Gravity Ageing: Deepinder Goyal’s Continue Research Unveils Its First Hypothesis

Eternal founder Deepinder Goyal’s biological research initiative Continue Research has unveiled its first hypothesis, Gravity Ageing, which says that gravity’s lifelong pull on blood circulation in the brain may be a key reason behind the ageing of humans.

The hypothesis centres on Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF), or blood flow to the brain. It suggests that when a human being stands or sits, gravity pulls blood away from the brain, reducing CBF by up to 17% in upright posture. 

Over decades, this chronic underperfusion may weaken two key brain regions, the hypothalamus and brainstem, which regulate hormones, metabolism, inflammation, and autonomic function. Their decline could set off the cascade called ageing.

CBF naturally falls up to 0.7% each year, amounting to 20-40% between ages 20 and 80, and low CBF is linked to nearly double the risk of all-cause mortality. 

Continue Research said it doesn’t claim that gravity is the only reason people age, but it may be one of the most important reasons, and one not yet recognised.

How To Improve Blood Flow To The Brain?

Humans can counter the effect of Gravity Ageing by maintaining CBF through inversions, that is head should be below the heart. Continue Research’s hypothesis suggests that instead of active inversion methods, like yoga, passive inversion is more effective in improving blood flow to the brain.

“Active inversion methods, such as yoga, lead to a 13.3% increase in blood flow to the brain compared to the upright position. In contrast, passive inversion methods, such as lying on commercial inversion tables have been found to increase blood flow to the brain by 20.2%, an additional ~7%, on top of active inversion,” Continue Research said.

It added that simple and accessible options, like legs-up-the-wall pose, can help improve blood flow to the brain by about 2% more than active inversions practiced in yoga.

It said that daily passive inversions for at least 10 minutes using commercial inversion tables over a period of six weeks lead to a 7% increase in daily average brain flow in humans, which is equivalent to approximately 10 years of younger age, when calculated based on the drop in brain flow per year of ageing.

Continue Research said that it conducted the studies for the hypothesis using a newly invented experimental proxy device that measures cerebral blood flow continuously. 

“Continue Research also scoured through decades of scientific research to find out that every healthy habit/ practice known to mankind increases blood flow to the brain. These habits/ practices include walking, exercise, weight training, good sleep, hydration, social connections, laughter, green leafy vegetables, and flavonols, among others. Basically, timeless practices our grandmothers encouraged us to do also improve CBF,” it said.

This comes days after Goyal announced a $25 Mn seed fund for Continue Research, which was incubated last year as the Eternal cofounder’s personal health and wellness venture. Now, Continue Research has turned into an open-science research collective focused on identifying fundamental “upstream” biological mechanisms to extend healthy human function and foster long-term, systems-level evolution.