It seems like the word ‘longevity’ is suddenly everywhere in the media, popular culture and policy. The last year has felt like a turning point for the term—though not necessarily for the kind of longevity science that could make the biggest difference to how long and well we live.

This omnipresence stretched from TV and books, to lawmaking and policy, and even to a conversation between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in September that might have been the most-covered longevity story of the year.

In the media, January 1st 2025 saw the launch of Don’t Die, a documentary following biohacker Bryan Johnson’s attempt to live forever (and featuring The Longevity Initiative’s Andrew Steele among its experts). Its release accelerated Johnson’s rise to social media prominence throughout the year (at the time of writing, he has 2.2 million followers on Instagram, over half of which were gained in 2025), and brought his brand of ‘n = 1’ biohacking to millions more people.

New books on longevity have also been published, including Super Agers by well-known US doctor Eric Topol, which summarised the science and practice of advanced preventative medicine, and The Immortalists by tech journalist Aleks Krotoski, which took a sceptical look seeking the fountain of youth, and the motives of those involved.

In regulation, Montana’s Senate Bill 535 became law in May 2025 with bipartisan support and expanded the state’s ‘Right to Try’ law. The bill extended access to investigational therapies to all patients, not just those who are terminally ill, and for preventative therapies as well as treatments. The bill also legislated for ‘experimental treatment centres’ which may recommend and administer treatments on a commercial basis without needing to wait until efficacy is proven in a clinical trial. This legislation was led by the Alliance for Longevity Initiatives (A4LI) and is expressly expected to be used for longevity treatments. The interesting questions here include to what extent Federal laws will affect this, and whether policies like this could spread to other states, or parts of the world.

In policy, population ageing and preparing for longer lives cemented their place as major themes, and geroscience continued to slowly emerge as one. Major players are now getting involved, with significant reports on longevity policy and economics from McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and the Longevity Preparedness Index from major life insurer John Hancock and MIT AgeLab. John Hancock’s parent company Manulife also launched its $350 million Longevity Institute to investigate questions on the social and individual consequences of living longer, and how to maximise the time spent in good health.

This year also saw the launch of The Longevity Initiative! We’re looking forward to bringing our unique voice to longevity science, policy, education and comms in 2026.

Will Xi and Putin live to 150?

And finally: this year’s strangest longevity-adjacent headline came courtesy of a hot mic in Beijing, which captured an exchange between Chinese and Russian leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s translator explained, in Chinese, that ‘Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and [you can] even achieve immortality.’ Xi responded: ‘Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.’

This was perhaps the most covered longevity story of the year, and many stories highlighted a common ethical concern around longevity science: that it could allow dictators to hold onto power for longer periods of time. As it happens, even substantial progress in ageing research would be unlikely to add many years to dictators’ lifespans—but this fact made its way into almost none of the coverage.

This is one reason that trusted resources and analysis around social, ethical and economic questions arising from longevity are critical when raising public and political awareness of this science.

We would also like to advise all world leaders that, if they want their citizens and themselves to have lives that are as long and healthy as possible, the most important deciding factor is longevity research. Furthering science, policy, regulation and education to support this is The Longevity Initiative’s mission for 2026.

Happy New Year—and here’s to many happy, healthy new years to come.

Thanks for reading!

We hope you enjoyed our first news pieces this week—please feel free to check out the other items in our 2025 round-up if you missed any (they were on science, business, research funding and longevity medicine).

We won’t be keeping up this daily cadence in future—at least not for a while!—though we might consider reprising this round-up next year if it’s popular.

If you found any parts of this series useful, please do share them with friends and colleagues who might be interested—after all, a long, healthy life is a lot more fun in good company. We have also posted about them on all our social media channels—check out our posts on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook, and feel free to repost, like, comment, and follow us while you’re there!

We hope with your help to be able to grow The Longevity Initiative’s reach during 2026, and get to a point where we can produce news articles regularly, keeping track of what’s happening in longevity and responding to events as they come up. Thank you in advance for your support.