using artificial intelligence, supplements and medical treatments in their attempt to crack the code on living –– if not forever –– as long as they can.
This search — and the truth behind what leads to a longer, healthier life — is the subject of a six-part CNN Original Series called “Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever.” The show, premiering 9 a.m. ET/PT Saturday, asks just how far the human effort toward longevity should go, what is mere snake oil, and how access to better health can make its way to the general population.
Swisher’s main takeaways? A lot of the investment the “tech bros” are making in longevity miss the point, but there are real, meaningful ways to increase people’s lifespan –– and health span, or living as long as you can, as healthy as you can that you can get started on now by slowly but steadily making lifestyle changes.
Here’s what the billionaires are getting wrong about longevity, and what you can start getting right today.
The point of it all
Another classic story of the search for immortality comes from Greek mythology. Eos, the goddess of the dawn, fell in love with Tithonus, a prince of Troy, and she sought to give him eternal life. But she made a mistake and didn’t specify that he would remain forever young. So, he lived forever, but he kept aging and his health kept declining.
The story raises a key question in the longevity conversation, Swisher said. Why do you want to live forever, at what cost and what would you do with more time?
Xuan-Mai Nguyen, a health science researcher for the Million Veteran Program at the VA Boston Healthcare System, tells her patients that as much as they may want to focus on adding years, she also wants them to maximize the present day.
“If you’re living five to 10 years in addition, what are those things that you want to do? Try to kind of be mindful and be purposeful in terms of what you’re trying to accomplish,” she said.
Many of the cultural icons who are seeking the elixir of youth are missing an important point. Like it or not, they –– like everyone before and everyone after –– will die; and instead of focusing on increasing the number of years, the cultural focus may be better served on relationships, purpose and impact on others, Swisher said.
When thinking about your older years, consider the difference between lifespan and health span: the number of years you live compared with the number of years you spend healthy.
“Our lifespan is much longer than our health span,” Swisher said. “How can we bring those two together?”
People are tending to live longer, but a longer life often means an increased risk of chronic disease, which can mean more frailty and disability in later years, said Dr. John Batsis, a geriatrician and associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“My experience is that living longer is less important than living a healthier, disability-free life,” he said in an email, referring to patients. “I take care of older adults, and many would rather have greater function rather than live longer with greater disability.”
Drops in the bucket vs. worthwhile investment
If you like saunas, red light treatments and trendy workouts, that’s fine –– and they might even have a little bit of benefit. But, what a lot of the longevity industry promotes offers drops in the bucket while things that can have the greatest impact go undervalued, Swisher said.
“The perfectionism and the narcissism around some of it is really a waste of time,” she said. “How much benefit do you get from the time you spent measuring your ketones or whatever you want to do?”
What’s less glamorous but can make a huge difference in people’s lives at the population level is disease prevention and treatment.
Technological advancements in the medical field do offer big promise for wider groups of people, like mRNA vaccines that could address conditions such as diabetes or gene therapy for sickle cell disease, Swisher said.
“There’s all these amazing things that we could really actually solve a lot of diseases that plague us right now,” she added. “Just like way back in the day, they solved cholera through technological means of the day.”
One meaningful lesson Swisher took from her time investigating health and longevity is that while genetics can influence your risk for disease, lifestyle and prevention can go a long way in determining how long and healthy a person lives.
Living forever isn’t a realistic goal, and it loses sight of making the most of the life you have, she said. Rather, it’s more worthwhile to reduce people dying from preventable or treatable diseases.
The foundations of longevity
The problem with a lot of the tech gadgets designed to extend life is that they are often sold as a magic pill, Swisher said: Buy this one product and all your health woes will be solved and you will live forever. People tend to find that enticing, but nothing works that quickly, completely and simply.
That doesn’t mean that nothing works at all, however. Swisher has taken away four pillars to focus on in her own life for a healthy, long life: nutrition, exercise, sleep and socialization.
Data backs her up. A 2023 study found that sleeping seven to nine hours a night was linked to improved longevity outcomes by 18%. Eating a plant-based diet increased people’s chances of living longer by 21%. Tools for managing stress on a daily basis is linked to another 22% improvement and positive social interactions another 5%, said Nguyen, who was the study’s lead author.
Adding in exercise was linked with a 46% decreased risk of death from any cause, according to the study. Those numbers add up to pretty powerful changes.
The point isn’t to drive yourself crazy perfecting all these areas of your life, Nguyen said, but to make changes where you can, knowing that while the impact may not be immediate, it will be significant.
Swisher has taken some strategies with her for these pillars of wellness. Sleep is out the door for her because she has young kids, she said. But she walks after meals, has gotten back into running and incorporates strength training. She connects with her family and community more by engaging in new activities with them, and she’s appreciating vegetables even more in her meals (though she won’t begrudge you a burger, if that’s what you are craving).
“The stuff that’s really good for you is boring and invisible, and in 50 years it will matter — but you can’t see it today,” she said. “It’s like saving. It compounds over a lifetime.”
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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