When a Chinese state television microphone recently caught China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia musing about the possibility of living to 150 and perhaps even forever, many reacted with anxious consternation.

當中國國家電視台的麥克風最近捕捉到中國最高領導人習近平與俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾·普丁私下暢談活到150歲甚至永生的可能性時，許多人憂心忡忡地表達了自己的驚愕。

But there has been no tut-tutting in the laboratory of Lonvi Biosciences, a longevity medicine start-up in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. “Living to 150 is definitely realistic,” said Lyu Qinghua, the chief technology officer of the company, which has developed anti-aging pills based on a compound found in grapeseed extract. “In a few years, this will be the reality.”

但在位於中國南方城市深圳的長壽藥物初創企業Lonvi Biosciences的實驗室裡，卻沒有人對此大驚小怪。「活到150歲絕對是現實的，」該公司的首席技術官呂慶華說。該公司開發了一種基於葡萄籽提取物中化合物的抗衰藥丸。「幾年後，這將成為現實。」

He is skeptical about modern medicine defeating death entirely — something Mr. Putin said was possible with organ transplants — but he thinks that longevity science is advancing so fast even the seemingly impossible might come to pass.

他對現代醫學能否完全戰勝死亡持懷疑態度——普丁說通過器官移植有可能做到這一點——但他認為，長壽科學發展得如此之快，即使看似不可能的事情也可能成為現實。

“In five to 10 years, nobody will get cancer,” he predicted.

他預言：「在五到十年內，不再會有人得癌症。」

The search for the elixir of life, embraced with gusto in recent years by American tech billionaires like Peter Thiel, has been underway in China for more than two millenniums. It started with the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who ordered a nationwide hunt for death-defying potions. Just in case that did not work, he also ordered the creation of thousands of terra-cotta warriors to protect him in his grave should he die.

近年來，對長生不老藥的探索受到了彼得·蒂爾等美國科技億萬富翁的熱烈追捧，而這一追尋在中國已有兩千餘年歷史。它始於第一位皇帝秦始皇，他下令在全國範圍內尋找不死藥。為防萬一，他還下令建造了數千具兵馬俑，以便在他死後在墳墓裡保護他。

The emperor died at 49, possibly from mercury poisoning caused by an anti-aging treatment.

這位皇帝死於49歲，死因可能是服用抗衰老藥物導致的汞中毒。

A whiff of quackery has hung over the longevity business from the start. But investment from the state and private companies, as well as surging interest among both Chinese leaders and the public, have turned it into a legitimate and sometimes lucrative branch of medicine.

從一開始，長壽業就籠罩著一股江湖術士的氣息。但是，來自國家和私營企業的投資以及中國領導人和公眾日益高漲的興趣已經把它變成了一個合法的、有時還利潤豐厚的醫學分支。

China, eager to catch up with and, whenever possible, surpass the West in biotech, artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, has made the longevity industry a national priority, pouring billions into research and related commercial spinoffs.

“They have improved very rapidly. A few years ago, there was nothing here and the West was still far ahead,” said Vadim Gladyshev, a Harvard Medical School professor who has done pioneering work on longevity, including an experiment that extended the expected life span of old mice by connecting their circulatory systems to young mice.

「他們進步得非常迅速。幾年前，這裡什麼都沒有，西方仍然遙遙領先，」哈佛醫學院教授瓦迪姆·格拉迪舍夫說。他在長壽方面進行過開創性的工作，包括一項將年老小鼠的循環系統與年輕小鼠連接起來，延長年老小鼠預期壽命的實驗。

Chinese researchers, he said during a recent trip to China to attend two scientific conferences, “are rapidly catching up.”

他在最近一次前往中國參加兩個科學會議時說，中國的研究人員「正在迅速趕上」。

China’s average life expectancy last year reached 79 years, five years higher than the global average, according to The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece.

But that, achieved through steady improvements in health care and lifestyle, is still behind Japan’s average of nearly 85 years and a long way from the 150 years mentioned by Mr. Xi.

但這一通過醫療保健和生活方式的持續改善所取得的成就仍落後於日本近85歲的平均壽命，更遠未達到習近平提到的150歲。

Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin, both 72, may have just been making small talk. But they were taken seriously by exiled opponents of the Communist Party, who pointed to a 2019 video that appeared on Chinese social media purporting to be a promotional pitch by an elite military hospital in Beijing, 301, which treats senior officials.

The video, which was quickly scrubbed by Chinese censors, boasted that the hospital was doing pioneering work for the “981 Leaders’ Health Project” — and aimed to extend the life span of senior party figures to 150 years.

這段影片很快就被中國審查機構刪掉了。它吹噓說，該醫院正在為「981首長健康工程」進行開創性的工作，目標是將黨內高級官員的壽命延長到150歲。

“The average life span of Chinese leaders is far longer than the life span of leaders in developed nations,” the video said, pointing to decades of work by the hospital to keep alive leaders like Mao Zedong, who died at 82 in 1976, and Deng Xiaoping, who was 92 when he died in 1997.

影片宣稱：「中國領導人的平均壽命遠遠高於同期西方發達國家領導人的平均壽命，」並列舉該院數十年來延續毛澤東（1976年逝世，享年82歲）和鄧小平（1997年逝世，享年92歲）等領導人壽命的案例。

Sensitive to all discussion of leaders’ health, Chinese state television, which inadvertently captured the conversation between the leaders before a military parade in Beijing in September, ordered Western news services to delete the footage.

對所有有關領導人健康議題極為敏感的中國國家電視台無意中捕捉到領導人在9月份北京閱兵式前的對話，隨即要求西方新聞機構刪除這段影片。

The hot-mic musings aside, China’s enthusiasm for extending life-span has grown in tandem with its rapid economic growth, which has given hundreds of millions of people the time and money needed to look beyond surviving day-to-day.

拋開這段被麥克風錄下的熱議閑談，中國對延長壽命的熱情隨著經濟的快速增長而增長，經濟繁榮使數億人擁有了超越日常生存所需的時間與財富。

One Chinese company riding the tide has been Time Pie, a Shanghai-based group that got its start marketing dietary supplements and now organizes scientific conferences and publishes a magazine, Aging Slow, Living Well.

乘勢而起的上海企業時光派便是例證，這家總部位於上海的公司以銷售膳食補充劑起家，現在組織科學會議，出版雜誌《慢衰老，益生活》。

“Nobody in China was talking about longevity before, only rich Americans,” said Gan Yu, the company’s co-founder. “Now many Chinese are interested and have the money they need to extend their lives.”

「以前在中國沒有人談論長壽，只有富有的美國人（才談論這件事），」該公司聯合創始人甘宇（音）說。「現在很多中國人對此感興趣，也有延長壽命的經濟實力。」

Surging interest was on display at a recent international gathering organized by Time Pie in Shanghai of Chinese and foreign scientists presenting their research, as well as businesses hawking anti-aging creams and potions, goji berries, cryogenic and hyperbaric chambers and other devices that are supposed to slow aging.

最近，時光派在上海組織了一次國際會議，會上中外科學家展示了研究成果，商家也在兜售抗衰老面霜和藥水、枸杞、低溫艙和高壓艙以及其他據稱可以延緩衰老的設備，人們對此表現出了濃厚的興趣。

Rlab, a Shanghai-based company that claims “technology can prevent humans from aging,” invited prospective customers to enter what looked like a telephone booth — a cryogenic device in which the temperature drops to minus 200 Fahrenheit. Ivor Yu, an entrepreneur from northeast China in the longevity business, stepped in, only to jump out after a few seconds, shivering from the cold. He also inspected the company’s “anti-aging magic box.” He left without buying.

SuperiorMed, a health care company that runs what it says is the world’s biggest “longevity hospital” in the Chinese city of Chengdu, promoted “immortality islands,” though it acknowledged they do not exist yet. The company’s founder, Li Dale, was vague about whether “immortality islands” would be anything more than luxury health spas offering blood tests and other forms of preventive medicine in exotic locales.

醫療保健公司循上在中國成都經營著據稱是世界上最大的「長壽醫院」，該公司宣傳「永生島」概念，但承認它們還不存在。該公司的創始人李達樂對「永生島」的具體形態含糊其辭，僅表示它可能是在一個充滿異域風情地方提供血液檢測等預防性醫療服務的豪華健康水療中心。

But the conference also attracted serious scientists like Harvard’s Prof. Gladyshev and Steve Horvath, a German American aging researcher who is a legend in the field for his work developing the first “aging clock,” a measure of aging biomarkers.

Longevity science, Mr. Horvath said, used to be dominated by “wild claims” that alienated many legitimate scientists, but has seen a “vast improvement” in recent years, including in China. “Nobody serious talks about immortality at scientific conferences anymore because it is so absurd,” he added.

霍瓦特說，長壽科學曾充斥著令眾多正規科學家反感的「荒誕主張」，但近年來已經看到了「巨大的進步」，包括在中國。「再也沒有人在科學會議上認真談論永生了，因為這太荒謬了，」他還說。

But the idea of living forever lingers as a marketing tool. Immortal Dragons, a Singapore investment fund focused on longevity projects, is run by a young entrepreneur from China, Bo Yang Wang, who has explored moneymaking opportunities in cryopreservation, 3-D printing of organs and “whole-body replacement.”

Lonvi, the longevity start-up in Shenzhen, has more modest goals.

深圳的長壽創業公司Lonvi Biosciences的目標更為務實。

It opened a lab in 2022 in a business tower on the edge of the sprawling Chinese city next to Hong Kong after scientists in Shanghai discovered that a natural compound found in grapeseed extract — procyanidin C1 or PCC1 — increased the life span of mice by selectively killing senescent, or aged, cells and protecting healthy cells. (Lonvi is not connected to the Shanghai scientists.)

在上海的科學家發現，葡萄籽提取物中的一種天然化合物——原花青素C1(PCC1)——通過選擇性地殺死衰老細胞和保護健康細胞來延長小鼠的壽命後，Lonvi於2022年在這座毗鄰香港的中國城市邊緣的一座商業大樓裡開設了一個實驗室。（Lonvi與上海的科學家團隊沒有關係。）

Mice treated with the compound lived 9.4 percent longer across their lifetime — and 64.2 percent longer from the start of treatment.

用這種化合物治療的小鼠的生命週期延長了9.4%，自治療開始起壽命延長幅度高達64.2%。

The findings, published in an article in Nature Metabolism in 2021, were groundbreaking. But in September, the journal issued an editor’s note alerting readers to “errors in the data,” though it did not retract the article. Subsequent studies, including one in Japan, have supported the initial claims.

這些具有開創性的發現於2021年發表在《自然-代謝》(Nature Metabolism)期刊。但在9月，該期刊發布了一份編者按，提醒讀者注意「數據中的錯誤」，儘管它沒有撤回這篇文章。隨後的研究，包括日本的一項研究，都支持了最初的結論。

Translating what works for mice to human beings requires long and rigorous testing, and what works for mice often disappoints with people, said David Barzilai, an American medical doctor and founder of Barzilai Longevity Consulting. The “canonical example” of this, he said, is rapamycin, a compound that has been proven to “robustly” extend the life span of mice and other animals but has “uncertain” effect on healthy human adults.

巴茲拉伊長壽諮詢公司的創始人、美國醫生戴維·巴茲拉伊說，把對小鼠有效的方法應用到人類身上需要長期而嚴格的試驗，並且人體應用往往效果不佳。他說，這方面的「典型例子」是雷帕黴素，這種化合物已被證明能夠「有力地」延長小鼠和其他動物的壽命，但對健康成年人的影響「不確定」。

China, he said, “is increasingly taking longevity and aging biology seriously at both the institutional and policy level.” But, he added, “strong scientific intent does not guarantee uniformly high rigor or translational success. The challenge is not just doing more, but doing better.”

他說，中國「在制度和政策層面越來越重視長壽和衰老生物學」。但是，他補充說，「強烈的科研意願並不能保證研究始終保持高水準或成功轉化。挑戰不僅在於做更多，更在於做得更好。」

Grapeseed has long been popular as a health food in the West and in traditional Chinese medicine. But Lonvi claims to have isolated molecules within it that “kill zombie cells” — aging cells that do not die and hurt healthy cells — and to have found a way to produce capsules containing high concentrations of these.

葡萄籽作為一種保健食品，在西方和中醫中一直很受歡迎。但Lonvi公司聲稱，他們已經在其中分離出了能夠���殺死殭屍細胞」（不死亡且損害健康細胞的衰老細胞）的分子，並找到了一種方法來生產含有這些分子的高濃度膠囊。

“This is not just one more pill. This is the holy grail,” said Yip Tszho, who goes by the name Zico, Lonvi’s chief executive.

「這不僅僅是又一顆藥丸。這是聖杯，」該公司首席執行官葉子壕 說。

The company thinks its pills, combined with a healthy lifestyle and good medical care, can help people live past 100 and up to 120.

Lonvi稱，它的藥片加上健康的生活方式和良好的醫療保健，可以幫助人們活到100歲甚至120歲。

David Furman, an associate professor at the Buck Institute, a biomedical research center in California devoted to research on aging, said the Chinese pills “seem promising” but need to be tested in large clinical trials.

加利福尼亞州一家致力於衰老研究的生物醫學研究中心巴克研究所的副教授戴維·弗曼說，中國的藥「看起來很有希望」，但需要進行大規模的臨床試驗。

The Buck Institute, he said, is going to start trials to “demonstrate efficacy and validate” the company’s “previous findings and claims.”

他說，巴克研究所將開始試驗，以「證明有效性並驗證」該公司的「先前的發現和主張」。

Mr. Yip still sees a big market, not only for people with money but also their pets.

葉子壕仍然看好這個巨大的市場，不僅是有錢人，還有他們的寵物。

Referring to China’s first emperor, he said: “Rich people are like Qin Shi Huang and they are looking for immortality — or at least longer lives.”

他援引中國首位皇帝的典故表示：「富人就像秦始皇，他們尋求永生——或者至少是長壽。」

更正：本文稍早前的版本誤稱巴克研究所隸屬於史丹佛大學，它實際上是一家獨立機構。特此更正。