“Why not live longer, better?” This is the type of question Élie Metchnikoff would have asked you at the turn of the 1900s, with one eyebrow arch

The One Percent Rule

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2024-11-27 14:00:02

“Why not live longer, better?” This is the type of question Élie Metchnikoff would have asked you at the turn of the 1900s, with one eyebrow arched, glass of kefir in hand. Metchnikoff was not your typical scientist, for he questioned everything to do with life, starting with our very mortality. A maverick thinker, a Nobel laureate, and a fervent believer that microbes could solve humanity's biggest existential crisis, aging. Metchnikoff dared to think of death as a curable affliction, rather than an inevitability.

To understand Metchnikoff is to understand a man who looked at life's oldest problems, and dared to reimagine these challenges through the lens of evolution and microbiology. Inspired by Darwin's landmark work, 'Origin of Species,' he asked, ‘What exactly is it that makes us grow old and die?’ Could it be, he wondered, that the microscopic villains within our very guts were at fault?

For Metchnikoff, it wasn't just about longevity, it was about thriving. A zoologist and bacteriologist by training, his fascination with the intricate inner lives of microbes became a lifelong quest to understand how human beings might not just extend their lives, but also enhance their vitality. But this was not mere speculation, Metchnikoff was, first and foremost, an empiricist. He meticulously dissected the relationship between our gut bacteria and the process of aging, arguing that some of our microscopic inhabitants were, to put it bluntly, traitors to our biological ambitions.