By Sissi Liu as published on Medium

We’ve got mitochondria hacks, NAD boosters, senolytic stacks, hyperbaric chambers, and $2,000-a-month biohacking protocols — and still, most of us are breathing air that’s killing brain cells faster than our anti-aging regimens can save them.

While the biotech world races to slow cellular decay, wildfire smoke and super-fine pollution particles are making us foggier and sicker. The irony? Many of the world’s most optimized humans are running on dirty air.

We talk about “don’t die” as a bold ambition — a mantra popularized by anti-aging entrepreneur Bryan Johnson. But if longevity is the goal, then clean air isn’t optional — it’s infrastructure. And the healthspan revolution needs to start inhaling like it means it.

The Air Problem No One in Longevity Tech Wants to Talk About

Thanks to climate change, wildfire smoke has become a dominant source of fine particle pollution (PM₂.₅) across much of North America — not just in the West. NOAA’s smoke day maps show how these events now blanket major population centers from New York to Chicago to Atlanta, turning regional events into nationwide exposure risks. But most of the particles in that smoke are smaller and super-fine: between 0.1 and 0.3 microns. That’s the same range that slips through your typical filters, including some HEPA ones, evades indoor air sensors, and is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier.

These particles aren’t just respiratory irritants. They’re neuroinflammatory. They’re chemically reactive. They accelerate cognitive decline and elevate dementia risk. And they’re increasingly present in the indoor air we breathe, even in our techiest wellness fortresses.

The Mismatch Between Anti-Aging and Air

Longevity influencers talk about sleep staging, mitochondrial efficiency, and blood plasma exchange. But very few are investing in or talking about their air. That’s a blind spot — because even the most finely tuned body is still breathing 22,000 times a day.

And the science is catching up: researchers have linked even short-term PM exposure to changes in cognition, inflammation, reaction time, and performance. That’s not a long arc toward disease. That’s your focus during your next meeting.

Rethinking What We Measure — and What We Design For

Our current air quality metrics — like PM₂.₅ mass concentration — are 20th-century tools trying to address a 21st-century problem. Particle count, size distribution, chemical reactivity, and biologically relevant exposure are what we need to track and study.

And we need to design systems for performance: air that supports mental clarity, immune readiness, and metabolic stability. That means technologies capable of removing particles in the submicron range without creating harm, filters that regenerate instead of clogging, and smart systems that adapt to real-time indoor conditions — especially during smoke events — and sensors and data systems that actually reflect the particles and exposures that matter most indoors. Otherwise, all our longevity gains will be undermined by the simplest, most frequent input we take for granted.

The bottom line: clean air is a prerequisite for living long — and living well.