Archaeologists Discovered an Ancient Immortality Potion That Exposes the Cost of Chasing Eternal Life
Humans have been trying to cheat death for thousands of years. Myths about elixirs promising immortality span various cultures, as do real concoctions that often did more harm than good. One of the most misguided attempts at creating a potion for immortality involved the first emperor of China and mercury pills. In his obsession with finding a formula that would grant him eternal life, Qin Shi Huang downed mercury and other toxic substances nearly two millennia ago, believing his alchemists had hit upon the perfect magical tonic. Unsurprisingly, he died prematurely at age 49.
Archeologists have discovered another 2,000-year-old “elixir for immortality” that sheds light on the true cost of chasing down eternal life.
While excavating the tomb of a Western Han noble family in China’s Henan province in 2018, researchers unearthed a bronze pot. At first, the team thought the liquid inside was wine, but more recently determined that it was an alchemist’s formulation: a yellow liquid containing potassium nitrate and alunite. These two ingredients are cited in ancient Taoist texts as ingredients for immortality. Potassium nitrate is an inorganic salt used today as a natural source of nitrate, and is a useful ingredient in food preservatives, fertilizer, and fireworks. Alunite is a mineral that forms in volcanic or sedimentary environments when sulfur-rich minerals oxidize. It has historically been used to make alum, which is important for water purification, tanning, and dyeing.
While neither substance has any use in lengthening human life or improving health, the liquid represents “the first time that mythical ‘immortality medicines’ have been found in China,” Shi Jiazhen, head of the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology in Luoyang, told a Chinese media outlet.
The ancient elite of China were not the only ones who were trying to find a way to be immortal. We all want to live forever—or at least stave off natural deterioration for as long as possible. This desire manifests in myriad ways today, from modern medical procedures to reverse disease, bottled creams and liquids that promise to restore tight, younger-looking skin, and even extreme measures like blood transfusions from younger bodies. Despite an ultimate failure to preserve youth against the ravages of time, humanity isn’t going to stop trying. And it turns out, the effort has its benefits, longevity researchers say, because along the way, we’ll figure out how to stay healthy for longer. The long-term danger is in creating a world where only a privileged few get access to the ultimate longevity treatments, researchers say.
Most contemporary efforts to beat back death occur among the very, very rich. Bryan Johnson, a software entrepreneur in his mid-40s, spends about $2 million a year on tools and treatments aimed at appearing and functioning as if he were 18 again, for instance. It’s an old story—likely, only the noble families like the one whose tomb was discovered in China were able to afford creative solutions like alchemy. Even though that brand of magical thinking has fallen away, today’s humans long just as fervently to create a method, tool, or treatment that would ensure a form of longevity.
Johnson has 30 doctors and health care experts helping him maintain and even reverse his biological age. In a bid to perfect his methods, he tried blood plasma transfusions, using vials of younger blood from his son, but stopped after he found there was no benefit. Only research with mice shows a life-lengthening effect from such transfusions.
The innate fact that wealth is probably a benefit to testing longevity treatments doesn’t bother Brian Patrick Green, Ph.D., who studies the ethics of technological manipulation of humans. In fact, you can be thankful for lawful experiments, because “folks who try those are typically spending their own money to use themselves as guinea pigs, and if they volunteer for that, and it either helps them live longer, or helps the rest of us learn new knowledge, we can’t really be mad about it,” he says.
But there’s a downside to all this progress, says Green, who is director of Technology Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, California. “Life extension could possibly go wrong in the future if it becomes only accessible to the rich, for example, or makes people become so protective of their extended lives that they become risk averse and never come out of their homes,” Green says.
Instead of looking for a solution to death, it’s more important to do our best to live a balanced life. “I don’t think there is much more I can do besides following my mother’s advice,” says aging and longevity researcher Joao Pedro de Magalhães, Ph.D., professor of molecular biogerontology at the University of Birmingham. That means not smoking, not drinking too much alcohol, having a healthy diet, sleeping well, and exercising, he says. “There is no point in trying to force habits that one doesn’t really like just to be healthy because it will just cause stress—which is unhealthy and reduces longevity. In other words, it is equally important to be healthy psychologically as well as physically.” So enjoy that ice cream on occasion, Magalhães advises. “There is no point in living 100 years if you are miserable.”
Today, we enjoy a life span that’s double that of our great-grandparents, thanks to our better understanding of how nutrition, exercise, medicine, and hygiene affect the body and mind. However, most researchers think we’re close to reaching the upper limit, perhaps a little north of 100 years. The longest living person on record is Jeanne Calment, who was born in 1875 and died at age 122. We probably won’t be able to beat that unless we can somehow overcome one fundamental problem, says nanomechanics expert Peter Hoffmann, Ph.D.: thousands of water molecules are constantly bombarding our cells and eventually breaking the bonds of our cellular “molecular machines.” While chronological age itself is not a cause of death, over time, your organs and bodily systems will begin to fail. Even without disease, your heart, your brain, your digestive system and the rest will start to break down at a cellular level.
We may have come a long way from the alchemists’ beliefs about how to freeze our lives in a youthful state, but technology to overcome our natural lifespan is still “fairly primitive,” Green says. “We are a long way still from dreams of immortality.”
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