Liz Earle on turning back the biological clock: ‘I do feel decades younger’

Liz Earle has a “really strong feeling of injustice” at the way midlife and older women are treated.

Through her work in the wellness space, the writer and entrepreneur – who set up her eponymous beauty brand in 1995, before selling it in 2010 – says she’s discovered that women are “hungry for information” about their own health.

“There seems to be this real lack of care and attention for midlife and older women,” says Earle, 62.

“They’re disadvantaged in so many ways – there’s a huge [amount of] gender discrimination that goes on for women generally in healthcare, in terms of lack of research and funding, and then when you factor in ageism on top of that.

“Women, older women in particular, are really dealt a short straw, and I have a real strong feeling of injustice for that.”

Mother-of-five Earle, who splits her time between London and the West Country, suggests that the expertise of women like her is often dismissed.

“It’s frustrating because particularly women who write about wellness, which is my job, we’re seen as a little bit of flimflam on the side,” she says.

“I’m sometimes dismissed as a mere influencer, when I’ve been writing about health and wellbeing for 40 years. I’m not a doctor, I’m not an academic, but I am a researcher, and I do talk to a lot of different doctors and academics, who work on a very high level on the global stage, and try and translate that information, bring it out of labs and ivory towers into real life.

“Because we can’t wait, we don’t have the time to wait. We don’t have the luxury. I’m in my 60s, and they say it’s around 17 years for an idea to come out of the lab and into a home environment. I haven’t got 17 years to wait.”

Earle has written over 35 books, and her latest, How To Age, was inspired by the research she’s done into turning back the biological clock.

“I became aware of a real growing movement of what’s been loosely termed quantum biology, which is the notion that there are these really strong, ancestral forces that we’ve become disconnected to as a society, and we need to reconnect with that.

“So, for example, the basic principles being sunlight, water, and – whatever you want to call it – vibrational energy [or] magnetism. Those ancestral forces, fascinatingly enough, are now being proved by modern science.”

There’s plenty of science in Earle’s latest book, which is a neat companion to her podcast series, Age Better With Liz Earle. She suggests our mitochondria – small organelles within our cells – are “the key to ageing well”.

She continues: “They’re the key to health span, rather than just age span – health span being the number of years of life that we spend in good health, rather than just alive on the planet, existing. If we’re going to exist, we want to exist in a healthy state with cognitive function, mobility, purpose, and energy – vitality.”

Through her research, Earle suggests that to really tap into what’s biologically going on inside ourselves, we need to look at what “fuels and feeds the mitochondria”, which are those “ancestral influences that we’ve become disconnected from as a society”.

Plenty of these tidbits feel like common sense – from minimising screen time (particularly before bed) to getting outside, or focusing on protein and deep hydration. So why does Earle think we’ve become disconnected from many of these basic things?

“On a sceptical level, you might say [it’s because] there’s no money in it. Who’s to profit?” she suggests.

“I think that’s one reason, potentially, why some biohackers who talk about living well are relatively silent on this, because there isn’t a supplement to sell or a gadget to plug in. Going outside is free, filtering your water is a relatively free thing.”

There are also some elements of Earle’s ageing philosophy which are perhaps less well-known – like her passionate dislike of LED lights.

“LED lighting – sure, highly energy-efficient, but it’s giving the body the wrong light signals,” she notes.

“We’re living in, essentially, an ultra-processed light environment. If you think of the dangers that have been highlighted in recent years of ultra-processed foods and the impact on gut health, I think we all recognise that that’s been very damaging to our health and has contributed to the rise of obesity and inflammation throughout the body, which triggers all kinds of degenerative diseases, neurological to physiological.

“I think the same is true of lighting – we will look back on this time in years to come, I don’t know how many years, and say: ‘I can’t believe we made ourselves and our children and our elderly people live 24/7 under LED lighting’.”

Earle has done plenty of different tests to decipher her biological age, with results ranging from 28 to 44, but she roughly pins it down to around 40.

“I don’t think we ever age, do we? We always think that we’re somewhere in our mid-20s, no matter how old chronologically we are,” she adds.

“But I do feel decades younger. I have to catch myself when people ask me how old I am, [and] I say I’m in my 60s. It feels like a bit of an out-of-body experience, because I don’t really relate to that, I think partly because I have a much younger boyfriend.”

Earle has been married twice, and is now with a 46-year-old partner who prefers to stay out of the spotlight. “When we’re out together, it feels completely normal, and I don’t think we look particularly like an odd couple. I don’t think he looks as though he’s out with his mum,” she explains.

Now that she’s reaped the personal benefits of turning back the biological clock, Earle is keen to pass on that wisdom to others.

“I would really love women to feel empowered, to take control of their health and their health span, and think positively about ageing – that it’s not an inevitable decline,” she says.

“It is within all of us to reprogram ourselves, if you like, or give our cells, the innermost structures of our body, the ability to carry us forward through the later half of our life in a healthier, more active, more fulfilled stage, so that ultimately we end up with more happiness and joy and fulfilment.

“Because that’s what life is all about, isn’t it? And I think particularly as women, we get to that age and stage in life where we’ve earned it. We deserve it.”

How To Age: Supercharge Your Health And Feel Better Than Ever by Liz Earle is published by Yellow Kite, priced £22. Available April 23.